December 16, 2024 • 74 mins
What ignites such darkness in the human soul? This episode untangles the grim threads of the Columbine High School massacre, shedding light on the calculated actions of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. From their ominous preparations with propane tanks and makeshift bombs to the eerie absence noted by their peers, we chart the path of two young men driven to unleash chaos and horror on April 20, 1999. With chilling precision, they orchestrated an attack that would leave an indelible mark on history.
The madness unfolds with a surreal twist—gunfire mistaken for a game, tranquilizer darts, and the desperate scramble for safety. We recount the terrifying moments inside the school, where the line between reality and nightmare blurred. Amidst the chaos, heroes like Coach Sanders emerged, guiding students to safety. This episode captures the raw fear, the instinctive bravery, and the critical moments that defined a day of unspeakable tragedy.
As the dust settles, the response effort by law enforcement and first responders takes center stage. From the tense actions of Deputy Gardner and Deputy Smoker to the strategic yet chaotic SWAT maneuvers, we examine the complex reality of managing a crisis of this magnitude. The ethical challenges faced by media outlets, the struggle for accurate information, and the heart-wrenching tales of survival intertwine to paint a comprehensive picture of the Columbine tragedy. Join us as we navigate this haunting narrative, reflecting on the harrowing events and their lasting impact on a community and a nation.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part two of the column by
mass murders.
Let's begin.
Dylan was out of the house by5.30.
(00:22):
His parents were still in bedand he called out, you know,
saying goodbye, and shut thedoor behind himself.
They skipped bowling class andwent straight to work.
Dylan scrolled the scheduleinto Eric's day planner under
(00:43):
the heading Make Today Count.
Eric illustrated it with ablazing gun barrel.
First stop was the grocerystore where they met up to
acquire the last of the propanetanks Two for the cafeteria, two
for each car and two for thedecoy.
The big bombs were the heart ofthe attack.
(01:03):
Eric had designed them monthsbefore but had left acquisition
to the final morning.
The boys had stashed most ofthe arsenal in Eric's bedroom
closet and he had faced a coupleof close calls with his parents
.
Already Hiding a cluster of20-pound tanks in there was out
of the question.
They returned to Eric's houseat 7 and then split up.
(01:27):
Eric filled the propane tanks,dylan got the gasoline.
They allotted half an hour toassemble the big bombs and set
up the cars and an hour for onelast round of gear up, practice
and chill, and they gotsomething to eat.
Dylan apparently had potatoskins.
(01:49):
Several friends noticedpeculiarities.
Robin Anderson was surprised tosee Dylan a no-show for
calculus.
He had sounded fine on thephone the previous night.
Then a friend told her thatEric had been missing from third
hour.
The boys caught an occasionalclass together, but never an
(02:09):
entire morning.
Robin hoped Dylan wasn't sickand she made a mental note to
call once she got home.
The friend Brooks Brown had astronger reaction Eric had
missed a test in psychologyclass.
What kind of stunt was that?
Shortly before 11 am, eric andDylan set off with the arsenal.
(02:32):
Dylan wore cargo pants, a blackt-shirt printed with wrath and
his red socks cab turnedbackward as usual.
His cargo pockets were deepenough to conceal most of the
saw-off shotgun before he pulledon the duster.
Eric's T-shirt said NaturalSelection.
(02:54):
They both wore black combatboots and shared a single pair
of black gloves the right onEric, the left on Dylan.
They left two pipe bombs behindat Eric's house, six at Dylan's
, and Eric laid a microcassetteon the kitchen counter with some
(03:15):
final thoughts.
They also left the basementtapes with a final goodbye
recorded.
That morning they droppedseparate cars to a park near
Eric's house, dumped a decoybomb in a field and set the
timers for 11.14.
Comeback operations wereunderway.
(03:36):
They hopped back in their carsand headed for the school.
And headed for the school.
They had to bustle now.
Hustle and bustle because thelast few minutes were going to
be critical.
They couldn't plant the bigbombs until A lunch began.
Fourth period ended at 11.10 am.
(03:59):
Once the bell rang, they onlyhad seven minutes to carry the
bombs in, navigate the turbulentlunch crowd, stash the bombs by
the designated pillars, getback to their cars, gear up,
take cover and prepare to attackEvery.
Pull into the parking lot at11.10, several minutes behind
(04:23):
schedule, a couple of girlsspotted his car as they'd headed
out for lunch.
They honk and wave.
They liked him.
Eric waved back and smiled.
Dylan followed him in no waves.
Dylan drove to his normal spotin the senior lot and parked his
BMW directly in front of thecafeteria when the attack began.
(04:46):
This would afford him a clearsweep of the southwest side of
the building.
The long, wide arc ofgreen-tinted windows that
wrapped the commons on the firstfloor and the library above.
Eric continued on to the smalljunior lot about 100 yards to
(05:06):
Dillon's right.
Eric had the choice spotdirectly facing the student
entrance where the bulk of thesurvivors would presumably flee.
He could also cover the fullsoutheast side of the building
and interlock his fire withDillon's to his left.
Brooks Brown walked out for acigarette and spotted Eric
(05:28):
parking in the wrong lot.
Brooks charged up to confronthim about the test.
By the time he got there, erichad stepped out and was pulling
out a big hulking duffel bag.
And Brooks yeah, what's thematter with you?
We have a test in psychology.
And Eric was calm but insistentand said it doesn't matter
(05:52):
anymore.
Brooks, I like you now Get outof here, go home.
Brooks thought that was strange, but he shook his head and
walked on away from the school.
Eric's friend, nate Dykeman,also caught sight of him
arriving and also found thecircumstances strange.
Eric headed in with his duffelby 11.12,.
(06:15):
They were scheduled to be backat their cars arming up.
A surveillance tape stamped11.14 indicates that they had
still not entered the commons.
They had less than threeminutes.
The timers were set for 1117.
There was only a modest chancethat they could make it to
(06:37):
safety on time and they couldhardly have hoped to be locked
and loaded when the bombs blew.
They could have reset thetimers and sacrificed a few
casualties.
That would have requiredcoordination, as they had parked
across the lot from each otherand it would be risky to expose
(06:57):
the bombs inside the cafeteria.
They could have abandoned theplan, but the decoy bombs might
already be exploding.
Shortly after 11.14, they enterthe commons.
They move inconspicuouslyenough to go unnoticed.
Not one of the 500 witnessesnoticed them or the big bulky
(07:20):
bags.
One of the bags will be foundinches from two tables strewn
with food.
They made it out and armedquickly.
It was just like the drill,except this time each was alone,
close enough for hand signalstoo far to hear.
They strapped on their arsenals, covered them with the dusters.
(07:41):
Time was tight and they brokewith their drill, leaving the
shotguns in the duffel bags.
Each boy had a semi-automaticagainst his body, a shotgun in
his bag and a backpack full ofpipe bombs and crickets.
This is probably the momentthey set the timers on their car
bombs.
(08:01):
It would just be a matter ofseconds.
Now.
Hundreds of kids dead.
As far as they knew, they haveinstigated mass murder already.
The timers were winding down.
Nothing to do but wait.
Surveillance cameras shouldhave caught the killers placing
the bombs.
They would have if either thebombers or the custodian had
(08:25):
been on time.
Every morning the custodianfollowed the same routine.
A few minutes before a lunch hepulled out the pre-lunch tape
and set it aside for laterviewing.
He popped an old, used tapeinto the machine, rewound it and
hit record.
Rewinding took up to fiveminutes, meaning a brief pause
(08:47):
and taping.
Kids could leave all thegarbage they wanted during that
window, but hardly anyone wasaround to do so.
The custodian was running late.
On Tuesday he hit the stopbutton at 11.14 and no bombs
were visible.
Neither was Zarek or Dylan.
While waiting out the rewind,the custodian got a phone call.
(09:12):
He talked and the tape sat alittle longer.
He got the new tape in and hitrecord at 11.22, leaving an
8-minute gap.
The first frame shows the bombsvisible and students near the
windows beginning to react.
Something peculiar outside hascaught their attention.
