March 3, 2025 • 52 mins
In this thought-provoking episode, we delve deep into the psyche of Eric Harris, one of the perpetrators of the Columbine tragedy. By examining his journal entries and the chilling insights they contain, we aim to understand the motivations that drove him to commit such an atrocity. The episode highlights key themes like the influence of societal norms on young minds and the characteristics of psychopathy, painting a picture of a disturbed individual who felt disconnected from humanity.
Listeners will encounter a raw and honest exploration of the attitudes, beliefs, and philosophies that permeated Eric's thoughts, drawing on his perception of the world as a robotic assembly line stifling individuality and natural instincts. We juxtapose Eric’s dark narrative with an examination of how families of victims faced their grief amid public scrutiny.
This episode not only scrutinizes the actions of Eric Harris but also invites reflection on broader societal implications surrounding violence and mental health. With expert insights and heartfelt stories from those directly impacted by the tragedy, the discussion is both engrossing and haunting. Join us as we unravel the complex layers of this dark moment in history while exploring how we can learn from the past to foster a safer future. Tune in and immerse yourself in this gripping narrative, and don’t forget to leave your thoughts with us!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part 12 of Unraveling the
Columbine Tragedy.
Let's begin.
In the previous episode wetalked about how Eric and Dylan
convinced Andrea Sanchez thatthey qualified for the diversion
(00:21):
program.
For the diversion program.
And Eric met with AndreaSanchez to receive his diversion
contract and he told her thathe was looking ahead to senior
year.
(00:41):
And he also discussed with herabout writing an apology letter
providing restitution, workingoff fines, meeting with a
diversion counselor twice amonth, besides seeing his own
mental health provider,attending classes like
mother-second-struck driving,maintaining good grades,
(01:04):
problem-free employment, 45hours of community service, and
they would periodically hand hima Dexacup and direct him to a
urinal.
So that means no more alcohol,no more freedom.
Eric's first counseling sessionand his first drug screening
(01:25):
would commence in eight days.
So he met with Sanchez on aWednesday, thursday he stood
Friday, april 10th 1998, heopened a letter size spiral
notebook and he scribbled I hatethis effing world.
(01:46):
In one year and ten days hewould attack.
Eric wrote furiously, fillingtwo vicious pages.
People are stupid.
I'm not respected.
Everyone has their own darnopinions on everything and at
(02:06):
first glance the journal soundslike the website.
But Agent Fusilier, when he waslooking at this notebook, he
found answers in it.
The website was pure rage, noexplanation.
The journal was explicit.
Eric fleshed out on paper hisideas as well as his personality
(02:31):
.
Eric had a grand superioritycomplex, a revulsion for
authority, an excruciating needfor control, and he even wrote I
feel like God, I am higher thanalmost anyone in the world in
terms of universal intelligence.
(02:52):
And in the interim, eric dubbedhis journal the Book of God.
So the breadth of his hostilitywas equally melodramatic.
Humans were pathetic, too denseto perceive their lifeless
(03:15):
existence.
He also said Ever wonder why wego to school, he asked.
It's not too obvious to most ofyou stupid people, but for
those who think a little moreand deeper, you should realize
it is society's way of turningall the young people into good
(03:38):
little robots.
Human nature was smothered bysociety.
Healthy instincts weresmothered by laws.
They were training us to beassembly line robots.
That's why they lined theschool desk up in rows and
trained kids to respond toopening and closing bells.
(03:59):
Philosophically, the roboticconception was a rare point of
agreement between the killers,because Dylan referred often to
zombies and both boys describedtheir uniqueness as
self-awareness.
They could see through humanhaste.
But Dylan saw his distinctionas a lonely curse.
(04:21):
And he looked on the zombies,even with compassion.
Dylan yearned for the littlepoor creatures to break out of
their boxes.
The problem, as Eric saw it, wasnatural selection.
He had alluded to the concepton his website.
Here he explained relentlesslythat natural selection had
(04:44):
failed.
Man had intervened.
Medicines, vaccines, special edprograms had conspired to keep
the rejects in the human herd.
So Eric was surrounded byinferiors who would not shut the
freaking mouth.
How should he tolerate all themiserable chatter?
And he had lots of ideasNuclear holocaust, biological
(05:08):
warfare, imprisoning the speciesin a giant ultimate doom game.
But Eric was also realistic.
He knew that he couldn'trestore the natural order, but
he could impose some selectionof his own.
He would sacrifice himself toaccomplish it, he said well, he
(05:29):
wrote in his notebook I know Iwill die soon, so will you and
everyone else.
By soon he meant a year.
Eric had a remarkably long timehorizon for a 17-year-old
contemplating his own death.
The lies jumped out at Fusilier.
(05:51):
Eric took giddy pleasure in hisdeceptions and he even wrote I
lie a lot, almost constant, andto everybody, just to keep my
own ass out of the water.
Let's see what are some biglies I have told.
Did I stop smoking?
(06:12):
For doing it, not for gettingcaught.
No, I haven't been making morebombs.
Eric did not believe in God, buthe enjoyed comparing himself to
him.
Believe in God, but he enjoyedcomparing himself to him.
Like Dylan, he did sofrequently, but not delusionally
.
They were, like God, superiorin insight, intelligence and
(06:32):
awareness.
Like Zeus, eric created newrules, angered, easily punished
people in unusual ways.
Eric had conviction.
Anyways, eric had a plan.
Eric would get the guns andbuild the explosives and maim
(06:58):
and kill and so much more.
They would terrify way beyondthe gun blast.
The ultimate weapon was TV.
Eric saw past the ColumbineCommons.
He might kill hundreds, but thedead and dismembered meant
nothing to him.
The performance was not aboutthem.
Eric's one-day-only productionwas about the audience.
The irony was his attack wastoo good for his victims.
(07:21):
It would sail right over theirheads.
Too bad because they would feelthe power of his hand.
If we have figured out the artof time bombs Beforehand, we
would set hundreds of themaround houses, roads, bridges,
buildings, gas stations.
It would be like the LA riots,the Oklahoma bombing, world War
(07:45):
II, vietnam, duke and Doom allmixed together.
Maybe we will even start alittle rebellion or revolution
to screw things up as much as wecan.
I want to leave a lastingimpression on the world.
Dr Fusilier set down the journal.
(08:07):
It had taken him about an hourto read the first time that he
read it.
I guess he read it more thanonce in that noisy Columbine
band room two or three daysafter the murders.
Now he had a pretty good hunchabout what he was dealing with.
(08:28):
A psychopath, eric wrote.
I would choose to kill.
His explanation didn't add upbecause we were morons.
How would that make a kid kill?
To most readers Eric's friendsjust sounded nuts.
But Dr Fusilier had theopposite reaction.
(08:52):
Insanity was marked by mentalconfusion.
Eric Harris expressed cold,rational calculation.
Fusilier ticked off Eric'spersonality traits.
Or calculation Fusilier tickedoff Eric's personality traits
charming, callous, cunning,manipulative, comically
(09:16):
grandiose, egocentric, with anappalling failure of empathy.
It was like reciting thepsychopathy checklist.
Fusilier spent the next 12 weekscontesting his theory.
Fusilier spent the next 12weeks contesting his theory.
That's how he approached aproblem Develop a hypothesis and
then search for every scrap ofevidence to refute it.
Test it against alternateexplanations, build the
(09:36):
strongest possible case tosupport them and see if the
hypothesis fails.
If it withstands that, thenit's solid.
Psychopathy.
Held Diagnosis didn't solve thecrime, but it laid the
foundation.
Ten years afterward, eric stillbaffled the public, which
(09:58):
insisted on assessing hismotives through a normal lens.
Eric was neither normal norinsane.
Psychopathy represents a thirdcategory.
Psychopathic brains don'tfunction like those in either of
the other groups, but they areconsistently similar to one
another.
Eric killed for two reasons Todemonstrate his superiority and
(10:21):
to enjoy it To a psychopath.
Both motives make sense.
Psychopaths are capable ofbehavior that normal people find
not only horrific but baffling,and this is a quote from Dr
Robert Heer, who is a leadingauthority on psychopaths.
