Unraveling the Columbine Tragedy Part IV

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part three of Unraveling the
Columbine Tragedy.
Let's begin.
The Columbine crisis was nevera hostage standoff.
Eric and Dylan had nointentions of making demands.

(00:21):
Swat teams searched the buildingfor over three hours, but the
killers were lying dead theentire time.
They had committed suicide inthe library at 12.08, 49 minutes
after beginning the attack.
The killings and the terror hadbeen real.
The standoff, however, had not.

(00:43):
The SWAT teams discovered thetruth around 3.15 pm when they
peered into the library and sawbodies scattered around the
floor, no sounds of movements.
They cleared the entrance andprepared to enter.
They took paramedic Troy Lehmanin with them.
The SWAT team warned theparamedic to be cautious.

(01:07):
Touch as little as possible.
They say anything could bebooby-trapped.
Be especially suspicious ofbackpacks.
The room was in shambles, bloodspattered the furniture and
enormous pools soaked into thecarpet.
The tabletops were oddlyundisturbed.

(01:28):
Books open, calculus problemsunderway, a college application
half completed.
A lifeless boy still held apencil.
Another had collapsed beside aPC which was still running
undisturbed.
Paramedic Lehman was tasked withdetermining whether anyone was

(01:48):
alive.
It didn't look like it.
Most of the kids had been deadfor nearly four hours.
So it was obvious by sight.
And one of the things that hesaid later in an interview was,
quote if I couldn't get a lookat somebody at their face to see
if they were still alive, Itried to touch, to kind of touch

(02:10):
them.
End quote.
Twelve were cold, one was notLaban touched.
A girl felt the warmth, rolledher over to get a look at her
face.
Her eyes were open, tearstrickling out, and it was a girl

(02:31):
named Lisa Krutz and she wascarried down the stairs, rushed
to Denver Health Medical Center.
A gun blast had shattered herleft shoulder.
One hand and both arms werealso injured.
She had lost a lot of blood butshe survived.
Most of the bodies lay undertables.
The victims had been uptemptingto hide.

(02:55):
Two bodies were different.
They lay out in the open,weapons by their sides suicides.
Clearly the SWAT team haddescriptions of Eric and Dylan.
These two looked like a match.
It was over.
The team discovered four womenhiding in back rooms attached to
the library.
Patty Nielsen, the art teacherfrom the 911 call, had crept

(03:18):
into a cupboard in the breakroom.
She had squatted in thecupboard for three more hours,
knees aching, unaware the dangerhad passed.
Three other faculty.
Hid further back, an officerinstructed one to put her hand
on his shoulders and follow himout, staring directly at his
helmet, to minimize exposure tothe hover.

(03:40):
It had been over how long noone knew.
With the fire alarm blaring,none of the staff had been close
enough to hear.
Detectives would piece ittogether eventually how long the
attack had lasted, how longEric and Dylan had killed.
Those would turn out to be verydifferent answers.
Something peculiar hadtranspired 17 minutes into the

(04:06):
attack, the investigationoutpaced the SWAT teams.
Detectives were combing thepark, the library, leeward
Elementary and the surroundingcommunity.
They interviewed hundreds ofstudents and staff, everyone
they could find.
When waves of fresh survivorsoutnumbered police officers,
they conducted 30 to 60-secondtriage interviews.

(04:29):
Who are you?
Where were you?
What do you see?
Those were the three mainquestions.
Friends of the killers andwitnesses to bloodshed were
identified quickly anddetectives were waved over for
lengthier interviews.
Lead investigator Kate Batanperformed some interviews

(04:50):
personally.
She was briefed on the rest.
Batan was intent on gettingevery detail right and avoiding
costly errors that might comeback to haunt them later.
Her team also ran a simplesearch on Jeffco computer files
and found something stunning.
The shooters were already inthe system.
Eric and Dylan had beenarrested junior year.

(05:13):
They got caught breaking into avan to steal electronic
equipment.
They had entered a 12-monthjuvenile diversion program,
performing community service,attending counseling.
They had completed the programwith glowing reviews exactly 10
weeks before the massacre.