(09:34):
Columbine ran on a bell schedule.
Most of its inhabitants followa strict routine.
Several of them had broken itTuesday morning.
Several of them had broken itTuesday morning.
Patrick Ireland, the junior,afraid to ask Laura to the prom.
Like Variety Some days he spenta lunch in the library, others
in the cafeteria.
(09:55):
He had stayed up late talkingto Laura on the phone again and
still had to finish his dad'shomework.
So he headed to the librarywith four of his buddies.
As Eric and Dylan positionedthe duffel bags, patrick sat
down at a table just above oneof the bombs.
Cassie Bernal, the evangelicaljunior who had transferred to
(10:17):
Columbine to enlightennon-believers, pulled up a chair
near the window.
It was unusual to find her inthe library at this hour.
She was also behind on herhomework, trying to complete an
English assignment on Macbeth,but she was happy she had
finished the presentation shewould be making to her youth
(10:37):
group that night.
Mr D was oddly absent from thecafeteria.
His secretary had booked aninterview, delaying his rounds.
He sat in his office at theopposite end of the main
corridor waiting for a youngteacher to arrive.
Mr D was about to offer him apermanent position.
(11:00):
Deputy Neil Gardner, thecommunity resource officer,
worked for the Sheriff'sDepartment but was assigned
full-time to Columbine.
He normally ate with the kidsand a lunch was his optimal
chance for bonding a key elementof his job.
He wore the same securityuniform with the bright yellow
(11:22):
shirt every day, so he was easyto spot.
Tuesday Gardner took a breakfrom his normal routine.
He didn't care for the teriyakion the menu.
So he went for takeout fromSubway with his campus boss, an
unarmed civilian security guard.
It was a beautiful day.
Lots of kids were outside sothey decided to check out the
(11:45):
smokers.
They ate their sandwiches inGarner's squad car in the
faculty lot beside the smokers'pit in the opposite side of the
school.
Robin Anderson sat in her carnearby.
She had driven out of thesenior lot just about the time
Eric and Dylan were hauling thebombs in but had missed them.
(12:05):
She had swung around thebuilding to pick up two friends.
She got antsy.
Lunchtime was slipping away.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten,and finally the girls appeared.
Robin snarled at them and theydrove off.
On the opposite end of theschool shots had already been
fired.
(12:25):
A freshman named Danny Robo wentto the commons to meet up with
two buddies.
After a few minutes theydecided to head out for a smoke.
If the bombs had worked thatchoice might have saved them.
He might have gotten out justin time.
They headed out a side exit atthe worst moment, directly
(12:47):
alongside the senior parking lot.
The bombers spent a minute ortwo by their cars.
They knew the diversionary bombshould have already blown three
miles to the south.
In fact, it had fizzled.
A surveyor working in the areahad moved it, and then the pipe
bombs and one of the spray canshad detonated, producing a loud
(13:08):
bang and a grass fire.
But the propane tanks, the mainexplosive force, laid
undisturbed in the burning field.
The decoy was Eric's only bigbomb to ignite at all, but one
of his dumber ideas.
Officials learned of it just asthe shooting started, four
(13:34):
minutes before the first callfrom the school.
The chief effect was to alertauthorities that something was
amiss in the area.
Nothing of consequence wasdelivered.
Eric and Dylan had to proceed onfaith.
As far as Eric and Dylan knew,cops were already speeding south
and they would see the commonsdisintegrate.
(13:54):
Though Each car was positionedfor a perfect view, the
cafeteria would explode in frontof them.
They would watch the classmatesbe torn apart and incinerated
and their high school burning tothe ground.
We'll be right back Now.
(14:16):
It's 11.18, and the school'sstill intact.
Some kids had already made itthrough the lunch lines and were
strolling outside, settlingonto the lawn for a little
picnic.
No sign of disturbance.
The timing devices were notprecise.
No digital readouts withseconds counting down in red
(14:42):
numerals.
There were old-fashioned clockswith a third little alarm,
hand-positioned two-fifths ofthe way between the three and
the four, but they should haveblown by now.
Hundreds of targets streamed outto student entrance.
They hopped into their cars andzipped away.
Time for plan B.
There was no plan B.
(15:05):
Eric had staggering confidencein himself.
He left no indication that heplanned for contingencies.
Dylan left no indication thathe planned much of anything.
They could just proceed to act.
Two Mow the departures down ina crossfire in advance on the
(15:28):
exits, as scripted.
They still could have toppedMcVie, but they didn't.
The bomb failure appears to haverattled one of the boys.
No one observed what happenednext.
Either boy might have panic,but Eric was unflappable, the
(15:55):
reverse of his partner.
The physical evidence alsopoints to Dylan.
Eric apparently acted swiftlyto retrieve his emotional young
partner.
We don't know whether theyemployed their hand signals or
how they came together.
We know that Eric was in theprime location yet abandoned it
to come to Dylan's and Ericmoved quickly.
(16:15):
Within two minutes Eric hadfigured out the bombs had fell,
grabbed his packs, crossed thelot into Dylan's car, rushed
with him to the building,climbed the external stairs to
the west exit.
That's the first place theywere observed at 1119.
(16:37):
The new position set them on thehighest point on campus where
they could survey both lots andall the exits on that side of
the building.
But it took them away fromtheir primary target the student
entrance.
Still disgorging students, theycould no longer triangulate or
(16:57):
advance aggressively withoutseparating.
At 1119, they opened the duffelbags at the top of the stairs,
pulled out the shotguns andstrapped them to their bodies.
They locked and loaded thesemi-automatics and one of them
(17:18):
yelled go go.
And somebody almost certainlyEric open fired.
Eric wheeled around and shot atanyone he could see.
Dylan cheered him on.
He rarely fired.
They hid pedestrians among thetrees, picnickers to the south,
(17:39):
kids coming up the stairs to theeast.
They toss pipe bombs down thestairs into the grass, onto the
roof and they share a whole lotof boots and hoots and howls and
hearty laughs.
Rachel Scott and her friendRichard Castaldo were the first
(18:00):
down.
They had been eating theirlunch in the grass.
Eric shot Richard in the armsand torso.
He hit Rachel in the chest andhead.
Rachel died instantly.
Richard played dead.
Eric fell for it.
Danny and his smoking buddiesLance Kirkland and Sean Graves
(18:23):
were headed up the dirt pathtoward their stairs.
They saw the gunman firing, butthey assumed it was a paintball
game or a senior prank and itlooked like fun.
They rushed straight toward theshooters to get closer to the
action.
Danny got out ahead, making ithalfway up the stairs.
Eric pivoted and fired hiscarbine rifle.
(18:48):
A shot tore through Danny'sleft knee, in the front and out
the back.
He stumbled and began to fall.
Eric fired again and again asDanny collapsed.
He took a second bullet to thechest and a third to the abdomen
.
The upper round went straightthrough him as well, causing
(19:12):
severe trauma to his heart.
It stopped pumping immediately.
The third shot lacerated hisliver and stomach because it
made your organ damage andlodging inside.
Lance tried to catch Danny butrealized he had been hit too
multiple times in the chest, leg, knee and foot.
(19:33):
Danny's face hit the concretesidewalk.
Death was almost instantaneous.
Lance went down on the grass.
He blacked out but continued tobreathe.
Sean burst out laughing.
He was sure it was paintball.
They were part of the game.
Now Sean felt a shot zip by hisneck.
(19:55):
It left a cool breeze in hiswake.
He felt a couple of pricks likean IV needle being pulled out.
He did not realize that he hadbeen shot.
He looked around.
Both his friends were down.
Pain signals reached Sean'sbrain and it felt like someone
had kicked him in the back.
He ran back for the door theyhad come out.
(20:17):
He nearly made it, but the painovercame him.
His legs gave out and hecollapsed.
He couldn't feel his legsanymore.
He could not understand whathad happened.
He seemed to have been shot bya tranquilizer gun.
Eric turned again and spottedfive kids under a clump of pines
(20:38):
in the grass.
He fired and the kids took offrunning.
One fell, he played dead, oh soAnother took a hit but kept on
running.