(10:41):
He also says psychopaths cantorture and mutilate their
victims with about the samesense of concern that we feel
when we carve a turkey forThanksgiving dinner.
In other words, eric saw humansas chemical compounds with an
inflated sense of their ownwords.
(11:03):
It's just all nature, chemistry, math.
He wrote in his diary you die,burn, melt, evaporate, decay.
Psychopaths have likely plaguedmankind since the beginning, but
they're still poorlymisunderstood.
(11:23):
Psychopaths are distinguishedby two characteristics.
The first is a ruthlessdisregard for others.
They will defraud, maim or killfor the most trivial personal
gain.
The second is an astonishinggift for disguising the first.
It's the deception that makesthem so dangerous.
(11:44):
You never see him coming.
It's usually a him.
More than 80% are male.
Don't look for an oddballcreeping you out, because
psychopaths don't act likeHannibal Lecter or Dormo Bates.
Psychopaths take great personalpride in their or normal baits.
Psychopaths take great personalpride in their deceptions,
(12:09):
extract tremendous joys fromthem.
Lies become the psychopath'soccupation and when the truth
will work, they lie for sport.
Lying for amusement is soprofound in psychopaths it
(12:30):
stands out as the signature,characteristic duping delight.
Now the terminology got a littlemuckier because sociopath there
was the term sociopath and thisterm was introduced in the
1930s, initially as a broaderterm for antisocial behavior.
(12:51):
Eventually, psychopath andsociopath became virtually
synonymous.
The primary reason for thecompeting terms is that each was
adopted in different fields.
Criminologists and lawenforcement personnel prefer
psychopath.
Sociologists tend towardsociopath.
Psychologists and psychiatristsare split, but most experts on
(13:14):
the condition use psychopath andthe bulk of the research is
based on a checklist made by, achecklist made by a psychologist
with last name Hare.
A third term antisocialpersonality disorder or APD,
(13:38):
that was introduced in the 1970sand remains the only diagnosis
included in the DSM, orDiagnostic and Statistical
Manner of Mental Disorders.
However, it covers a muchbroader range of disorders that
does psychopath, and it has beenroundly rejected by leading
(14:01):
researchers.
So where do psychopaths comefrom?
Well, researchers are divided,with the majority suggesting a
mixed road.
Nature leading nurture followingDr Hare believes psychopaths
are born with a powerfulpredisposition, which can be
(14:23):
exacerbated by abuse or neglect.
A correlation exists betweenpsychopaths and unstable homes
and violent upbringing seem toturn fledging psychopaths more
vicious, but current datasuggests those conditions do not
cause the psychopathy.
They only made a bad situationworse.
(14:44):
It also appears that even thebest parenting may be no match
for a child born to be bad.
Shame did not register.
Neither does fear.
Psychopaths are not individualslosing touch with those
(15:07):
emotions.
They never develop them fromthe start.
Dr Hare created also a separatescreening device for juveniles
and identified hallmarks thatappeared during the school years
Lying, grudgesious, lying,indifference to the pain of
(15:29):
others, defiance of authority,figures, responsiveness to
reprimands or threatenedpunishment, petty theft,
persistent aggression, cuttingclasses, breaking curfew,
cruelty to animals, earlyexperimentation with sex,
(15:50):
vandalism, setting fires.
Eric, for example, he brokeabout 9 of the 10 hallmarks in
his journal and on his website,for most of them relentlessly.
The only thing that was missingwas animal cruelty of them
relentlessly.
The only thing that was missingwas animal cruelty At some
point as either a cause or aneffect of psychopathy.
(16:14):
The psychopath's brain beginsprocessing emotional responses
differently, dr Hare, early inhis career he did some research
career.
He did some research and herecognized the anatomical
difference.
He submitted a paper analyzingthe unusual brainwaves of
psychopaths to a scientificjournal, which rejected it with
(16:36):
a dismissive letter and saysthose EEGs couldn't have come
from real people.
And this is what the message hereceived from the editor and
Hare thought exactly.
Psychopaths are that different.
Eric Harris baffled the publicbecause we could not conceive of
(16:57):
a human with his motives.
His brain, unfortunately, wasnever scanned, but it probably
would have shown activityunrecognizable as human to most
neurologists.
The fundamental nature of apsychopath is a failure to feel.
A psychopath's grasp of fearand suffering is particularly
(17:20):
weak.
Researchers often comparepsychopaths to robots or rogue
computers that are programmedonly to satisfy their own
objectives.
That's the closestapproximation of their behavior,
but the metaphor lacks nuance.
Psychopaths feel something.
Eric seemed to show sadnesswhen his dog was sick and he
(17:44):
occasionally felt twinges ofregret toward humans.
But the signals come throughdimly.
They have what is described asa poverty of emotional range.
Psychopaths develop a handful ofprimitive emotions closely
related to their own welfare.
(18:04):
Emotions closely related totheir own welfare.
Three had been identified anger, frustration and rage.
Psychopath erupts withferocious bouts of anger which
can get them labeled emotionalPsychopaths feel nothing deep,
complex or sustained.
The psychopath was prone tovexation, spite quick and labile
(18:28):
flashes of quasi-affection,peevish resentment, shallow
moods of self-pity, puerileattitudes of vanity, absurd and
showy poses of indignation.
(18:50):
Indignation runs strong in thepsychopath because it springs
from a staggering ego and senseof superiority.
Psychopaths do not feel much,but when they lose patience with
inferiors they can really letit rip.
Psychopaths made it that far ofthe emotional ladder, but they
fall far short of the averagegolden retriever which will
(19:11):
demonstrate affection, joy,compassion, empathy for a human
in pain.
Researchers are still justbeginning to understand
psychopaths, but they believepsychopaths crave the emotional
responses they lack.
They are nearly alwaysthrill-seekers.
They love roller coasters,hand-gliding, seek out high
anxiety occupations like ER,tech, bond trader or marine.
(19:31):
Crime, danger, impoverishment,death any sort of risk will help
.
They chase new sources ofexcitement because it is so
difficult for them to sustain.
It is so difficult for them tosustain.
They rarely stick with a career.
They get bored, even as careercriminals.
(19:55):
Psychopaths underperform.
They lack clear goals andobjectives, getting involved in
a wide variety of opportunisticoffenses rather than
specializing the way typicalcareer criminals do.
They perform spectacularly inshort bursts, a few weeks, a few
months, a year-long big con,then walk away.
(20:16):
Eric spent his young life thatway.
He should have been a 4.0student, but he collected A's,
b's and C's.
He was one of the smartest kidsin his high school but
apparently never bothered toapply to college.
No job prospects either.
(20:37):
Beyond blackjack, rare killerpsychopaths nearly always get
bored with murder too.
When they slit a throat, theirpulse raises, but it falls just
as fast it stays down.
No more joy from cuttingthroats for a while.
That thrill has already beenspent.
(21:01):
A second, less common approachto the banality of murder seems
to be the diet murderous pairswho feed off each other, and
criminologists have been awareof this for decades.
Take an example of Leopold andLope, bonnie and Clyde, the
Beltway Snipers of 2002.
(21:24):
Because diets account for onlya fraction of mass murderers,
little research has beenconducted on them.
Partnerships tend to beasymmetrical.
The psychopath is in control,of course, but the hot-headed
psychic can sustain hisexcitement leading up to the big
(21:47):
hill.
One of the things that DrFusilier is fond of saying was
that Eric craved heat, but hecouldn't sustain it.
Dylan was a volcano.
You could never tell when hemight erupt.
Day after day, for more than ayear, dylan juiced Eric with
(22:09):
erratic jolts of excitement.
They played the killing outagain and again, the cries, the
screams, the smell of burningflesh, and Eric savored the
anticipation.
(22:33):
Patient Now Dr Hare EG,suggested the psychopathic brain
operates differently, but hecould not be sure how or why.
Dr Hare said that forpsychopaths, horror is purely
intellectual.
The brain searches for words todescribe what the rest of us
would feel, and that fills theprofile.
Psychopaths react to pain ortragedy by assessing how they
(22:58):
can use the situation tomanipulate others.
So what's the treatment forpsychopathy?
Dr Hare summarized the researchon a century of attempts in two
words Nothing works.