(05:33):
More disturbing was a complaintfiled 30 months earlier by Randy
and Judy Brown, the parents ofthe shooter's friend Brooks.
Eric had made death threatstoward Brooks.
Ten pages of murderous rantsprinted from his website had
been compiled.
Someone in Bataan's departmenthad known about the kid.

(05:54):
Bataan organized theinformation and composed a
single-space, six-page searchwarrant for Eric's home and a
duplicate for Dylan's.
She dictated them over thephone.
The warrants were typed up ingolden the county seat,
delivered to a judge, signed,driven out to the killer's homes
and exercised within four hoursof the first shots before the

(06:19):
SWAT team reached the libraryand discovered the attack was
over.
The warrant cited sevenwitnesses who had identified
Harris and or Klebold as gunmen.
In the meantime, agent Fusilierheard about the bodies on the
police radio at 3.20.
He had just gotten word thathis son Brian was okay.

(06:41):
Mass murder meant a massiveinvestigation, so he asked the
Jeffco commander how can I help?
Do you want federal agents andtheir answer was definitely.
Jeffco had a small detectiveteam and there was no way he
could handle the task.
An hour later, 18 evidencespecialists began arriving.

(07:05):
A dozen special agents wouldfollow, along with half a dozen
support staff.
At 4 pm Jeffco went publicabout their fatalities.
Chief Spokesman Steve Daviscalled a press conference in
Clement Park with Shevard Stoneby his side.
The pair had been briefingreporters all afternoon, with
Sheriff Stone by his side.

(07:25):
The pair had been briefingreporters all afternoon.
Most of the press had neverheard of either man, but
consensus about them emergedquickly.
Sheriff Stone was a straightshooter.
He had this deep, gruff voiceand it was a little bit of a
contrast to the blow-driedspokesman affixed to his side.

(07:48):
Steve Davis began the conferenceby reiterating warnings about
rumors.
Above all, he stressed cautionon two subjects Number one, the
number of fatalities.
Number two, the status of thesuspects.
So Davis opened the floor toquestions.
The first was directed to himby name, sheriff Stone.

(08:08):
Suddenly he stepped forward, hebrushed Davis and his cautions
aside and he held custody of themicrophone.
Through most of the pressconference the sheriff answered
nearly every question directly,despite later evidence that he
had little or no information onmany of them.
So in other words, he winged it.

(08:29):
The death count nearly doubledand he said I have heard numbers
as high as 25, he said, and hepronounced the killers
unequivocally dead.
He fed the myth of a thirdshooter.
He said three, two deadsuspects in the library.

(08:49):
And of course the press isgonna ask where, where is the
set, the third?
And his answer was well, we'renot sure if there's a third yet
or not, or how many.
The swipe operation is stillgoing on in there.
Stone repeated the erroneousdeath count several times.
He led newscasts around theworld so newspaper headlines

(09:12):
proclaimed it the next morningthat 25 were dead in Colorado.
Stone said that three kidsdetained in the park appear to
be associates of this gentlemanor good friends.
And again he was wrong.
They have never met the killersand were soon cleared.
Stone made the first of aninfamous string of accusations.

(09:33):
He said what are these parentsdoing that are letting their
kids have automatic weapons, heasked.
Reporters were surprised tohear the rumors about automatic
weapons confirmed.
They rushed in with follow-upsand he said well, I don't know
anything about the weapons.
I assume there were probablyautomatic weapons just because

(09:57):
of the mass casualties.
And so a reporter asked aboutmotive, and again wrong.
Again, the Sherrod answeredcraziness.
By now dozens of kids had fledto school with their friends.
School officials herded themacross Clement Park to meet
school buses that would drivepast barricades to Leawood.

(10:19):
The buses parked directlybeside the site of the press
conferences.
The kids trudged meekly towardthe media throng.
Many sobbed quietly, othersheld distrustfulness along,
holding their hands or slingingan arm over their shoulders.
Most of the kids stared at theground.