The last three got away clean.
The shooters kept moving.
Lance regained consciousness.
He felt someone hovering abovehim.
(20:59):
He reached up toward the guytucked on his pant leg and he
cried for help.
It was the gunman.
He said sure, I'll help.
The wait seemed like forever toLance.
He described the next event asa sonic blast that twisted his
(21:23):
face apart.
He watched chunks of it flyaway.
Breath came rapidly, air inblood out and he faded out again
.
Dylan made his way down the hilltowards Sean.
Several people in the cafeteriasaw him coming.
Someone ran out, grabbed Seanand started dragging him in.
(21:44):
An adult stopped him.
She said it was dangerous tomove a seriously injured person.
Sean ended up propped in theentrance with the door pressed
against him.
Someone tried to step over himon the way out, planted a foot
into Sean's back and said ohsorry, dude.
A janitor came by and reassuredSean.
(22:07):
He held Sean's hand, said hewould stay with him but he had
to help the kids escape first.
He advised Sean to play deadand Sean did.
Dylan fell for it again, orpretended to.
He stepped right over Sean'scrumpled body and walked inside.
A stampede was underway inthere.
(22:29):
The lunch crowd had panicked.
Most took cover under tables,some ran for the stairs.
Coach Sanders heard thecommotion in the faculty lounge
and ran to the danger.
I don't think he even thoughtabout it.
His instinct was to save kids.
Dave burst into the commons,tried to take charge.
(22:52):
Two custodians followed him toassist.
Sanders, directed students toget down.
He rethought that prettyquickly and then he yelled run.
Students started running andSanders looked around and there
were exits in three directions,but most of them looked bad.
(23:14):
There was one plausible optionacross the commons and up the
wide concrete stairway to thesecond floor.
No telling what was up there,but anything was better than
this.
Sanders led the way.
He ran across the open roomunprotected, waving his arms to
get the kids' attention, yellingfor them to follow.
(23:35):
The Tavers offered little trueprotection, but they felt a lot
safer.
It was scary out in the open.
The kids trusted Coach Sanders,though.
A wave of students swirledbehind Sanders.
Most of the 488 people in thecommons followed him toward the
stairs.
He bolted to the top and spunaround to direct traffic To the
(23:57):
left.
To the left, he said, and hesent them all down the corridor
to the east exit away from thesenior parking lot.
The whole time he was justsaving people.
One of the students said hetook me and just pushed me into
a room.
Some students stopped to warnothers, some just ran.
(24:19):
Someone ran into the choir roomand yell there's a gun.
Half the kids took over uh andstarted running, took cover.
The other half fled A few doorsdown in science room three
students were immersed in achemistry test.
They heard something like rocksbeing thrown against the
(24:42):
windows, but the teacher assumedit was a prank and he said to
stay seated and concentrate onthe test.
Dave Sanders stayed behinduntil every kid had passed.
The tail end of the mop wasjust pushing its way to the
stairs.
As Dylan stepped inside thecafeteria there were 24 steps.
(25:05):
About 100 kids were caught onthe staircase racing for cover.
On the second floor they werewedged between each other and
the steel railings, nowhere totake cover.
They were arrayed at differentheights for easy access.
Crouching was not an option.
Anyone attempting to stop wouldget trampled.
(25:28):
The cafeteria was roughly 100feet wide.
Dylan was in easy firing range.
One or two pipe bombs or oneburst from his Tech-9 would have
halted the entire advance.
Dylan took a few steps in,lifted his weapon up to firing
(25:48):
position.
This was the second time sincesetting the timers that Dylan
separated from Eric.
For the second time Dylanappeared to lose his nerve.
He swept his rifle in an arcacross the room.
He watched the studentsdisappear up the stairs and he
did not fire.
He had only engaged his weapona few times.
(26:10):
Dylan looked around, thenturned and stepped back over
Sean in the doorway.
The heavy door whacked Seanhard again in its grip.
Dylan rejoined Eric at the topof the stairs.
It's not clear why Dylan madehis cafeteria excursion.
(26:31):
Many have speculated that hecame down to see what went wrong
with the bombs, but he neverwent near them.
He made no attempt atdetonation.
It's more likely that Eric senthim to check for opportunities
and rev up the body count.
Dylan did nothing on his own.
Dylan did nothing on his own,but Eric amused himself heartily
(26:53):
at the top of the stairs,shooting, laughing, hurling pie
bombs, he spotted a junior namedAnna Marie Holthalter getting
up from the curb to make a runfor it.
Eric hit her with a 9mm round.
She kept running and he hit heragain and this time she went
(27:15):
down.
A friend picked her up, draggedher to the building and got her
out of Eric's sight.
Then he let go of her and ran.
He ducked behind a car in thesenior lot and a pipe bomb
exploded where Anne Marie hadfirst collapsed and one of the
(27:36):
killers yelled this is awesome.
By the time Dylan rejoined Ericthey had used up all the easy
targets.
Everybody caught outside hadrun like crazy or hidden.
One last pack was still in theopen.
Outside had run like crazy orhidden.
One last pack was still in theopen.
(27:56):
These students had fled acrossthe senior lot, climbed over the
chain link fence and wereracing across the soccer field
near the base of Rebel Hill.
Eric had a go at them but theywere too far, not out of range,
just too hard to hit.
Dylan fired at the distanttargets, bringing his total shot
count up to five.
(28:18):
It was 11-23.
The killers had enjoyed fourhitting minutes.
Deputy Gardner was the firstofficer alerted.
Gardner was the first officeralerted.
The custodian radioed Gardneras soon as he started the new
surveillance tape and caughtsight of kids near the windows.
The custodian sounded scared.
(28:40):
The first 911 call came throughto Jeffco.
At the same time A girl wasinjured in the senior parking
lot.
The caller said I think she'sparalyzed.
The dispatch hit the police vanat 11.23, just as Gardner drove
around the building to thecommons and Dylan rejoined Eric
(29:01):
at the top of the stairs Femaledown.
The dispatcher said Gardner sawsmoke rising and kids running.
He heard gunshots andexplosions in a flurry of
dispatches on his radio.
He couldn't quite tell wherethe commotion was coming from.
Four minutes into the mayhemmuch of the student body was
(29:23):
oblivious.
Hundreds were running for theirlives but more sat quietly in
class.
Many heard the commotion, fewsensed any danger.
Most found it annoying.
The chaos and the solitude wenton side by side, often only
yards apart, as Dave Sandersushered kids to the common
(29:45):
staircase, part-time art teacherPatty Nielsen paced above him
on whole monitor.
Duty Nielsen paced above him onwhole monitor.
Duty Sanders herded the lunchcrowd up the stairway toward her
, but then down a parallelhallway.
Nearly 500 students' kidscharged the length of the
building.
Nielsen never so heard them.
(30:06):
She heard the racket outside,though, and some kids ran up
saying they heard gunfire.
Nielsen was annoyed.
She thought it was a prank,obviously, or a video shoot that
had gone on far too long.
She looked down the corridor tothe west exit and through the
large glass panes in the doorsshe could see a boy with his
(30:30):
back to her.
He had a gun.
He was firing it into thesenior lot.
She assumed it was a prop, aloud one and totally
inappropriate.
Nielsen stormed down thehallway to tell him to knock it
off.
A junior named Brian rackedalong to watch or tag along, I
(30:52):
should say To watch and theyapproached the exit just as the
shooters ran out of targets.
There were two sets of doorsthere, separated by an airlock.
Nielsen and Brian passed thefirst set and reached for the
second handles.
Eric spotted them.
He turned, raised the rifle tohis shoulder, aimed at Nielsen,
(31:15):
and smiled.
And then he fired.
The glass shattered but thebullet missed.
Nielsen still thought it was aBB gun and then she saw the size
of the hole and that's when shescreamed dear God, dear God,
dear God.
She turned to run.
He fired again Another miss,but glass and metal shards and
(31:38):
possibly a gracing bullet torethrough the back of her shoulder
.
It burned.
Brian had turned too.
Nielsen heard him grunt, sawhim lurch forward, his back arch
, his arms flared and he hit thefloor hard.