It is the only major mentalaffliction to elude treatment,
(23:21):
and therapy often makes it worse, and therapy often makes it
worse.
Unfortunately, programs of thissort merely provide the
psychopath with better ways ofmanipulating, deceiving and
using people, and this wassomething that Hare wrote in
many of his papers.
(23:43):
Now Eric was blessed with atleast two unintentional coaches
Bob Chrishauser in the juvenilediversion program and his
psychiatrist, dr Albert.
And Eric was a quick study.
So the notes in his diversionfile document a steady
(24:04):
improvement, session by session.
Oddly, a large number ofpsychopaths spontaneously
improve around middle age.
The phenomenon has beenobserved for decades but not
explained Otherwise.
Psychopaths appear to be lostcauses Within the psychiatric
community.
That has drawn stiff resistanceto diagnosing minors with the
(24:27):
condition.
But clearly many juveniles arewell on their way.
While Eric was devising hisattack, dr Hare was working on a
regimen to address this kindand he began by examining the
(24:49):
data on those spontaneousimprovers.
From adolescence to their 50s,psychopaths showed virtually no
change in emotionalcharacteristics but improved
dramatically in antisocialbehavior.
The inner drives did not change, but their behavior did.
(25:09):
Dr Hare believes that thispsychopath might simply be
adapting.
Fiercely rational, they figureout that prison was not working
for them.
So Hare proposed using theirself-interest to the public
advantage.
The program he developedaccepts that psychopaths will
(25:29):
remain egocentric and uncaringfor life but would adhere to
rules if it's in their owninterest.
Psychopathy experts arecautiously optimistic about
(25:53):
coming advances.
Fusilier, the special agentworking on the case, was sure
that Eric was a psychopath.
But the kid had been 16 when hehatched the plot, 17 for most
of the planning and barely 18when he opened fire.
(26:14):
There would be resistance towriting Eric off at those ages.
Three months after Columbine,the FBI organized a major summit
on school shooters in Leesburg,virginia.
The Bureau assembled some ofthe world's leading
psychologists, including Dr Hare.
Near the end of the conference,dr Fusilier stepped up to the
microphone and gave a thoroughbriefing on the minds of the two
killers and he concluded itlooks like Eric Harris was a
(26:38):
budding young psychopath.
And the room stared.
A renowned psychiatrist in thefront row moved to speak and
Fusilier thought uh-oh, here itcomes, this guy is going to
nitpick the assessment to death.
But the psychiatrist said Idon't think he was a budding
(27:00):
young psychopath.
And so he asked what's yourobjection?
And he said no, no, I thinkthat he was a full-blown
psychopath and his colleaguesagree eric harris was textbook.
Several of the experts continuestudying the columbine shooters
(27:23):
.
After the summit, mich MichiganState University psychiatrist
Frank Upward flew in severaltimes to help guide the mental
health team and every tripdoubled as a fact-finding
mission.
Dr Upward interviewed anassortment of people close to
the killers and studied theboys' writings.
(27:44):
The problem for the community,and ultimately for DEFCO
officials too, was that AgentFusilier was not permitted to
talk to the public.
Early on, both local andfederal officials were concerned
about DEFCO gettingovershadowed by the FBI.
The Bureau firmly prohibitedany of its agents from
(28:05):
discussing the case with themedia.
Jeffco commanders had decidedthe killer's motives should not
be discussed and the FBIrespected that decision.
Failure to address the obviousintensified suspicion toward
(28:26):
Jeffco exacerbated a credibilityproblem already hovering over
the sheriff's department.
In addition to why the publichad to press in questions,
should authorities have seenColumbine coming and should they
have stopped it sooner once thegunfire began?
(28:46):
On both those controversialquestions Jeffco had obvious
conflicts of interest and yetthey charged ahead.
It was a staggering lapse ofjudgment.
Jeffco could have simplyisolated the two explosive
issues into an independentinvestigation and it would have
(29:07):
been easy enough.
They had nearly 100 detectivesat their disposal, few of whom
worked for DEFCO.
The independent investigationdidn't seem so obvious in 1999.
Some good cops make really baddecisions.
After April 20th, survivors wereright to suspect a cover-up.
(29:30):
Jeffco commanders were lyingabout the Browns, warning about
Eric and Randy, and Judy madesure everyone knew Inside the
department, someone wasattempting to destroy the
Browns' paper trail.
To destroy the Browns' papertrail.
Shortly after the massacre,investigator Mike Guerra noticed
(29:51):
that the physical copy of thefile he had put together on Eric
a year earlier disappeared fromhis desk.
A few days later it reappeared,just as it mysteriously
disappeared.
Later that summer he tried tocall up the computer record and
found that it had been purged.
The physical file againdisappeared and has never been
(30:13):
recovered.
Over the next several months,division Chief John Kicksbush,
assistant, took part in severalactivities that she later found
disturbing.
Each day, patrick Ireland, thekid that had been in the
(30:34):
hospital, the one thatpractically pushed himself out
of the window when all this washappening he's still trying to
recover at the hospital and hetried to lift his leg again.
He was trying to concentrate,try to make his brain respond
(30:58):
right to what he wanted to do.
He was making steady progressonce he reestablished contact
with his limbs, and everymorning he could feel some
change.
There was some strength thathad returned to the center of
his body, first beginning at historso, and it was radiating out
through his hips and hisshoulders and down to his right
(31:21):
elbow and knee.
In a few more weeks they hadhim on his feet and knee.
In a few more weeks they hadhim on his feet.
Later he progressed to a walkerand then a forearm crutch with
a cuff that straps over the armbelow the elbow.
The wheelchair was always therefor long trips or any time he
grew tired.
Dexterity with his fingers andhis toes would be the hardest
(31:45):
thing to regain completely, andit would take him months to hold
a pen without shaking.
His walk would be hindered byall sorts of fine adjustments we
never notice our toes make.
There was another of the victims, anne Marie Hochhalter, who
(32:08):
also progressed slowly.
She had barely made it throughthe attack because her spinal
cord was ruptured, causingunbearable nerve pain.
She spent weeks lying deliriouson morphine.
She was put on a ventilator.
A feeding tube was keeping heralive.
(32:29):
She couldn't talk with thetubes and through the fog she
didn't understand what hadhappened or what was ahead.
After six weeks she joinedPatrick at Craig.
Danny Roblox's friend, seanGraves, was there too.
Partially paralyzed below thespine, he managed a few steps
(32:53):
with braces.
Over the summer, lanceKirkland's face was
reconstructed with titaniumimplants, skin grafts.
Scarring was severe but he madelight of it.
He said yeah, it's cool, I'mnow 5% metal.
In the weeks just after themurders, nearly all the families
(33:13):
of the library victims walkedthe crime scene with
investigators.
They needed to see it and DonAnna.
And Don Anna was LaurenThompson's mom and she had been
(33:42):
a teacher I believe a mathteacher in Columbine until she
got sick and she was a coachalso.
She stopped at the spot whereher daughter, lauren Thompson,
had been killed.
It was the first table on theleft and nothing had been
changed, except for the removalof the backpacks and personal
effects which had beenphotographed, inventoried and
(34:05):
returned to the families.
The thought of sending anyschool kid back inside was
unthinkable.
The library had to goIndependently and collectively.
Most of the 13 families came tothat conclusion quickly.
Students reached the oppositeconsensus.
They spent the spring battlingfor the idea of Columbine as
(34:26):
well as the proper noun, thename of a high school, not a
tragedy.
They were reposed by phrasesbandied about since Columbine or
prevent another Columbine.
That was one day in the life ofColumbine High School.
That's what the studentsinsisted.
(34:48):
Then the tourists arrived Justweeks after the tragedy.
Even before students returned,tour buses started rolling up to
the school.
Columbine High had leapt tosecond place behind the Rocky
Mountains as Colorado's mostfamous landmark, and tour
(35:09):
operators were quick tocapitalize.
The buses would pull in frontof the school, tourists would
pile out and start snappingpictures the school, the grounds
, the kids practicing on theathletic fields or milling about
the park.
They captured a lot of angryexpressions because the students
(35:30):
were feeling like they wereanimals in the zoo.
Everyone still needed to knowconstantly how do you feel?