(10:39):
The crowd of reporters parted.
They were not the faces ofinterview subjects, but the
students were eager to speak.
Teachers hurried the kids,trying to and asking them to
keep quiet, but the kids werehaving none of that.
The bus windows started comingdown, heads popped out and the

(11:03):
kids recounted their ordeal,their ordeals.
And they kill.
Uh, the kids starting gettingout of the bus, of the buses,
and the teachers tried to coaxthem back, but not a chance.
A tough-looking seniordescribed his terror in the
choir room with a sense ofbravado and shivery, but his

(11:23):
voice cracked when a reporterasked how he felt and he said
horrible.
There were two kids lying onthe pavement.
I just started crying.
I haven't cried for years.
I don't know what I'm going todo, attention focused on the
students.
Endless reunions with theparents played out on TV.

(11:46):
A different group weathered thecrisis in seclusion.
More than 100 teachers workedat Columbine along with dozens
of support staff.
150 families feared for theirhusbands, wives and parents.
There was no rendezvous pointwhere they could gather.
Most drove home and waited bytheir phones.

(12:06):
That's where Linda Lou Sanderskept vigil.
She had celebrated her mom's70th birthday with the family.
Then she headed up into themountains for a pleasure drive
and on the way Linda'sbrother-in-law called her sister
, melody on her cell and heasked where does Dave teach?

(12:26):
And she said Columbine.
And he said well, you betterhead back down here.
Everyone gathered at Linda'shouse.
Most of the news was good.
Only one adult was reportedinjured, and it was a science
teacher, which ruled out Dave.
So the question was why hadn'the called?

(12:47):
Those reports were nearlyaccurate.
Only one adult had been hit andDave was still bleeding at the
moment.
The sense that afternoon wasthat gunfire had erupted all
over the place.
In fact, it had mostly beenlimited to the library and the
west steps outside.
Teachers had not been studyingfor tests or strolling outside

(13:08):
to enjoy their lunch in thesunshine.
If the bombs had gone off asplanned it would have wiped out
a quarter of the faculty in theteachers' lounge, but they had
been spared by dumb luck.
All but one, dave, held on forhours in science room three.
Then the kids and teachers wereevacuated and none knew whether

(13:31):
he had made it.
It would be a family mistake.
It was to resolve why he hadlain for three hours.
All Dave's family knew was thathe had failed to call.
He must be trapped inside thebuilding.
They thought that wasn't good.
Linda hoped he wasn't a hostage.

(13:53):
She assumed she was hiding,that he was hiding and he would
be safe.
He was not a risk taker.
So the family kept monitoring.
The TV, took turns answeringcalls and the phone rang
non-stop.
But it was never Dave and Linda.

(14:15):
Even though she was sort ofathletic looking, she had a
fragile psyche.
Dave had found greatsatisfaction in protecting her
In his absence.
Her daughters and sistersstepped in.
So now every call was fraught.
So her family made sure toscreen.
In mid-afternoon she got theurge to answer a call herself

(14:39):
and it was a woman, and she saidshe was from the Denver Post
and the reporter told Linda thather husband had been shot and
asked her do you have a comment?
And of course Linda startedscreaming and threw the phone.
She had no idea what happenedfrom then on.

(15:00):
She doesn't even have memory ofit on.
She doesn't even have memory ofit Now.
In another area there was RobinAnderson.
Her prom date was a massmurderer and she apparently
armed him.
To her knowledge, only threepeople have known about the gun

(15:21):
deal, and three out of the three, two were dead.
Had they told anyone Were gunstraceable?
She had not signed anything.
Would the cops know?
Should she keep her mouth shut?
And Robin had been alreadydebriefed in Clement Park and

(15:42):
had played it totally cool.
She told the detective whereshe had been and what she had
seen.
She told the truth, but not thewhole truth.
She didn't know for sure whohad been shooting, so she didn't
mention that.
She knew them.
She certainly didn't mentionthe guns, should she?
And now the guilt began eatingher up.