That looked bad, but he gotright up onto his hands and
(32:00):
knees to scurry back through thefirst doors.
It was shrapnel, just like hers.
She got down too and theycrawled a short distance back to
the first doors.
They got one partially open andsqueezed through.
Once they had that door behindthem they rose to their feet and
ran.
Nielsen was desperate for aphone.
(32:21):
The library seemed like anobvious destination.
It was just around the corner,spanning most of the south
hallway, behind a glass wall,spanning most of the south
hallway, behind a glass wall.
Nilsen saw dozens of kidsmilling a ball inside, plainly
visible to the shooters shepictured on her heels.
She never looked back to see.
(32:46):
Nilsen ran into the library towarn them and she yelled there's
a kid with a gun.
There were no adults and thatsurprised Nilsen.
Teacher Rich Long had rushed inmoments before, yelled at
everyone to get out and thenfled to warn others.
Patty Nilsen had the oppositeinstinct.
(33:08):
She ordered them down.
Then Nilsen grabbed the phonebehind the counter and punched
in 9 and then 911.
She concentrated her detailslike an extra nine for an
outside line.
Nilsson expected the shooter toarrive any moment now, but Eric
(33:30):
was not following.
He had been distracted.
Deputy Gardner had pulled intohis lot with lights flashing and
siren blaring.
Gardner had stepped out of hiscar, still confused about what
he was walking into.
Eric opened fire.
He got off 10 rounds, allmisses.
Dylan did nothing, oh, mrsDillon did nothing.
(33:56):
Gardner took cover behind hispolice car and Eric didn't even
hit that.
Then his rifle jammed.
Eric fought to clear thechamber.
Dillon fled into the school.
Gardner saw his opening and helaid his pistol across the roof
and squeezed off four shots.
Eric spun around like he hadbeen hit Neutralized.
Gardner thought what a relief.
Seconds later Eric was firingagain.
(34:19):
It was a short burst.
Then he retreated inside.
It was 11.24.
The outside ordeal lasted fiveminutes.
Eric did most of the shooting.
He fired his 9mm rifle 47 timesin that period and did not use
(34:40):
his shotgun.
Dylan got just three shots offwith a Tech 9 handgun and two
with his shotgun.
They headed down the hallwaytoward the library.
Dave Sanders heard the shotswhen Eric fired on Patty Nilsen.
Coach Sanders ran toward thegunfire.
He passed the library entrancejust moments after Nilsen ran in
(35:03):
.
He spotted the killers at theother end of the hallway.
He wheeled around and ran forthe corner.
A boy peeked out of the choirroom just in time to see him
flee.
Sanders wasn't just running forit, he was trying to clear
students out of the line of fireand yell get down, get down,
(35:24):
we'll be right back.
The story took 28 minutes to hitlocal television.
The networks quickly followed.
Something awful was happeningat a high school near Denver.
Coverage began with confusedreports about a shooting in the
(35:45):
outlying suburbs.
No confirmation on injuries,but multiple shots, as many as
nine and possible explosions.
Automatic weapons might beinvolved, possibly even grenades
.
A fire had been reported.
Swat teams were mobilizing.
At 11.54 am, denver time, cnncut to DEFCO and stayed there
(36:07):
non-stop all afternoon.
To Jeffco and stay therenon-stop all afternoon.
The broadcast networks beganinterrupting the soaps.
Columbine quickly overshadowedthe war.
No one seemed to know what hadactually happened.
Was it still happening?
Apparently, as the networks wentlive with the story, gunfire
(36:31):
and explosions were eruptingsomewhere inside that school.
Outside it was a mayhem.
Shoppers circled, police,firefighters, parents,
journalists had descended on thecampus.
Nobody was going inside.
Fresh waves of support troopswere arriving by the minutes,
(36:52):
but they just crowded around thebuilding.
Occasionally students wouldscurry out.
Local stations kept surveyingthe area hospitals and a
journalist reported that thereare no patients yet.
But they were expecting onevictim with an ankle wound.
Jeffco 911 operators wereoverwhelmed.
(37:15):
Hundreds of students were stillinside the building.
Many had cell phones and werecalling with conflicted stories.
Thousands of parents from allaround the area were dialing at
the same center demandinginformation.
Many students gave up on 911and called the TV stations.
(37:36):
Local anchors beganinterviewing them live on the
air and the cable networks pickup the feeds.
Witnesses confirm injuries.
There seem to be no enoughwitnesses, though.
Most have seen chaos, but noone causing it.
A senior described the firstmoments of awareness.
(37:58):
He said OK, I was sitting inmath class and all of a sudden,
we look out, there's people thatare sprinting down the math
hall and we open the door wehear a shot, a loud bang, and
then we hear some guy go holycrap, there's a guy with a gun.
So everybody starts freakingout.
(38:19):
One of my friends goes up tothe door and says there's a guy
standing in there.
We evacuate to the corner ofour classroom and my teacher
just doesn't know what to dobecause she's so freaked.
So there appear to be severalshooters, or boys or white or
Columbine students.
(38:40):
Some were shooting in theparking lot, some in the
cafeteria, some upstairs, whilerobbing the halls.
Somebody was positioned on theroof.
Some of the assault team woret-shirts, others had bands and
long black trench coats.
One pair included one of each.
Some had hats.
One or two were hiding behindski masks.
(39:02):
Some of this mix-up wasstandard crime scene confusion.
Eyewitness testimony isnotoriously unreliable,
especially when witnesses wereunder duress.
Memories could jumble andwitnesses imagine missing
details without realizingthey're doing it.
But much of thismisunderstanding was due to
(39:26):
specific factors.
Eric, he discarded his trenchcoat at the top of the stairs
almost as soon as he beganshooting Dylan.
He kept his on until he got tothe library.
Each costume change createdanother shooter.
The school's location on a hill,with nearby entrances on both
(39:50):
floors, allowed Eric and Dylanto be seen upstairs and
downstairs almost simultaneouslyto be seen upstairs and
downstairs almost simultaneously.
The long-range weaponsscattered gunfire over a
shooting radius hundreds ofyards wide.
Distant witnesses had no ideawhere the shooters were.
(40:11):
They only knew they were underattack.
Some witnesses listenedcarefully and correctly located
the source of the turbulence.
But the bomb blast often ledthem astray.
Particularly when bombs landedon the roof, several kids were
sure something was coming fromup there.
(40:31):
They spotted a frightenedair-conditioner repairman and
instantly identify him as therooftop gunman.
Word whipped through theColumbine community.
Kids called home on their cellphones the minute they got to
safety or someplace they hopedwould remain safe.
(40:53):
About 500 students were offcampus, either for lunch or sick
or cutting class.
The first sign of a problemcame when they hid police
barricades as they tried toreturn.
Cops were everywhere, more copsthan they had ever seen.
(41:13):
Nate Dykeman was one of the kidsheading back in.
He was stunned by the storieshe heard.
Nate had gone home for lunch,same as he did every day, but on
the way out he had seensomething peculiar Eric walking
into the building from the wrongparking lot at the wrong time.
He should have been walking out.
(41:33):
Eric and Dylan had both beenmissing that morning.
They were up to somethingobviously Odd that they had not
included him or Cole.
At least Maybe not Eric, hewasn't the most thoughtful
friend, but Dylan Dylan was,dylan would have Cole.
There have been some weirdstuff going on between those two
(41:56):
lately pipe bombs and guns.
When Nate heard about theshooting he got nervous.
When someone mentioned thetrench coats, that sealed it and
Nate thought this isn'thappening, this cannot be
happening.
He ran into his girlfriend whowas stopped at the intersection
(42:18):
and she was also a good friendof Eric's.
She followed Nate home and thenNate did the same thing nearly
everyone was doing.
He started dialing friends,checking in to make sure they
were all safe.
He wanted to call Dylan's house, but this was just way too
scary.
He wanted to call Dylan's house, but this was just way too
(42:40):
scary.
Soon he thought to himself hewould call soon.
So he checked on some otherfriends first, while Deputy
Gardner was firing at Eric.