Brian Fusilier, agentFusilier's son, was heading into
his sophomore year in Columbineand weeks under the microscope
had been miserable.
The tourists were too much.
(35:54):
On June 2nd, most of the studentbody finally reconnected with
the physical Columbine, and itwas an emotional day.
Students had two hours to goback inside retrieve their
backpacks and cell phoneseverything else they had
abandoned when they ran for it.
(36:14):
The parents were allowed in aswell.
It gave everyone a chance toface their fears.
Hundreds of kids stumbled outin tears useful tears.
Most found the experiencestressful but cathartic.
They were kicked out again fortwo months while construction
(36:35):
crews renovated the interior.
The students had mixed feelingsabout anything changing, but
they were taking that one onfaith.
The district had open enrollment, so everyone expected a big
drop in Columbine student body.
The next fall Students reactedthe opposite way.
Transfers out were minimal.
(36:57):
Fall enrollment actually wentup.
Fall enrollment actually wentup.
Students felt they had lost somuch already that surrendering
an inch of corridor or a singleclassroom would feel like defeat
.
They wanted their school back.
All of it.
Mr D and the faculty werefocused on the kids, getting
(37:20):
them into therapy, watching outfor trauma symptoms.
School officials formed a designreview board to address the
library.
It included students, parentsand faculty.
Consensus came readily, got theroom and rebuilt it.
Redesigned the layout, replacedand reconciled the furniture,
(37:43):
changed the wall color, thecarpet, even the ceiling tiles.
It was a drastic version of theplan put together for the
entire school.
Trauma experts advised theboard to balance two objectives
Make the kids feel their schoolhad survived and surround them
with changes too subtle toidentify.
(38:04):
The library was the exception.
It would feel completelydifferent.
Renovation of the school wouldcost $1.2 million and would be
tough to complete before schoolresumed in August.
The design board moved quicklyand the school board adopted its
proposal in early June.
(38:24):
The parents of the murdered kidswere aghast Rearrange the
furniture, slap in some paintand recarpet.
The design team saw their planas a complete overhaul.
Their adversaries call itcosmetic.
Initially, the students and thevictim's family assumed they
(38:44):
were all in this together and ittook them several weeks to
realize they were about tobattle each other.
Parents of the 13 saw that theywere outnumbered.
They formed the parents groupto fight back.
On May 27, just as they wereorganizing, a notorious lawyer
(39:05):
and media hound flew to Denverfor a big press conference.
Geoffrey Feger had become acable news staple via splashy
media trials like that of DrKovorkian, the assistant suicide
doctor and figure teamed withAsaya Shill's family to make an
(39:27):
ostentatious demand, sure toreturn Columbine to national
headlines in the worst possiblelight.
A wrongful death suit againstthe killer's parents.
And they were asking for aquarter of a billion dollars.
And Asaya's stepfather declaredthis is not about money, this
(39:53):
lawsuit is about change.
But the public was skepticalabout motives, the lawyer.
He insisted that he would spendmore money mounting the case
than he could hope to recover.
Colorado law limited awardsfrom individuals to $250,000 and
(40:16):
government entities were cappedat $150,000.
This lawsuit is a symbol, hesaid.
There would be cynics who wouldchop the lawsuit up to greed.
Lawsuits had been anticipated,but nobody had foreseen one so
garish or so soon.
(40:36):
Colorado law gave victims ayear to file and six months to
declare intent.
It had only been five weeks.
Families had been talking aboutlawsuits as being a leverage
and a last resort.
The lawsuits served as a trialballoon that sank.
(40:56):
The survivors were particularlyrepulsed.
Many of them had dedicated thenext phase of their lives to
some form of justiceanti-bullying, gun control,
prayer in schools, swatprotocols, warning signs or just
reclaiming their school ordestroying the library.
Lawsuits threatened to taintall that threatened to taint all
(41:22):
that.
They also shed a bad light onthe next big battle, which was
already developing when thechoices conducted the press
conference.
The fight revolved around moneytoo, and the public donations
have been astonishing.
But the good fortune came at aprice.
(41:43):
More than $2 million rolled inthe first month.
A month later the total was$3.5 million.
40 different funds brought itup.
The local union way set up thehealing fund to coordinate the
(42:04):
distribution of monies.
Robin Finnegan was a veterantherapist and victim's advocate
who had worked closely withOklahoma City survivors.
Oklahoma City survivors when apair of teachers were
collectively granted $5,000 foranxiety treatment, brian Roebuck
(42:29):
blew his stack.
He said that's criminal.
He wanted the money dividedequally between the families of
the injured and the dead.
But was equality fair?
Lance Kirkland's fatherestimated his medical bills at
$1 to $2 million.
The family was uninsured.
(42:49):
Mark Taylor needed surgery forfour gunshots to the chest.
His mom couldn't affordgroceries or pay the rent and
she said that the process washumiliating because she felt
like a beggar.
She says my son is in thehospital, I cannot work, we're
broke, and they have millions ofdollars in donations.
(43:13):
I'm disgusted.
The attorney for the Taylors andKirkling suggested that some
families needed compensationmore than others.
Brian Roebuck erupted again.
That implied that Danny's lifehad no value.
For Brian the money wassymbolic, the ultimate valuation
(43:34):
of each life.
For others it was purelypractical.
In early July the Healing Fundannounced its distribution plan.
40% of the $3.8 million wouldgo to direct victims.
A clever compromise was reachedfor that money the four kids
(43:55):
with critical injuries, $150,000each.
$50,000 went to each of the 13.
That totaled $650,000 for thedead versus $600,000 for the
(44:19):
critically injured, giving the13 the fraction of the medical
bills for many.
Most of the remainder went totrauma counseling and tolerance
programs.
Roughly $750,000 was earmarkedfor contingencies a compromise
to cover unpaid medical billswithout appearing to favor the
(44:43):
injured over the dead.
Brian Robach backed off once hefelt hurt.
We'll be right back.
Tom Klebold, dylan's dad, wasdealing with a lot of anger.
Who gave my son these guns?
(45:05):
He asked Reverend Markshausen.
He also felt betrayed by theschool culture that pecked on
kids outside the mainstream.
Tom did his best to shut outthe angry world.
His job allowed him to hunkerdown at home home and he took
full advantage.
Sue was not wired that way.
(45:27):
She needed to get out.
May 28th Kathy Harris wrotecondolence letters to the 13.
Many of their addresses wereunpublished so she sealed each
one in an envelope with thefamily's name, put them all in a
manila envelope and mailed itto an address the school
(45:50):
district had set up as aclearinghouse for correspondence
victims.
A week later Kathy sent asecond batch for the families of
23 injured.
The school district turned themover to the Sheriff's
Department as potential evidence.
It sat on them.
Officials decided not to readthem and not to deliver them.
(46:18):
In mid-July the media discoveredthe snafu and, when asked,
sergeant Randy West said well,it's really not our job to
distribute them.
The letters had no postage oraddresses, so commanders decided
(46:38):
to return to sender.
West complained about thefamily's refusal to meet without
immunity and said his team hadtrouble reaching their attorneys
.
They have been busy, we arebusy and we can't seem to
connect with them.
I guess, if you want to makethings easier, we could just
talk to us.
So the Harris's broke thethree-month silence to issue a
(47:03):
statement disputingmisstatements on the letters.
Their attorney insisted Jeffcohad never tried to contact him
about them.
The letters were eventuallyreturned.
Sue Klebold also wrote apologiesin May and she mailed them
directly to the 13.
And this was Brad and MistyBernard's handwritten card.
(47:28):
It says Dear Bernard family, itis with great difficulty and
humility that we write toexpress our profound sorrow over
the loss of your beautifuldaughter, cassie.
She brought joy and love to theworld and she was taken in a
moment of madness.
We wish we had had theopportunity to know her and be
(47:50):
uplifted by her loving spirit.
We will never understand whythis tragedy happened or what we
might have done to prevent it.
We apologize for the role ourson had in your Cassie's death.
We never saw anger or hatred inDylan until the last moments of
his life when we watched inhelpless horror, with the rest
(48:12):
of the world, the reality thatour son shared in the
responsibility for this tragedyis still incredibly difficult
for us to comprehend.
May God comfort you and yourloved ones.