(16:06):
Robin talked to Zach Heckler onthe phone that afternoon.
She kept her mouth shut aboutthe weapons.
He didn't.
He was clueless about the guns,thank God.
But he knew the guys had beenmaking pipe bombs and so she
said bombs really, because thatastounded Robin.
And Zack said yes, they weremaking pipe bombs, and he wasn't

(16:30):
surprised at all.
Zack didn't have quite theinnocent picture of Dylan that
Robin did.
Zack did not tell Robin that hehad helped Eric and Dylan make
any pipe bombs, but she didwonder, did he?
Was he mixed up in this Morethan her?
Zach was scared too.
They all were.

(16:50):
Anybody close to the killerswere afraid Zach wasn't
volunteering information to thecops.
He had omitted mentioning thepipe bombs during his debriefing
.
Chris Morris went the oppositeroute.
He called the cops in the firsthour as soon as he suspected
that his friends were involved.
He was handcuffed in ClementPark and spirited away.

(17:14):
On national television he kepttalking at the police station.
He described Eric's interest inNazis a crack about drugs, some
scary recent suggestions likecutting power to the school,
setting PVC bombs at the exitswith screws for shrapnel.
If Chris's story was legit, itsuggested the killers had been

(17:37):
leaking information about theirplans.
This is a classiccharacteristic of young
assailants.
If Eric and Dylan had leaked toChris, chances were they had
tipped off others as well.
So Chris's dad was called.
He contacted a lawyer and at 743 pm the three sat down with

(18:00):
detectives for a formalinterview.
Chris and his father signed aform waiving their rights.
The cops found Chris highlycooperative.
He described the killer'sobsessions with explosives,
volunteer all sorts of details.
Dylan had brought a pipe bombto work once but Chris ordered

(18:25):
him to get it out of there.
Chris knew the guys had gottentheir hands on guns.
It had been pretty much an opensecret around Blackjack you
know the place of employmentseveral months ago that Eric and
Dylan were working for hardwareor were looking for hardware.

(18:48):
We'll be right back.
So Chris have never heard itfrom them directly, from Eric
and Dylan directly but he hadheard it from several people.
Chris had a hunch who had comethrough for them and it was a

(19:09):
kid named Phil Duran.
Duran used to work at Blackjack, then moved to Chicago for a
high-tech job.
Before he had left, duran toldChris that he had gone shooting
with Eric and Dylan, somethingabout bowling pins and maybe an
AK-47.
Duran never said he had boughtthe guns, but Chris figured it

(19:30):
was him.
It sounded staggering how muchChris had known.
He swore he had not taken itseriously.
He agreed to turn over theclothes he was wearing and allow
detectives to search his room.
Everyone agreed to rendezvousat his house.
Chris's mom met the cops at thefront door, handed them his PC

(19:51):
and showed them upstairs.
Then his brother arrived withChris's clothes in a paper bag.
He said Chris was afraid tocome home.
There were mobs of media thatwere already staking out the
street.
The cops found nothing ofobvious value but gathered up
piles of material and they leftat around 11.15 pm.

(20:16):
Robin in the meantime neededcompany because she couldn't
handle the stress alone.
Her best friend, kelly, cameover at 7.30 on Tuesday evening.
They went to Robin's room.
Kelly knew the boys well too,especially Dylan.
She had been part of the promgroup.
There was something Kellydidn't know.
Robin told her and she said doyou remember that favor that she

(20:40):
had done Eric and Dylan lastNovember?
And Kelly remembered and saidyes, and she said it had been a
big secret.
And she said well, I'm tellingyou now.
So Robin at that moment toldKelly repeatedly about this big
favor she had done the guys butshe had never would devote what,

(21:01):
what it was until now.
So she she feel that she needto tell someone and she said it
had been a gun show, the Tannergun show in Denver.
Eric and Dylan had called her onSunday.
If she remembered right, theyhad checked the show out on
Saturday seeing these sweet uhthey have seen these sweet

(21:22):
looking shotguns, but they hadgotten carded so they were both
underage.
Then they needed somebody whowas 18 years old with them.
Robin was 18.
She really liked Dylan, so shewent.
It was their money.
Robin made sure not to sign anypapers, but she was the one who
bought the three guns.