He knew help was on the way andhe heard at the police radio
(43:01):
traffic that somebody saidfemale down Jeffco issued a
metro-wide mutual aid requestprompting police officers,
firefighters and paramedics fromaround the city to begin racing
toward the foothills.
The police band got socongested so quickly that
Gardner couldn't alert dispatchthat he had arrived.
(43:22):
After engaging Eric, gardner gotback in his car and ready for
backup.
This time he got through.
Gardner followed protocol anddid not pursue Eric inside
Deputy Paul Smoker, who was amotorcycle cop riding a speeding
ticket on the edge of ClementPark when the first dispatch
(43:46):
came in.
So he radioed that he wasresponding and got his
motorcycle into the grass.
He tore through soccer fieldsand baseball diamonds and
arrived at the north side of thebuilding just moments after
Gardner's gunplay.
He parked behind an equipmentshed where a bleeding boy had
(44:09):
taken shelter.
Another patrol car pulled upright behind him and then
another.
They all wound around thecorner from Gardner, just out of
sight.
The boy told them he had beenshot by Ned Harris.
Nobody had any paper so adeputy wrote his name on the
(44:29):
hood of his patrol car.
They ran forward to helpanother bleeding student lying
in the grass.
As they approached they passedinto Deputy Gardner's sight line
around the corner.
It had been two minutes sinceGardner's gun battle with Eric
and he was out of his car withhis pistol drawn.
(44:50):
Smoker and Gardner spotted eachother as Eric reappeared inside
the west exit doorway andGardner yelled there he is, and
he opened fire again.
Eric ducked back behind thedoorframe and he poked his rifle
(45:10):
through the shattered pane andreturned fire.
A couple of students were onthe move again and Eric tried to
nail them too.
Smoker could see where Gardnerwas firing, but the doorway was
blocked from view.
He maneuvered down to where hecould see Eric and got off three
(45:31):
shots.
Eric retreated.
Smoker heard gunfire inside.
More students ran out of thebuilding.
He did not pursue.
Deputies continued arriving.
They attended to the scared andwounded and struggled to
determine what they were upagainst.
Witnesses came to them and kidssaw that.
(45:54):
Their police cars at the top ofthe hill and came running.
Some were bleeding.
They were all desperate.
They lined up behind the carsand crouched near the officers
for protection.
They provided lots of accurateinformation.
Reports on the police radioconflicted wildly, but any one
(46:14):
group in one location tended tooffer remarkable, consistent
accounts.
These kids described two gunmenin black trench coats shooting
Uzi's or shotguns and throwinghand grenades.
At least one appeared to behigh school age and some victims
knew them.
Kids kept arriving and the carswere feeble.
(46:37):
Protection, protection and thecrowd were likely to draw
attention.
The deputies decided it wasparamount to evacuate them.
They directed some of the boysto tear their shirts into strips
and treat one another's woundswhile they devised an escape
plan.
And treat one another's woundswhile they devised an escape
(47:00):
plan.
They decided to line severalpatrol cars up as a defensive
wall and shuttle the students tosafer ground beneath them.
Every cop had been trained forevents like this.
Protocol call for containment.
The deputies broke into watchteams.
They could cover a handful ofthe 25 exits and protect those
(47:23):
students who were already out,and they called it setting up a
perimeter.
And they would repeat theperimeter phrase endlessly.
That afternoon Paramedics wereestablishing triage areas away
from the school and the deputiesworked on getting the kids
there.
Cops would lay down suppressivefire to protect evacuations and
(47:47):
scare off opportunistic attacks.
They had no idea whether thegunman was still present or
interested.
The officers did not observe orengage the gunmen for some time.
Nearly arriving officerscovered additional exits.
(48:07):
Gunfire was audible to thefirst officers and continued
through the arrival of hundredsmore.
Deafening explosions kepterupting inside the school.
The exterior walls along thecafeteria and the library
rumbled from some of the blast.
Deputy Smoker could see thegreen windows buckling.
(48:30):
Half a dozen students ran outthe cafeteria doors after one
shock wave.
They made it to another deputywho was guarding the south exits
and the deputy thought theshooters might flee the building
across the field and hop achain-link fence separating the
school grounds from the firstsubdivision.
(48:53):
And so one of the things thatDeputy Smoke said later is that
quote we didn't know who the badguy was, but we soon realized
the sophistication of theweapons.
These were big bombs, big guns.
We didn't have a clue who theywere, but they were hurting kids
(49:16):
.
End quote who they were, butthey were hurting kids end quote
.
When the networks went livearound noon, hundreds of
uniformed responders werepresent.
35 law enforcement agencieswere soon represented.
They have gathered anassortment of vehicles,
including a Loomis Fargo armoredtruck whose driver had been
(49:38):
working in the area.
One student counted 35 policecars speeding past him on his
one-mile ride home from school,ambulances and police cars
barging over mediums andmotorcycle cops weaving through
(50:00):
opposite traffic almost killingthemselves.
Half a dozen cops arrived everyminute.
Nobody seemed to be in charge.
Some cops wanted to assault thebuilding but that was not the
plan.
Whose plan was this?
Where had it come from?
They reinforced the perimeterand Eric had exchanged fire with
two deputies at 11.24 and 11.26am.
(50:24):
Five and seven minutes into theattack, law enforcement would
not fire on the killers again oradvance on the building.
Until shortly afternoon.
Ribbons of yellow police tapemarked the perimeter.
No one was getting out of there.
(50:45):
The issue became getting inOnlookers.
Journalists, parents wereappearing as fast as policemen
and they presented little threatto the deputies but significant
danger to themselves.
Misty Bernard was one of theearly arrivals.
She did not know that herdaughter was in the library or
(51:08):
what that might portend.
She only knew that Cassie wasmissing along with her freshman
son Chris was missing along withher freshman son Chris.
Misty's yard backed right up tothe soccer field where Eric had
fired on students.
Misty was a working mom so shewas not present to hear Eric
(51:30):
fire tour her house.
But her husband Brad was.
He had come home sick, heard acouple of pops but thought
nothing of them Firecrackers,maybe some pranksters.
He lived beside a high schoolso he was used to commotion.
He didn't even put his shoes onto have a look.
(51:52):
Half an hour later, misty satdown to lunch with a co-worker
and got a disturbing call.
It was probably nothing, butshe called Brad to check.
He put on his shoes and Bradwent out back and peered over
the fence and he saw that theschoolyard was swarming with
(52:15):
cops.
School yard was swarming withcops.
Misty Bernard headed for thehigh school and Brad hung by the
phone At the perimeter.
Officers struggled to hold backthe parental onslaught.
Tv anchors, broadcasters andtreaties said quote as difficult
as it may be, please stay away.
(52:36):
End quote.
But fresh waves of moms anddads kept swarming over the hill
.
Misty gave up.
Two rendezvous points had beenset up and Misty chose the
public library on the other sideof Clement Park.
She found very few students andshe started asking the question
(52:58):
where were they when theypoured out of the high school?
Students have seen two mainoptions a subdivision across
Pierce Street or the wide openfields of Clement Park.
Hardly anyone chose the park.
They crouched behind houses.
Anyone chose to park.
They crouched behind houses,worked themselves under
(53:18):
shrubbery, rolled under cars.
Any semblance of protection.
Some pounded frantically onfront doors but most of the
houses were locked.
Stay-at-home moms startedwaving strangers in off the
street and kids were piling intohouses, and one student said
(53:40):
that there must have been 150 or200 kids piled into one house.
The second rendezvous point wasLeawood Elementary, set in the
heart of that neighborhood, somost of the survivors gravitated
there.
Part of that neighborhood, somost of the survivors gravitated
(54:01):
there.
Parents were sent to theauditorium where kids were
paraded across the stage.
Moms shrieked, hugs, abounded,unclaimed.
Kids stopped quietly backstagebecause the kids were hard to
keep in one place.
So they decided to sign insheets to be posted on the wall
so that the parents could seeevidence in the child's own hand
(54:22):
.
There was no parade ofsurvivors at the public library.