May he bring peace andunderstanding to all of our
wounded hearts.
Sincerely, sue and Tom Clevot.
(48:37):
Misty was moved enough topublish the full text in the
memoir she was drafting.
Misty was moved enough topublish the full text in the
memoir she was drafting.
She generously described theact as courageous.
Tom and Sue lost a son in thesame disaster.
She wrote At least Cassie haddied.
Nobly.
What comfort did the Kleboshave?
Misty also addressed thecharges against the killer's
(49:01):
parents.
Should they have known?
Were they negligent?
How do we know?
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part 12 of Unraveling the
Columbine Tragedy.
Let's begin.
In the previous episode wetalked about how Eric and Dylan
convinced Andrea Sanchez thatthey qualified for the diversion
(00:21):
program.
For the diversion program.
And Eric met with AndreaSanchez to receive his diversion
contract and he told her thathe was looking ahead to senior
year.
(00:41):
And he also discussed with herabout writing an apology letter
providing restitution, workingoff fines, meeting with a
diversion counselor twice amonth, besides seeing his own
mental health provider,attending classes like
mother-second-struck driving,maintaining good grades,
(01:04):
problem-free employment, 45hours of community service, and
they would periodically hand hima Dexacup and direct him to a
urinal.
So that means no more alcohol,no more freedom.
Eric's first counseling sessionand his first drug screening
(01:25):
would commence in eight days.
So he met with Sanchez on aWednesday, thursday he stood
Friday, april 10th 1998, heopened a letter size spiral
notebook and he scribbled I hatethis effing world.
(01:46):
In one year and ten days hewould attack.
Eric wrote furiously, fillingtwo vicious pages.
People are stupid.
I'm not respected.
Everyone has their own darnopinions on everything and at
(02:06):
first glance the journal soundslike the website.
But Agent Fusilier, when he waslooking at this notebook, he
found answers in it.
The website was pure rage, noexplanation.
The journal was explicit.
Eric fleshed out on paper hisideas as well as his personality
(02:31):
.
Eric had a grand superioritycomplex, a revulsion for
authority, an excruciating needfor control, and he even wrote I
feel like God, I am higher thanalmost anyone in the world in
terms of universal intelligence.
(02:52):
And in the interim, eric dubbedhis journal the Book of God.
So the breadth of his hostilitywas equally melodramatic.
Humans were pathetic, too denseto perceive their lifeless
(03:15):
existence.
He also said Ever wonder why wego to school, he asked.
It's not too obvious to most ofyou stupid people, but for
those who think a little moreand deeper, you should realize
it is society's way of turningall the young people into good
(03:38):
little robots.
Human nature was smothered bysociety.
Healthy instincts weresmothered by laws.
They were training us to beassembly line robots.
That's why they lined theschool desk up in rows and
trained kids to respond toopening and closing bells.
(03:59):
Philosophically, the roboticconception was a rare point of
agreement between the killers,because Dylan referred often to
zombies and both boys describedtheir uniqueness as
self-awareness.
They could see through humanhaste.
But Dylan saw his distinctionas a lonely curse.
(04:21):
And he looked on the zombies,even with compassion.
Dylan yearned for the littlepoor creatures to break out of
their boxes.
The problem, as Eric saw it, wasnatural selection.
He had alluded to the concepton his website.
Here he explained relentlesslythat natural selection had
(04:44):
failed.
Man had intervened.
Medicines, vaccines, special edprograms had conspired to keep
the rejects in the human herd.
So Eric was surrounded byinferiors who would not shut the
freaking mouth.
How should he tolerate all themiserable chatter?
And he had lots of ideasNuclear holocaust, biological
(05:08):
warfare, imprisoning the speciesin a giant ultimate doom game.
But Eric was also realistic.
He knew that he couldn'trestore the natural order, but
he could impose some selectionof his own.
He would sacrifice himself toaccomplish it, he said well, he
(05:29):
wrote in his notebook I know Iwill die soon, so will you and
everyone else.
By soon he meant a year.
Eric had a remarkably long timehorizon for a 17-year-old
contemplating his own death.
The lies jumped out at Fusilier.
(05:51):
Eric took giddy pleasure in hisdeceptions and he even wrote I
lie a lot, almost constant, andto everybody, just to keep my
own ass out of the water.
Let's see what are some biglies I have told.
Did I stop smoking?
(06:12):
For doing it, not for gettingcaught.
No, I haven't been making morebombs.
Eric did not believe in God, buthe enjoyed comparing himself to
him.
Believe in God, but he enjoyedcomparing himself to him.
Like Dylan, he did sofrequently, but not delusionally
.
They were, like God, superiorin insight, intelligence and
(06:32):
awareness.
Like Zeus, eric created newrules, angered, easily punished
people in unusual ways.
Eric had conviction.
Anyways, eric had a plan.
Eric would get the guns andbuild the explosives and maim
(06:58):
and kill and so much more.
They would terrify way beyondthe gun blast.
The ultimate weapon was TV.
Eric saw past the ColumbineCommons.
He might kill hundreds, but thedead and dismembered meant
nothing to him.
The performance was not aboutthem.
Eric's one-day-only productionwas about the audience.
The irony was his attack wastoo good for his victims.
(07:21):
It would sail right over theirheads.
Too bad because they would feelthe power of his hand.
If we have figured out the artof time bombs Beforehand, we
would set hundreds of themaround houses, roads, bridges,
buildings, gas stations.
It would be like the LA riots,the Oklahoma bombing, world War
(07:45):
II, vietnam, duke and Doom allmixed together.
Maybe we will even start alittle rebellion or revolution
to screw things up as much as wecan.
I want to leave a lastingimpression on the world.
Dr Fusilier set down the journal.
(08:07):
It had taken him about an hourto read the first time that he
read it.
I guess he read it more thanonce in that noisy Columbine
band room two or three daysafter the murders.
Now he had a pretty good hunchabout what he was dealing with.
(08:28):
A psychopath, eric wrote.
I would choose to kill.
His explanation didn't add upbecause we were morons.
How would that make a kid kill?
To most readers Eric's friendsjust sounded nuts.
But Dr Fusilier had theopposite reaction.
(08:52):
Insanity was marked by mentalconfusion.
Eric Harris expressed cold,rational calculation.
Fusilier ticked off Eric'spersonality traits.
Or calculation Fusilier tickedoff Eric's personality traits
charming, callous, cunning,manipulative, comically
(09:16):
grandiose, egocentric, with anappalling failure of empathy.
It was like reciting thepsychopathy checklist.
Fusilier spent the next 12 weekscontesting his theory.
Fusilier spent the next 12weeks contesting his theory.
That's how he approached aproblem Develop a hypothesis and
then search for every scrap ofevidence to refute it.
Test it against alternateexplanations, build the
(09:36):
strongest possible case tosupport them and see if the
hypothesis fails.
If it withstands that, thenit's solid.
Psychopathy.
Held Diagnosis didn't solve thecrime, but it laid the
foundation.
Ten years afterward, eric stillbaffled the public, which
(09:58):
insisted on assessing hismotives through a normal lens.
Eric was neither normal norinsane.
Psychopathy represents a thirdcategory.
Psychopathic brains don'tfunction like those in either of
the other groups, but they areconsistently similar to one
another.
Eric killed for two reasons Todemonstrate his superiority and
(10:21):
to enjoy it To a psychopath.
Both motives make sense.
Psychopaths are capable ofbehavior that normal people find
not only horrific but baffling,and this is a quote from Dr
Robert Heer, who is a leadingauthority on psychopaths.
(10:41):
He also says psychopaths cantorture and mutilate their
victims with about the samesense of concern that we feel
when we carve a turkey forThanksgiving dinner.
In other words, eric saw humansas chemical compounds with an
inflated sense of their ownwords.
(11:03):
It's just all nature, chemistry, math.
He wrote in his diary you die,burn, melt, evaporate, decay.
Psychopaths have likely plaguedmankind since the beginning, but
they're still poorlymisunderstood.
(11:23):
Psychopaths are distinguishedby two characteristics.
The first is a ruthlessdisregard for others.
They will defraud, maim or killfor the most trivial personal
gain.
The second is an astonishinggift for disguising the first.