(21:43):
The boys each got a shotgun.
One had some kind of pump thingon it.
Eric went for a rifle too, asemi-automatic that looked like
a giant paintball gun.
Robin felt so guilty.
Kelly said later how could shehave imagined this?
Robin didn't tell Kellyeverything, though.

(22:05):
She came clean with the mainsecret but held back on one
detail.
She told Kelly she didn't knowit was Eric and Dylan killing
people.
Until she heard it announced onTV that night, kelly didn't buy
it.
Robin had never received a B inhigh school.
She could have put the mysterytogether when she heard about

(22:29):
the trench coats.
She'd have to have known In themeantime.
While all this is happening withRobin and Kelly, the Klebolds
spent the afternoon and eveningon their porch waiting because
they were no longer allowedinside.
At 8.10 pm a deputy arrivedwith instructions.

(22:52):
The home was now a crime scene.
They had to go.
Tom and Sue Klebold toldfriends they felt hit by
hurricanes.
Hurricanes don't hit theRockies.
They have never seen it coming.
And later Sue Klebold saidquote, we ran for our lives.
We didn't know what hadhappened.
We couldn't grieve for ourchild.

(23:13):
End quote.
Officers escorted Tom in togather clothes for the next
couple of days and then Sue wentin to take care of the pets.
She fetched two cats, two birdsand their food bowls and litter
boxes.
At 9 pm they drove away.
They talked to a lawyer thatnight.
He related a sobering thought.

(23:35):
He said, quote Dylan isn't hereanymore for people to hate, so
people are going to hate you.
End quote.
The buses kept arriving atLeawood Elementary, delivering
discouragement as well as joy.
It was great if your kid gotoff, but the odds kept dropping

(23:59):
as the remaining parentsdwindled.
But the odds kept dropping asthe remaining parents dwindled.
Brian Foba had given up evenearlier.
By 2 pm, while Leawood waspacked with hopeful parents,
brian had accepted Danny's fate.
He said I knew he was gone.
I assumed it was God telling me, preparing me.
I hope I was wrong.

(24:20):
We waited for busloads of kids.
But I knew he wasn't going tobe on it and I told Sue you know
he's gone.
But his ex-wife was hopeful Inthe public library.
Misty Bernal was too.
Her son, chris, had turned upbut Cassie was still missing and
she kept thinking she is alive.

(24:42):
Misty told herself thatfiercely.
Nothing could dampen Misty'sresolve or her perseverance.
Misty gave up on the publiclibrary and she made her way
through Clement Park anddiscovered the buses being
loaded.
She scurried from one to thenext.
A friend of Cassie's reachedout to grab her hand and Misty

(25:06):
cried have you seen Cass?
And the student said no.
Misty returned to the library.
Brad and Chris met her there.
Then everyone was sent toLeawood.
That was a huge relief for theparents waiting there.
More families, better odds.
The buses kept coming every 10to 20 minutes for a while.

(25:27):
Then arrivals slowed Around 4o'clock they stopped.
One more bus was promised.
Parents looked around.
Whose kids would it be?
The wait went on endlessly.
At 5 o'clock it still wasn'tthere.
Siblings wandered out to watchfor it, hoping to run inside

(25:50):
with the news.
Doreen Tomlin had not gotten upin a long time but she was
still praying her boy would beon it.
They were clinging to that hope.
At dinnertime President Clintonheld a press conference in the

(26:11):
West Wing to discuss the attack.
He passed on the hope of aJeffco official who had just
told him.
Quote perhaps now America wouldwake up to the dimensions of
this challenge if it couldhappen in a place like Littleton
end.
Quote Clinton sent a federalcrisis response team and urged
reporters to resist jumping toconclusions.
At Leawood, even the resilientfamilies were faltering.

(26:35):
Nothing had changed.
No buses, no word.
For hours on end, districtAttorney Dave Thomas tried to
convert the families.
He knew which ones were needed.
He had 13 names in his breastpocket.
Ten students had beenidentified in the library and
two more outside, based on theclothing and appearance.