Misty was conflicted, so livingfor Leawood was risky.
The roads have been closed soeverything was by foot.
Now she could easily miss herkids in transit.
(54:44):
A local minister got up on achair and shouted Please stay
here, the fax would arrive atany minute.
He assured them they would bemuch better off waiting.
The fax was a copy of thesigning sheets from Leawood.
Misty waited impatiently for itsarrival.
(55:06):
A slump of students wouldappear now and then over the
hill.
If they were not claimedimmediately, a pack of moms
would descend to interrogatethem and always the same
question how do you get out?
They needed reassurance thatthere was a way out and one
(55:27):
young girl said I didn't knowwhat to do.
We heard guns and I wasstanding there and the teacher
was crying and pointing to theauditorium and everybody was
running and screaming and weheard an explosion.
She said I guess that was abomb or something.
I didn't see this, but we weretrying to find out and I guess
(55:49):
they shot again and everyonestarted running and I was like
what's going on?
They started shooting again andthere was complete panic.
People were shoving their andthey were going into the
elevators and people would pushpeople off and we were all just
running.
Most of the stories sputteredout like that Disjointed
(56:11):
flurries of recreated mayhem.
The words ran together untilthe witness ran out of breath.
Every escape was different, butthey ended the same.
The kids escaped.
The accumulation was soothingand Misty questioned every kid
(56:31):
and she started shouting theirnames Cassie, chris.
She worked her way across thecrowd and back and nothing.
Coman had fallen to the newlyelected Jeffco sheriff, john
Stone.
He had not yet faced a murdercase in office.
The Metro cops were horrifiedto discover that the county was
(56:52):
in charge.
Many were open with theirdisgust.
City and even suburban officersthought of sheriff's deputies
as security guards.
They were the guys who shadoweddefendants to court from the
jail.
They stood guard while the realcops testified about the crimes
they have responded to andinvestigated.
(57:14):
The growths increased when theylearned who was heading the
command.
John Stone looked the part of anold West Sheriff.
He was big and a burly guy.
He had a pot belly and a thickgray mustache, weathered skin.
He wore the uniform, the badgeand the pistol.
(57:36):
But he was a politician.
He had been a county supervisorfor 12 years.
He had run for sheriff lastNovember and had taken the oath
in January.
He had appointed John Dunawayas his undersheriff, who was
another bureaucrat.
The sheriff and his teamdefended the perimeter.
Gun blast came and went.
(57:58):
The SWAT team seethed.
When was somebody going toallow them to advance?
Dunaway, named Lieutenant DavidWalter incident commander.
Operations would now bedirected by a man who did police
work for a living, withoversight from Dunaway and
(58:19):
Sheriff Stone.
The three set up a command postin a trailer stationed in
Clement Park half a mile northof the school.
Just after noon a SWAT teammade its first approach on the
school, the officerscommandeered a fire truck for
cover.
Its first approach on theschool, the officers
commandeered a fire truck forcover.
(58:40):
One man drove the truck slowlytoward the building while a
dozen more moved alongside Nearthe entrance.
They split in half, six and six.
Lieutenant Terry Manwaring'steam held back to light down
suppressive fire and later workits way to another entrance At
(59:01):
approximately 12.06,.
The other six charged inside.
Additional SWAT team membersarrived moments later and
followed them.
The team thought they were instriking distance of the
cafeteria.
They were on the opposite endof the building.
Lieutenant Manwaring had beeninside Columbine many times but
(59:24):
he was unaware it had beenremodeled and the cafeteria
moved.
So he was perplexed.
The fire alarm had not beensilenced.
The men used hand signals.
Every cupboard or broom closethad to be treated as a hot zone.
Many doors were locked so theyblasted them open with rifle
(59:46):
fire.
Kids trapped in classroomsheard gunfire steadily
approaching.
Death appeared imminent.
Parents, reporters, even copsoutside heard the shots and came
to similar conclusions.
One room at a time, the teamworked methodically toward the
killers.
It would take three hours toreach their bodies.
(01:00:10):
On the west side, where thekillers were active, a fire
department team staged a riskieroperation.
Half a dozen bodies remained onor near the lawn outside the
cafeteria.
Several showed signs of life.
Anne-marie, lance and Sean hadbeen bleeding for 40 minutes.
Deputies along the perimetermoved in closer to provide cover
(01:00:34):
while three paramedics and anEMT rushed in.
Eric appeared in the secondfloor library window and fired
on them.
Two deputies shot back, otherslaid down suppressive fire.
The paramedics got threestudents out.
Danny was pronounced dead andleft behind Eric disappeared
(01:01:01):
dead and left behind Ericdisappeared.
Lieutenant men wearing half ofthe SWAT team had inched around
outside the building using thefire truck for cover.
They arrived at the oppositeside half an hour later.
They rescued Richard Castaldofrom the lawn around 1235, an
hour and a quarter after he wasshot.
They made another approach toretrieve Rachel Scott and they
(01:01:30):
brought her back as far as thefire truck and then they
determined that she was dead andaborted and they laid her there
on the ground.
And finally they went for DannyRobo, unaware of the prior
finding, so they left him on thesidewalk.
(01:01:50):
At 1.15, a second SWAT teamcharged the building from the
senior lot, smashed a windowinto the teacher's lounge and
vaulted in.
The officers quickly enteredthe adjacent cafeteria but found
it nearly deserted.
Food was left half-eaten on thetables there were books,
(01:02:11):
backpacks, assorted garbagefloated about the room, which
had been flooded by thesprinkler system.
Water was three to four incheshigh and rising.
A fire had blackened ceilingtiles and melted down some
chairs.
They did not notice the duffelbags held down by the weight of
(01:02:32):
the bombs.
One bag had burned away.
The propane tank sat exposed,mostly above water, but it
blended into the debris.
So signs of panic wereeverywhere.
But no injuries, no bodies, noblood.
The team was shocked to discoverdozens of terrified students
(01:02:53):
and staff.
They were crouched in storageclosets up above the ceiling
tiles or plainly visible undercafeteria tables.
One teacher had climbed intothe ceiling and tried to crawl
clear through the ductwork outto safety to warn police, but
had fallen through and requiredmedical care.
(01:03:14):
Two men were shivering in thefreezer, so cold they could
barely lift their arms.
The SWAT team searched in andshuttled them out the window.
They came in.
At first that was easy, but thefurther they moved, the more
officers they had to leavebehind to secure the route.
(01:03:36):
They brought in more manpowerto assist Overhead, circling
steadily.
There were chopper blades thatbeat out a steady sound.
And Robin Anderson.
She watched this all from theparking lot.
(01:04:00):
She had headed to Dairy Queenwith her friends.
She zipped through thedrive-thru, circled back to
school and there were a wholelot of cops.
When they got back, officerswere assembling the perimeter
but the entrance to the seniorlot was still open.
So Robin pulled into her space.
(01:04:21):
A cop strolled up with his gundrawn and said Stay where you
are.
He warned it was already toolate to back out.
Robin and her friends wouldwait in her car for two and a
half hours.
Robin ducked when she saw Ericappear in the library window.
She couldn't tell it was him.
She was too far back.
(01:04:44):
All she could make out was aguy in a white t-shirt firing a
rifle in her general direction.
Sorry about that, I have alittle bit of bronchitis going
on.
So anyway, um, she couldn'trecognize that it was eric.
(01:05:10):
So all she could tell was um,you know, a guy in the white
t-shirt firing a rifle in theirgeneral direction.
Robin looked over to herfriend's spaces.
You know Eric, dylan and Zach.
They have assigned spots therein a row.
(01:05:34):
They could see.
She could see Zach's car, butEric's and Dylan's cars were
missing.
Nate Dykeman was terrified ofwho might be responsible.
So he had called most of hisclose friends but had held off
(01:05:56):
on Eric and Dylan.
But had held off on Eric andDylan, he had been hoping to
hear from them.
Hoping but not really expecting.
Dylan would break his heart.
They had been tied for yearsand Nate spent a lot of time at
his house and Tom and SueClaiborne had looked after him.