It's the deception that makesthem so dangerous.
(11:44):
You never see him coming.
It's usually a him.
More than 80% are male.
Don't look for an oddballcreeping you out, because
psychopaths don't act likeHannibal Lecter or Dormo Bates.
Psychopaths take great personalpride in their or normal baits.
Psychopaths take great personalpride in their deceptions,
(12:09):
extract tremendous joys fromthem.
Lies become the psychopath'soccupation and when the truth
will work, they lie for sport.
Lying for amusement is soprofound in psychopaths it
(12:30):
stands out as the signature,characteristic duping delight.
Now the terminology got a littlemuckier because sociopath there
was the term sociopath and thisterm was introduced in the
1930s, initially as a broaderterm for antisocial behavior.
(12:51):
Eventually, psychopath andsociopath became virtually
synonymous.
The primary reason for thecompeting terms is that each was
adopted in different fields.
Criminologists and lawenforcement personnel prefer
psychopath.
Sociologists tend towardsociopath.
Psychologists and psychiatristsare split, but most experts on
(13:14):
the condition use psychopath andthe bulk of the research is
based on a checklist made by, achecklist made by a psychologist
with last name Hare.
A third term antisocialpersonality disorder or APD,
(13:38):
that was introduced in the 1970sand remains the only diagnosis
included in the DSM, orDiagnostic and Statistical
Manner of Mental Disorders.
However, it covers a muchbroader range of disorders that
does psychopath, and it has beenroundly rejected by leading
(14:01):
researchers.
So where do psychopaths comefrom?
Well, researchers are divided,with the majority suggesting a
mixed road.
Nature leading nurture followingDr Hare believes psychopaths
are born with a powerfulpredisposition, which can be
(14:23):
exacerbated by abuse or neglect.
A correlation exists betweenpsychopaths and unstable homes
and violent upbringing seem toturn fledging psychopaths more
vicious, but current datasuggests those conditions do not
cause the psychopathy.
They only made a bad situationworse.
(14:44):
It also appears that even thebest parenting may be no match
for a child born to be bad.
Shame did not register.
Neither does fear.
Psychopaths are not individualslosing touch with those
(15:07):
emotions.
They never develop them fromthe start.
Dr Hare created also a separatescreening device for juveniles
and identified hallmarks thatappeared during the school years
Lying, grudgesious, lying,indifference to the pain of
(15:29):
others, defiance of authority,figures, responsiveness to
reprimands or threatenedpunishment, petty theft,
persistent aggression, cuttingclasses, breaking curfew,
cruelty to animals, earlyexperimentation with sex,
(15:50):
vandalism, setting fires.
Eric, for example, he brokeabout 9 of the 10 hallmarks in
his journal and on his website,for most of them relentlessly.
The only thing that was missingwas animal cruelty of them
relentlessly.
The only thing that was missingwas animal cruelty At some
point as either a cause or aneffect of psychopathy.
(16:14):
The psychopath's brain beginsprocessing emotional responses
differently, dr Hare, early inhis career he did some research
career.
He did some research and herecognized the anatomical
difference.
He submitted a paper analyzingthe unusual brainwaves of
psychopaths to a scientificjournal, which rejected it with
(16:36):
a dismissive letter and saysthose EEGs couldn't have come
from real people.
And this is what the message hereceived from the editor and
Hare thought exactly.
Psychopaths are that different.
Eric Harris baffled the publicbecause we could not conceive of
(16:57):
a human with his motives.
His brain, unfortunately, wasnever scanned, but it probably
would have shown activityunrecognizable as human to most
neurologists.
The fundamental nature of apsychopath is a failure to feel.
A psychopath's grasp of fearand suffering is particularly
(17:20):
weak.
Researchers often comparepsychopaths to robots or rogue
computers that are programmedonly to satisfy their own
objectives.
That's the closestapproximation of their behavior,
but the metaphor lacks nuance.
Psychopaths feel something.
Eric seemed to show sadnesswhen his dog was sick and he
(17:44):
occasionally felt twinges ofregret toward humans.
But the signals come throughdimly.
They have what is described asa poverty of emotional range.
Psychopaths develop a handful ofprimitive emotions closely
related to their own welfare.
(18:04):
Emotions closely related totheir own welfare.
Three had been identified anger, frustration and rage.
Psychopath erupts withferocious bouts of anger which
can get them labeled emotionalPsychopaths feel nothing deep,
complex or sustained.
The psychopath was prone tovexation, spite quick and labile
(18:28):
flashes of quasi-affection,peevish resentment, shallow
moods of self-pity, puerileattitudes of vanity, absurd and
showy poses of indignation.
(18:50):
Indignation runs strong in thepsychopath because it springs
from a staggering ego and senseof superiority.
Psychopaths do not feel much,but when they lose patience with
inferiors they can really letit rip.
Psychopaths made it that far ofthe emotional ladder, but they
fall far short of the averagegolden retriever which will
(19:11):
demonstrate affection, joy,compassion, empathy for a human
in pain.
Researchers are still justbeginning to understand
psychopaths, but they believepsychopaths crave the emotional
responses they lack.
They are nearly alwaysthrill-seekers.
They love roller coasters,hand-gliding, seek out high
anxiety occupations like ER,tech, bond trader or marine.
(19:31):
Crime, danger, impoverishment,death any sort of risk will help
.
They chase new sources ofexcitement because it is so
difficult for them to sustain.
It is so difficult for them tosustain.
They rarely stick with a career.
They get bored, even as careercriminals.
(19:55):
Psychopaths underperform.
They lack clear goals andobjectives, getting involved in
a wide variety of opportunisticoffenses rather than
specializing the way typicalcareer criminals do.
They perform spectacularly inshort bursts, a few weeks, a few
months, a year-long big con,then walk away.
(20:16):
Eric spent his young life thatway.
He should have been a 4.0student, but he collected A's,
b's and C's.
He was one of the smartest kidsin his high school but
apparently never bothered toapply to college.
No job prospects either.
(20:37):
Beyond blackjack, rare killerpsychopaths nearly always get
bored with murder too.
When they slit a throat, theirpulse raises, but it falls just
as fast it stays down.
No more joy from cuttingthroats for a while.
That thrill has already beenspent.
(21:01):
A second, less common approachto the banality of murder seems
to be the diet murderous pairswho feed off each other, and
criminologists have been awareof this for decades.
Take an example of Leopold andLope, bonnie and Clyde, the
Beltway Snipers of 2002.
(21:24):
Because diets account for onlya fraction of mass murderers,
little research has beenconducted on them.
Partnerships tend to beasymmetrical.
The psychopath is in control,of course, but the hot-headed
psychic can sustain hisexcitement leading up to the big
(21:47):
hill.
One of the things that DrFusilier is fond of saying was
that Eric craved heat, but hecouldn't sustain it.
Dylan was a volcano.
You could never tell when hemight erupt.
Day after day, for more than ayear, dylan juiced Eric with
(22:09):
erratic jolts of excitement.
They played the killing outagain and again, the cries, the
screams, the smell of burningflesh, and Eric savored the
anticipation.
(22:33):
Patient Now Dr Hare EG,suggested the psychopathic brain
operates differently, but hecould not be sure how or why.
Dr Hare said that forpsychopaths, horror is purely
intellectual.
The brain searches for words todescribe what the rest of us
would feel, and that fills theprofile.
Psychopaths react to pain ortragedy by assessing how they
(22:58):
can use the situation tomanipulate others.
So what's the treatment forpsychopathy?
Dr Hare summarized the researchon a century of attempts in two
words Nothing works.
It is the only major mentalaffliction to elude treatment,
(23:21):
and therapy often makes it worse, and therapy often makes it
worse.
Unfortunately, programs of thissort merely provide the
psychopath with better ways ofmanipulating, deceiving and
using people, and this wassomething that Hare wrote in
many of his papers.
(23:43):
Now Eric was blessed with atleast two unintentional coaches
Bob Chrishauser in the juvenilediversion program and his
psychiatrist, dr Albert.
And Eric was a quick study.
So the notes in his diversionfile document a steady
(24:04):
improvement, session by session.
Oddly, a large number ofpsychopaths spontaneously
improve around middle age.