(26:58):
One teacher lay in Science Room3, all deceased.
It was a solid list but notdefinitive.
Thomas kept it to himself.
He told the parents not toworry.
At eight o'clock they weremoved to another room.
Sheriff Stone introduced thecoroner.

(27:19):
She handed out forms asking fordescriptions of their kids'
clothing and other physicaldetails.
That's when John Tomlinrealized the truth.
The coroner asked them toretrieve their kids' dental
records.
That went over unevenly.
Many took it gravely, othersperked up.

(27:40):
They have a task, finally, andhope for a resolution.
A woman leaped up and saidwhere is that other bus?
She demanded, but there was nobus.
There was never another bus.
It was like a false hope theygave you.

(28:01):
According to what parents wouldsay later in their interviews,
many parents felt betrayed.
Brian Robo later accused theschool officials of lying.
Misty Bernal also felt deceivedand she said, quote not
intentionally perhaps, butdeceived nonetheless, and so

(28:23):
bitterly that it almost chokedme.
End quote.
Sherry Stone told them thatmost of the dead kids had been
in the library and Doreen saidwhile John always went to the
library, I felt like I was goingto pass out and I felt sick.
End quote.
She felt sadness, but notsurprise.

(28:43):
Doreen was an evangelicalChristian and believed the Lord
had been preparing her for thenews all afternoon.
Most of the evangelicals reacteddifferently than the other
parents.
The press had been cleared fromthe area, but Lim Duff was
assisting the families as a RedCross volunteer, a liberal Jew
from San Francisco.

(29:03):
She was taken aback by what shesaw and she said, quote the way
that those families reacted wasmarkedly differently.
It was like 180 degrees fromwhere everybody else was.
They were singing, they werepraying, they were comforting
the other parents, especiallythe parents of Aseya Shoals, who

(29:25):
was the only African Americankilled.
They were thinking a lot aboutthe other parents, the other
families, and responding a lotto other people's needs.
They were definitely in painand you could see the pain in
their eyes, but they were veryconfident of where the kids were
.
They were at peace with it.

(29:47):
It was like they were a livingexample of their faith.
But not all the evangelicalsreacted the same way.
Misty Bernal was defiant.
She was sure Cassie was alive.
Mr D stayed with the families.

(30:07):
He was doing his best toconsole them and waiting for
word on a close friend.
He had known Dave Sanders for20 years.
They had coached three sportstogether, shared hundreds of
beers and Frank had attendedDave's wedding.
Frank had been hearing rumorsabout Dave all afternoon.

(30:31):
Sometime after the coroner'sannouncement, a teacher and a
friend of both men, rich Long,show up at Leawood.
He saw Frank and rushed up tohug him and Frank said later in

(30:58):
quote all I, rich.
He was strong enough to takethe news and he pleaded Please
tell me.
I need to know.
Rich couldn't help him.
He was struggling with the samequestion.
Agent Fusilier had talked gunmendown and see if he opened fire
right in front of him.
He had struggled for weeks torelease 82 people at Waco, then

(31:22):
watch the gas tanks erupt andthe buildings burn down.
He had known they were alldying inside Waco.
Watching had been unbearable.
This was worse.
Fusilio went home and gaveBrian a hug.
It had been a long time betweenhugs and it was hard to let go.
Then he sat down to watch thenews report with his wife Mimi.

(31:46):
He held her hand and chokedback tears and he asked how
could you go home and get dentalrecords?
Then what you know, your kid islying there dead.
How do you go to sleep, daveSanders?
Let's talk a little bit aboutDave Sanders.

(32:10):
Dave Sanders was one of the fewteachers unaccounted for.
He was still in the scienceroom number three.
The SWAT team had reached himstill alive but hopeless.
Several minutes later, beforehe was evacuated, dave Sanders
bled to death.
His family was not notified.
Late in the afternoon they gotword.

(32:33):
He was injured and taken toSwedish Medical Center and Linda
Liu was still out of sorts andshe remembered and said, quote I
don't remember who drove me, Idon't know how I got there.
I don't remember the ride.