Nate had a lot of trouble athome and the Claibornes had been
(01:06:17):
after him.
Nate had a lot of trouble athome and the Claibornes had been
like a second mom and dad.
Dylan did not call Around noonNate died at his house.
Tom Claiborne would be homebecause he worked from home and
you know he was hopefullythinking that Dylan was with him
(01:06:38):
.
So Tom picked up and he askedfor Dylan and he said no, dylan
was not there, he's in school.
And Nate said no, actually heisn't.
Dylan had not been in class andNate didn't want to worry Tom.
(01:06:58):
But there had been a shooting.
There had been descriptions,the gunmen were in trench coats
and Nate knew several kids withtrench coats.
He was trying to account forall of them.
He hated breaking the news buthe had to say it.
He thought Dylan was involved.
(01:07:19):
Tom went up to Dylan's room andchecked his closet for the coat
and he said oh my God, it's nothere.
Tom was shocked and Nate saylater quote I thought he was
going to like drop the phone.
He just could not believe thatthis could possibly be happening
(01:07:41):
and his son was involved.
And so Tom told Nate pleasekeep me informed.
Whatever you hear.
Tom got off the phone and heturned on the TV and there it
was everywhere.
So he called his wife, sue, andSue came home.
(01:08:02):
Tom called their older son.
He and Sue had kicked Byron outfor using drugs so they would
not tolerate that behavior.
But this was too important.
Tom apparently withheld hisfears about Dylan.
Byron told co-workers that hewas terrified.
(01:08:23):
His brother was trapped and hewas also worried about younger
friends still in school.
And lots of Byron's workmateswere connected to the school, so
they all headed home.
Lots of Byron's workmates wereconnected to the school, so they
all headed home.
Tom Kleber would call 911 towarn them that his son might be
(01:08:43):
involved and he also called alawyer.
The televised version of thedisaster was running 30 minutes
to an hour behind the cops' view.
Anchors dutifully repeated theperimeter concept.
The cops had sealed off theperimeter.
But what were all those troopsdoing exactly?
(01:09:03):
There were hundreds out there.
Everyone seemed to be millingabout.
Anchors started wandering aloudand luckily no one seemed to be
seriously injured.
Around 1230, the story took itsfirst grisly turn.
Local TV reporters gainedaccess to the triage areas and
(01:09:25):
it was awful so much blood itwas hard to identify the
injuries.
Lots of kids had been loadedinto ambulances.
Area hospitals were all onalert.
Half a dozen used choppercircle, but they withheld most
of their footage For a fewminutes.
Stations had broadcast live fromthe air, but the sheriff's team
(01:09:47):
had demanded they stop.
Every room in Columbine wasequipped with television.
The gunman might well bewatching.
Cameras would home in on thevery images most useful to the
killers.
Swat maneuvers and wounded kidsare waiting rescue.
(01:10:09):
So TV stations also held backnews of fatalities.
Their shopper crews have seenparamedics examine Danny and
leave him behind.
The public remain unaware.
The stations also caughtglimpses of a disturbing scene
playing out in a second-storyclassroom in another wing of the
(01:10:31):
building, far from the libraryscience room number three.
It was hard to make out exactlywhat was going on in there.
But there was a lot of activityand one disturbing clue.
Someone had dragged a largewhite marker board to the window
(01:10:53):
with a message in huge blockletters.
The first character looked alot like a capital I, but it
turned out to be a numeralnumber one or one bleeding to
death.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
(01:11:17):
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part two of the column by
mass murders.
Let's begin.
Dylan was out of the house by5.30.
(00:22):
His parents were still in bedand he called out, you know,
saying goodbye, and shut thedoor behind himself.
They skipped bowling class andwent straight to work.
Dylan scrolled the scheduleinto Eric's day planner under
(00:43):
the heading Make Today Count.
Eric illustrated it with ablazing gun barrel.
First stop was the grocerystore where they met up to
acquire the last of the propanetanks Two for the cafeteria, two
for each car and two for thedecoy.
The big bombs were the heart ofthe attack.
(01:03):
Eric had designed them monthsbefore but had left acquisition
to the final morning.
The boys had stashed most ofthe arsenal in Eric's bedroom
closet and he had faced a coupleof close calls with his parents
.
Already Hiding a cluster of20-pound tanks in there was out
of the question.
They returned to Eric's houseat 7 and then split up.
(01:27):
Eric filled the propane tanks,dylan got the gasoline.
They allotted half an hour toassemble the big bombs and set
up the cars and an hour for onelast round of gear up, practice
and chill, and they gotsomething to eat.
Dylan apparently had potatoskins.
(01:49):
Several friends noticedpeculiarities.
Robin Anderson was surprised tosee Dylan a no-show for
calculus.
He had sounded fine on thephone the previous night.
Then a friend told her thatEric had been missing from third
hour.
The boys caught an occasionalclass together, but never an
(02:09):
entire morning.
Robin hoped Dylan wasn't sickand she made a mental note to
call once she got home.
The friend Brooks Brown had astronger reaction Eric had
missed a test in psychologyclass.
What kind of stunt was that?
Shortly before 11 am, eric andDylan set off with the arsenal.
(02:32):
Dylan wore cargo pants, a blackt-shirt printed with wrath and
his red socks cab turnedbackward as usual.
His cargo pockets were deepenough to conceal most of the
saw-off shotgun before he pulledon the duster.
Eric's T-shirt said NaturalSelection.
(02:54):
They both wore black combatboots and shared a single pair
of black gloves the right onEric, the left on Dylan.
They left two pipe bombs behindat Eric's house, six at Dylan's
, and Eric laid a microcassetteon the kitchen counter with some
(03:15):
final thoughts.
They also left the basementtapes with a final goodbye
recorded.
That morning they droppedseparate cars to a park near
Eric's house, dumped a decoybomb in a field and set the
timers for 11.14.
Comeback operations wereunderway.
(03:36):
They hopped back in their carsand headed for the school.
And headed for the school.
They had to bustle now.
Hustle and bustle because thelast few minutes were going to
be critical.
They couldn't plant the bigbombs until A lunch began.
Fourth period ended at 11.10 am.
(03:59):
Once the bell rang, they onlyhad seven minutes to carry the
bombs in, navigate the turbulentlunch crowd, stash the bombs by
the designated pillars, getback to their cars, gear up,
take cover and prepare to attackEvery.
Pull into the parking lot at11.10, several minutes behind
(04:23):
schedule, a couple of girlsspotted his car as they'd headed
out for lunch.
They honk and wave.
They liked him.
Eric waved back and smiled.
Dylan followed him in no waves.
Dylan drove to his normal spotin the senior lot and parked his
BMW directly in front of thecafeteria when the attack began.
(04:46):
This would afford him a clearsweep of the southwest side of
the building.
The long, wide arc ofgreen-tinted windows that
wrapped the commons on the firstfloor and the library above.
Eric continued on to the smalljunior lot about 100 yards to
(05:06):
Dillon's right.
Eric had the choice spotdirectly facing the student
entrance where the bulk of thesurvivors would presumably flee.
He could also cover the fullsoutheast side of the building
and interlock his fire withDillon's to his left.
Brooks Brown walked out for acigarette and spotted Eric
(05:28):
parking in the wrong lot.
Brooks charged up to confronthim about the test.
By the time he got there, erichad stepped out and was pulling
out a big hulking duffel bag.
And Brooks yeah, what's thematter with you?
We have a test in psychology.
And Eric was calm but insistentand said it doesn't matter
(05:52):
anymore.
Brooks, I like you now Get outof here, go home.
Brooks thought that was strange, but he shook his head and
walked on away from the school.
Eric's friend, nate Dykeman,also caught sight of him
arriving and also found thecircumstances strange.
Eric headed in with his duffelby 11.12,.
(06:15):
They were scheduled to be backat their cars arming up.
A surveillance tape stamped11.14 indicates that they had
still not entered the commons.
They had less than threeminutes.
The timers were set for 1117.
There was only a modest chancethat they could make it to
(06:37):
safety on time and they couldhardly have hoped to be locked
and loaded when the bombs blew.