The phenomenon has beenobserved for decades but not
explained Otherwise.
Psychopaths appear to be lostcauses Within the psychiatric
community.
That has drawn stiff resistanceto diagnosing minors with the
(24:27):
condition.
But clearly many juveniles arewell on their way.
While Eric was devising hisattack, dr Hare was working on a
regimen to address this kindand he began by examining the
(24:49):
data on those spontaneousimprovers.
From adolescence to their 50s,psychopaths showed virtually no
change in emotionalcharacteristics but improved
dramatically in antisocialbehavior.
The inner drives did not change, but their behavior did.
(25:09):
Dr Hare believes that thispsychopath might simply be
adapting.
Fiercely rational, they figureout that prison was not working
for them.
So Hare proposed using theirself-interest to the public
advantage.
The program he developedaccepts that psychopaths will
(25:29):
remain egocentric and uncaringfor life but would adhere to
rules if it's in their owninterest.
Psychopathy experts arecautiously optimistic about
(25:53):
coming advances.
Fusilier, the special agentworking on the case, was sure
that Eric was a psychopath.
But the kid had been 16 when hehatched the plot, 17 for most
of the planning and barely 18when he opened fire.
(26:14):
There would be resistance towriting Eric off at those ages.
Three months after Columbine,the FBI organized a major summit
on school shooters in Leesburg,virginia.
The Bureau assembled some ofthe world's leading
psychologists, including Dr Hare.
Near the end of the conference,dr Fusilier stepped up to the
microphone and gave a thoroughbriefing on the minds of the two
killers and he concluded itlooks like Eric Harris was a
(26:38):
budding young psychopath.
And the room stared.
A renowned psychiatrist in thefront row moved to speak and
Fusilier thought uh-oh, here itcomes, this guy is going to
nitpick the assessment to death.
But the psychiatrist said Idon't think he was a budding
(27:00):
young psychopath.
And so he asked what's yourobjection?
And he said no, no, I thinkthat he was a full-blown
psychopath and his colleaguesagree eric harris was textbook.
Several of the experts continuestudying the columbine shooters
(27:23):
.
After the summit, mich MichiganState University psychiatrist
Frank Upward flew in severaltimes to help guide the mental
health team and every tripdoubled as a fact-finding
mission.
Dr Upward interviewed anassortment of people close to
the killers and studied theboys' writings.
(27:44):
The problem for the community,and ultimately for DEFCO
officials too, was that AgentFusilier was not permitted to
talk to the public.
Early on, both local andfederal officials were concerned
about DEFCO gettingovershadowed by the FBI.
The Bureau firmly prohibitedany of its agents from
(28:05):
discussing the case with themedia.
Jeffco commanders had decidedthe killer's motives should not
be discussed and the FBIrespected that decision.
Failure to address the obviousintensified suspicion toward
(28:26):
Jeffco exacerbated a credibilityproblem already hovering over
the sheriff's department.
In addition to why the publichad to press in questions,
should authorities have seenColumbine coming and should they
have stopped it sooner once thegunfire began?
(28:46):
On both those controversialquestions Jeffco had obvious
conflicts of interest and yetthey charged ahead.
It was a staggering lapse ofjudgment.
Jeffco could have simplyisolated the two explosive
issues into an independentinvestigation and it would have
(29:07):
been easy enough.
They had nearly 100 detectivesat their disposal, few of whom
worked for DEFCO.
The independent investigationdidn't seem so obvious in 1999.
Some good cops make really baddecisions.
After April 20th, survivors wereright to suspect a cover-up.
(29:30):
Jeffco commanders were lyingabout the Browns, warning about
Eric and Randy, and Judy madesure everyone knew Inside the
department, someone wasattempting to destroy the
Browns' paper trail.
To destroy the Browns' papertrail.
Shortly after the massacre,investigator Mike Guerra noticed
(29:51):
that the physical copy of thefile he had put together on Eric
a year earlier disappeared fromhis desk.
A few days later it reappeared,just as it mysteriously
disappeared.
Later that summer he tried tocall up the computer record and
found that it had been purged.
The physical file againdisappeared and has never been
(30:13):
recovered.
Over the next several months,division Chief John Kicksbush,
assistant, took part in severalactivities that she later found
disturbing.
Each day, patrick Ireland, thekid that had been in the
(30:34):
hospital, the one thatpractically pushed himself out
of the window when all this washappening he's still trying to
recover at the hospital and hetried to lift his leg again.
He was trying to concentrate,try to make his brain respond
(30:58):
right to what he wanted to do.
He was making steady progressonce he reestablished contact
with his limbs, and everymorning he could feel some
change.
There was some strength thathad returned to the center of
his body, first beginning at historso, and it was radiating out
through his hips and hisshoulders and down to his right
(31:21):
elbow and knee.
In a few more weeks they hadhim on his feet and knee.
In a few more weeks they hadhim on his feet.
Later he progressed to a walkerand then a forearm crutch with
a cuff that straps over the armbelow the elbow.
The wheelchair was always therefor long trips or any time he
grew tired.
Dexterity with his fingers andhis toes would be the hardest
(31:45):
thing to regain completely, andit would take him months to hold
a pen without shaking.
His walk would be hindered byall sorts of fine adjustments we
never notice our toes make.
There was another of the victims, anne Marie Hochhalter, who
(32:08):
also progressed slowly.
She had barely made it throughthe attack because her spinal
cord was ruptured, causingunbearable nerve pain.
She spent weeks lying deliriouson morphine.
She was put on a ventilator.
A feeding tube was keeping heralive.
(32:29):
She couldn't talk with thetubes and through the fog she
didn't understand what hadhappened or what was ahead.
After six weeks she joinedPatrick at Craig.
Danny Roblox's friend, seanGraves, was there too.
Partially paralyzed below thespine, he managed a few steps
(32:53):
with braces.
Over the summer, lanceKirkland's face was
reconstructed with titaniumimplants, skin grafts.
Scarring was severe but he madelight of it.
He said yeah, it's cool, I'mnow 5% metal.
In the weeks just after themurders, nearly all the families
(33:13):
of the library victims walkedthe crime scene with
investigators.
They needed to see it and DonAnna.
And Don Anna was LaurenThompson's mom and she had been
(33:42):
a teacher I believe a mathteacher in Columbine until she
got sick and she was a coachalso.
She stopped at the spot whereher daughter, lauren Thompson,
had been killed.
It was the first table on theleft and nothing had been
changed, except for the removalof the backpacks and personal
effects which had beenphotographed, inventoried and
(34:05):
returned to the families.
The thought of sending anyschool kid back inside was
unthinkable.
The library had to goIndependently and collectively.
Most of the 13 families came tothat conclusion quickly.
Students reached the oppositeconsensus.
They spent the spring battlingfor the idea of Columbine as
(34:26):
well as the proper noun, thename of a high school, not a
tragedy.
They were reposed by phrasesbandied about since Columbine or
prevent another Columbine.
That was one day in the life ofColumbine High School.
That's what the studentsinsisted.
(34:48):
Then the tourists arrived Justweeks after the tragedy.
Even before students returned,tour buses started rolling up to
the school.
Columbine High had leapt tosecond place behind the Rocky
Mountains as Colorado's mostfamous landmark, and tour
(35:09):
operators were quick tocapitalize.
The buses would pull in frontof the school, tourists would
pile out and start snappingpictures the school, the grounds
, the kids practicing on theathletic fields or milling about
the park.
They captured a lot of angryexpressions because the students
(35:30):
were feeling like they wereanimals in the zoo.
Everyone still needed to knowconstantly how do you feel?
Brian Fusilier, agentFusilier's son, was heading into
his sophomore year in Columbineand weeks under the microscope
had been miserable.
The tourists were too much.
(35:54):
On June 2nd, most of the studentbody finally reconnected with
the physical Columbine, and itwas an emotional day.
Students had two hours to goback inside retrieve their
backpacks and cell phoneseverything else they had
abandoned when they ran for it.
(36:14):
The parents were allowed in aswell.
It gave everyone a chance toface their fears.
Hundreds of kids stumbled outin tears useful tears.
Most found the experiencestressful but cathartic.
They were kicked out again fortwo months while construction
(36:35):
crews renovated the interior.