(32:53):
I don't remember walking inthere.
I remember where we got there.
They took us in a room.
There was food, there wascoffee, there were the sisters,
the nuns.
It was like a greetingcommittee awaiting their arrival
but curiously waiting for DaveTwo.
So Linda found the head nursereassuring and she said as soon

(33:15):
as he gets here you get to seehim.
But he never got there.
End quote.
Eventually they gave up andwent to Leawood.
They waited there a while andthen headed back home.
Relief agencies dispatchedvictims' advocates.
Several showed up at the house,a helpful but ominous sign.

(33:36):
The phones rang constantly,five separate cells laid out on
the coffee table, but never withthe call they wanted.
Linda retreated to her room,never with the call they wanted.
Linda retreated to her room.
Every time someone used thebathroom downstairs the exhaust
fan clicked on and Linda jumpedup believing it was the garage

(33:57):
door opening.
Finally, about 10.30, she saidAngie, her daughter says Mom and
I got sick of waiting.
We knew they had been a cop ofteacher with him, teachers who
have known him for since beforeI was born and so we called them
to find out what happened andthey informed us Dave had been

(34:21):
the teacher bleeding to death.
But had he bled out?
Dave was alive when the SWATteam evacuated all the civilians
and after that no one seemed toknow.
Only the cops had seen it endand they were not ready to say
so.
Andy said we didn't knowwhether he was taken out of the

(34:42):
school or not, but at least weknew a little more about what
had happened inside.
Linda tried to sleep, but it wasuseless she what she did was to
curl up with a pair of davesocks.
Um, she spent the eveningtrying to blank out her mind
because there were odd thoughtsslipping through.

(35:03):
And Marjorie Lindholm, who hasspent much of the afternoon with
Dave Sanders, said that he keptgetting whiter and explosions
kept erupting.
And when the SWAT team finallyfreed her, marjorie ran past two

(35:28):
bodies on the way out.
She worried about how she haddressed because her parents
would find her in a tank topthat suddenly felt sleazy.
She borrowed a friend's shirtto cover herself up.
A cop drove her to safety inClement Park and a paramedic
stepped up to examine her.
And then one of thedescriptions was that there was

(35:58):
blood everywhere and it wasterrible.
But she kept running.
And later that day she confersher story to a reporter.
She said why didn't I stop tohelp that girl that was on the
ground?
I'm so mad, I was so selfish.
Now we have Brad and MistyBernal.

(36:19):
They went home around 10 pm.
Brad climbed on top of thegarden shed with a pair of
binoculars to peer across thefield.
The library windows were blownout.
He could see men milling aboutinside.
They were in blue jackets withbig yellow letters A-T-E.
They had their heads down.

(36:42):
But Brad couldn't quite makeout what they were up to and he
said well, I guess they werestepping over bodies.
They were probably looking forexplosives.
They were searching for lifeexplosives and life gunmen.
As a matter of fact, swat teamssearched every broom closet.
If third, fourth or fifthshooters were still hiding out,

(37:03):
they would be flushed out bymorning.
Brad came back into the house At10.30,.
An explosion shook theneighborhood.
Brad and Misty ran upstairs.
They looked out Cassie's windowbut nothing moved.
Whatever it was, it had passed.
Cassie's bed was empty andMisty feared she was still in

(37:23):
school.
Had she been injured by theblast?
It was the bomb squad's onemajor mistake.
They were moving bombs out ofthe area for control explosions
as they loaded one into atrailer.
The strike anywhere.
Match that Eric used for adetonator brushed the trailer
wall and it blew.
Bomb technicians fell backwardas trained, and the blast shot

(37:48):
straight up and no one was hurt,but it threw a big scare into
the team.
Everyone was exhausted and thiswas getting dangerous, so they
called it a night.
Commandos instructed them toreturn at 6.30 am.
Brad and Misty kept watchingand Brad said quote I knew

(38:09):
Cassie was in there somewhere.
It was terrible to know thatshe was on the other side of the
fence and there was nothingthat we could do.
End quote.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a great week.