The students had mixed feelingsabout anything changing, but
they were taking that one onfaith.
The district had open enrollment, so everyone expected a big
drop in Columbine student body.
The next fall Students reactedthe opposite way.
Transfers out were minimal.
(36:57):
Fall enrollment actually wentup.
Fall enrollment actually wentup.
Students felt they had lost somuch already that surrendering
an inch of corridor or a singleclassroom would feel like defeat
.
They wanted their school back.
All of it.
Mr D and the faculty werefocused on the kids, getting
(37:20):
them into therapy, watching outfor trauma symptoms.
School officials formed a designreview board to address the
library.
It included students, parentsand faculty.
Consensus came readily, got theroom and rebuilt it.
Redesigned the layout, replacedand reconciled the furniture,
(37:43):
changed the wall color, thecarpet, even the ceiling tiles.
It was a drastic version of theplan put together for the
entire school.
Trauma experts advised theboard to balance two objectives
Make the kids feel their schoolhad survived and surround them
with changes too subtle toidentify.
(38:04):
The library was the exception.
It would feel completelydifferent.
Renovation of the school wouldcost $1.2 million and would be
tough to complete before schoolresumed in August.
The design board moved quicklyand the school board adopted its
proposal in early June.
(38:24):
The parents of the murdered kidswere aghast Rearrange the
furniture, slap in some paintand recarpet.
The design team saw their planas a complete overhaul.
Their adversaries call itcosmetic.
Initially, the students and thevictim's family assumed they
(38:44):
were all in this together and ittook them several weeks to
realize they were about tobattle each other.
Parents of the 13 saw that theywere outnumbered.
They formed the parents groupto fight back.
On May 27, just as they wereorganizing, a notorious lawyer
(39:05):
and media hound flew to Denverfor a big press conference.
Geoffrey Feger had become acable news staple via splashy
media trials like that of DrKovorkian, the assistant suicide
doctor and figure teamed withAsaya Shill's family to make an
(39:27):
ostentatious demand, sure toreturn Columbine to national
headlines in the worst possiblelight.
A wrongful death suit againstthe killer's parents.
And they were asking for aquarter of a billion dollars.
And Asaya's stepfather declaredthis is not about money, this
(39:53):
lawsuit is about change.
But the public was skepticalabout motives, the lawyer.
He insisted that he would spendmore money mounting the case
than he could hope to recover.
Colorado law limited awardsfrom individuals to $250,000 and
(40:16):
government entities were cappedat $150,000.
This lawsuit is a symbol, hesaid.
There would be cynics who wouldchop the lawsuit up to greed.
Lawsuits had been anticipated,but nobody had foreseen one so
garish or so soon.
(40:36):
Colorado law gave victims ayear to file and six months to
declare intent.
It had only been five weeks.
Families had been talking aboutlawsuits as being a leverage
and a last resort.
The lawsuits served as a trialballoon that sank.
(40:56):
The survivors were particularlyrepulsed.
Many of them had dedicated thenext phase of their lives to
some form of justiceanti-bullying, gun control,
prayer in schools, swatprotocols, warning signs or just
reclaiming their school ordestroying the library.
Lawsuits threatened to taintall that threatened to taint all
(41:22):
that.
They also shed a bad light onthe next big battle, which was
already developing when thechoices conducted the press
conference.
The fight revolved around moneytoo, and the public donations
have been astonishing.
But the good fortune came at aprice.
(41:43):
More than $2 million rolled inthe first month.
A month later the total was$3.5 million.
40 different funds brought itup.
The local union way set up thehealing fund to coordinate the
(42:04):
distribution of monies.
Robin Finnegan was a veterantherapist and victim's advocate
who had worked closely withOklahoma City survivors.
Oklahoma City survivors when apair of teachers were
collectively granted $5,000 foranxiety treatment, brian Roebuck
(42:29):
blew his stack.
He said that's criminal.
He wanted the money dividedequally between the families of
the injured and the dead.
But was equality fair?
Lance Kirkland's fatherestimated his medical bills at
$1 to $2 million.
The family was uninsured.
(42:49):
Mark Taylor needed surgery forfour gunshots to the chest.
His mom couldn't affordgroceries or pay the rent and
she said that the process washumiliating because she felt
like a beggar.
She says my son is in thehospital, I cannot work, we're
broke, and they have millions ofdollars in donations.
(43:13):
I'm disgusted.
The attorney for the Taylors andKirkling suggested that some
families needed compensationmore than others.
Brian Roebuck erupted again.
That implied that Danny's lifehad no value.
For Brian the money wassymbolic, the ultimate valuation
(43:34):
of each life.
For others it was purelypractical.
In early July the Healing Fundannounced its distribution plan.
40% of the $3.8 million wouldgo to direct victims.
A clever compromise was reachedfor that money the four kids
(43:55):
with critical injuries, $150,000each.
$50,000 went to each of the 13.
That totaled $650,000 for thedead versus $600,000 for the
(44:19):
critically injured, giving the13 the fraction of the medical
bills for many.
Most of the remainder went totrauma counseling and tolerance
programs.
Roughly $750,000 was earmarkedfor contingencies a compromise
to cover unpaid medical billswithout appearing to favor the
(44:43):
injured over the dead.
Brian Robach backed off once hefelt hurt.
We'll be right back.
Tom Klebold, dylan's dad, wasdealing with a lot of anger.
Who gave my son these guns?
(45:05):
He asked Reverend Markshausen.
He also felt betrayed by theschool culture that pecked on
kids outside the mainstream.
Tom did his best to shut outthe angry world.
His job allowed him to hunkerdown at home home and he took
full advantage.
Sue was not wired that way.
(45:27):
She needed to get out.
May 28th Kathy Harris wrotecondolence letters to the 13.
Many of their addresses wereunpublished so she sealed each
one in an envelope with thefamily's name, put them all in a
manila envelope and mailed itto an address the school
(45:50):
district had set up as aclearinghouse for correspondence
victims.
A week later Kathy sent asecond batch for the families of
23 injured.
The school district turned themover to the Sheriff's
Department as potential evidence.
It sat on them.
Officials decided not to readthem and not to deliver them.
(46:18):
In mid-July the media discoveredthe snafu and, when asked,
sergeant Randy West said well,it's really not our job to
distribute them.
The letters had no postage oraddresses, so commanders decided
(46:38):
to return to sender.
West complained about thefamily's refusal to meet without
immunity and said his team hadtrouble reaching their attorneys
.
They have been busy, we arebusy and we can't seem to
connect with them.
I guess, if you want to makethings easier, we could just
talk to us.
So the Harris's broke thethree-month silence to issue a
(47:03):
statement disputingmisstatements on the letters.
Their attorney insisted Jeffcohad never tried to contact him
about them.
The letters were eventuallyreturned.
Sue Klebold also wrote apologiesin May and she mailed them
directly to the 13.
And this was Brad and MistyBernard's handwritten card.
(47:28):
It says Dear Bernard family, itis with great difficulty and
humility that we write toexpress our profound sorrow over
the loss of your beautifuldaughter, cassie.
She brought joy and love to theworld and she was taken in a
moment of madness.
We wish we had had theopportunity to know her and be
(47:50):
uplifted by her loving spirit.
We will never understand whythis tragedy happened or what we
might have done to prevent it.
We apologize for the role ourson had in your Cassie's death.
We never saw anger or hatred inDylan until the last moments of
his life when we watched inhelpless horror, with the rest
(48:12):
of the world, the reality thatour son shared in the
responsibility for this tragedyis still incredibly difficult
for us to comprehend.
May God comfort you and yourloved ones.
May he bring peace andunderstanding to all of our
wounded hearts.
Sincerely, sue and Tom Clevot.
(48:37):
Misty was moved enough topublish the full text in the
memoir she was drafting.
Misty was moved enough topublish the full text in the
memoir she was drafting.
She generously described theact as courageous.
Tom and Sue lost a son in thesame disaster.
She wrote At least Cassie haddied.
Nobly.
What comfort did the Kleboshave?
Misty also addressed thecharges against the killer's
(49:01):
parents.
Should they have known?
Were they negligent?
How do we know?
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
Have a great week.
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