They could have reset thetimers and sacrificed a few
casualties.
That would have requiredcoordination, as they had parked
across the lot from each otherand it would be risky to expose
(06:57):
the bombs inside the cafeteria.
They could have abandoned theplan, but the decoy bombs might
already be exploding.
Shortly after 11.14, they enterthe commons.
They move inconspicuouslyenough to go unnoticed.
Not one of the 500 witnessesnoticed them or the big bulky
(07:20):
bags.
One of the bags will be foundinches from two tables strewn
with food.
They made it out and armedquickly.
It was just like the drill,except this time each was alone,
close enough for hand signalstoo far to hear.
They strapped on their arsenals, covered them with the dusters.
(07:41):
Time was tight and they brokewith their drill, leaving the
shotguns in the duffel bags.
Each boy had a semi-automaticagainst his body, a shotgun in
his bag and a backpack full ofpipe bombs and crickets.
This is probably the momentthey set the timers on their car
bombs.
(08:01):
It would just be a matter ofseconds.
Now.
Hundreds of kids dead.
As far as they knew, they haveinstigated mass murder already.
The timers were winding down.
Nothing to do but wait.
Surveillance cameras shouldhave caught the killers placing
the bombs.
They would have if either thebombers or the custodian had
(08:25):
been on time.
Every morning the custodianfollowed the same routine.
A few minutes before a lunch hepulled out the pre-lunch tape
and set it aside for laterviewing.
He popped an old, used tapeinto the machine, rewound it and
hit record.
Rewinding took up to fiveminutes, meaning a brief pause
(08:47):
and taping.
Kids could leave all thegarbage they wanted during that
window, but hardly anyone wasaround to do so.
The custodian was running late.
On Tuesday he hit the stopbutton at 11.14 and no bombs
were visible.
Neither was Zarek or Dylan.
While waiting out the rewind,the custodian got a phone call.
(09:12):
He talked and the tape sat alittle longer.
He got the new tape in and hitrecord at 11.22, leaving an
8-minute gap.
The first frame shows the bombsvisible and students near the
windows beginning to react.
Something peculiar outside hascaught their attention.
(09:34):
Columbine ran on a bell schedule.
Most of its inhabitants followa strict routine.
Several of them had broken itTuesday morning.
Several of them had broken itTuesday morning.
Patrick Ireland, the junior,afraid to ask Laura to the prom.
Like Variety Some days he spenta lunch in the library, others
in the cafeteria.
(09:55):
He had stayed up late talkingto Laura on the phone again and
still had to finish his dad'shomework.
So he headed to the librarywith four of his buddies.
As Eric and Dylan positionedthe duffel bags, patrick sat
down at a table just above oneof the bombs.
Cassie Bernal, the evangelicaljunior who had transferred to
(10:17):
Columbine to enlightennon-believers, pulled up a chair
near the window.
It was unusual to find her inthe library at this hour.
She was also behind on herhomework, trying to complete an
English assignment on Macbeth,but she was happy she had
finished the presentation shewould be making to her youth
(10:37):
group that night.
Mr D was oddly absent from thecafeteria.
His secretary had booked aninterview, delaying his rounds.
He sat in his office at theopposite end of the main
corridor waiting for a youngteacher to arrive.
Mr D was about to offer him apermanent position.
(11:00):
Deputy Neil Gardner, thecommunity resource officer,
worked for the Sheriff'sDepartment but was assigned
full-time to Columbine.
He normally ate with the kidsand a lunch was his optimal
chance for bonding a key elementof his job.
He wore the same securityuniform with the bright yellow
(11:22):
shirt every day, so he was easyto spot.
Tuesday Gardner took a breakfrom his normal routine.
He didn't care for the teriyakion the menu.
So he went for takeout fromSubway with his campus boss, an
unarmed civilian security guard.
It was a beautiful day.
Lots of kids were outside sothey decided to check out the
(11:45):
smokers.
They ate their sandwiches inGarner's squad car in the
faculty lot beside the smokers'pit in the opposite side of the
school.
Robin Anderson sat in her carnearby.
She had driven out of thesenior lot just about the time
Eric and Dylan were hauling thebombs in but had missed them.
(12:05):
She had swung around thebuilding to pick up two friends.
She got antsy.
Lunchtime was slipping away.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten,and finally the girls appeared.
Robin snarled at them and theydrove off.
On the opposite end of theschool shots had already been
fired.
(12:25):
A freshman named Danny Robo wentto the commons to meet up with
two buddies.
After a few minutes theydecided to head out for a smoke.
If the bombs had worked thatchoice might have saved them.
He might have gotten out justin time.
They headed out a side exit atthe worst moment, directly
(12:47):
alongside the senior parking lot.
The bombers spent a minute ortwo by their cars.
They knew the diversionary bombshould have already blown three
miles to the south.
In fact, it had fizzled.
A surveyor working in the areahad moved it, and then the pipe
bombs and one of the spray canshad detonated, producing a loud
(13:08):
bang and a grass fire.
But the propane tanks, the mainexplosive force, laid
undisturbed in the burning field.
The decoy was Eric's only bigbomb to ignite at all, but one
of his dumber ideas.
Officials learned of it just asthe shooting started, four
(13:34):
minutes before the first callfrom the school.
The chief effect was to alertauthorities that something was
amiss in the area.
Nothing of consequence wasdelivered.
Eric and Dylan had to proceed onfaith.
As far as Eric and Dylan knew,cops were already speeding south
and they would see the commonsdisintegrate.
(13:54):
Though Each car was positionedfor a perfect view, the
cafeteria would explode in frontof them.
They would watch the classmatesbe torn apart and incinerated
and their high school burning tothe ground.
We'll be right back Now.
(14:16):
It's 11.18, and the school'sstill intact.
Some kids had already made itthrough the lunch lines and were
strolling outside, settlingonto the lawn for a little
picnic.
No sign of disturbance.
The timing devices were notprecise.
No digital readouts withseconds counting down in red
(14:42):
numerals.
There were old-fashioned clockswith a third little alarm,
hand-positioned two-fifths ofthe way between the three and
the four, but they should haveblown by now.
Hundreds of targets streamed outto student entrance.
They hopped into their cars andzipped away.
Time for plan B.
There was no plan B.
(15:05):
Eric had staggering confidencein himself.
He left no indication that heplanned for contingencies.
Dylan left no indication thathe planned much of anything.
They could just proceed to act.
Two Mow the departures down ina crossfire in advance on the
(15:28):
exits, as scripted.
They still could have toppedMcVie, but they didn't.
The bomb failure appears to haverattled one of the boys.
No one observed what happenednext.
Either boy might have panic,but Eric was unflappable, the
(15:55):
reverse of his partner.
The physical evidence alsopoints to Dylan.
Eric apparently acted swiftlyto retrieve his emotional young
partner.
We don't know whether theyemployed their hand signals or
how they came together.
We know that Eric was in theprime location yet abandoned it
to come to Dylan's and Ericmoved quickly.
(16:15):
Within two minutes Eric hadfigured out the bombs had fell,
grabbed his packs, crossed thelot into Dylan's car, rushed
with him to the building,climbed the external stairs to
the west exit.
That's the first place theywere observed at 1119.
(16:37):
The new position set them on thehighest point on campus where
they could survey both lots andall the exits on that side of
the building.
But it took them away fromtheir primary target the student
entrance.
Still disgorging students, theycould no longer triangulate or
(16:57):
advance aggressively withoutseparating.
At 1119, they opened the duffelbags at the top of the stairs,
pulled out the shotguns andstrapped them to their bodies.
They locked and loaded thesemi-automatics and one of them
(17:18):
yelled go go.
And somebody almost certainlyEric open fired.
Eric wheeled around and shot atanyone he could see.
Dylan cheered him on.
He rarely fired.
They hid pedestrians among thetrees, picnickers to the south,
(17:39):
kids coming up the stairs to theeast.
They toss pipe bombs down thestairs into the grass, onto the
roof and they share a whole lotof boots and hoots and howls and
hearty laughs.
Rachel Scott and her friendRichard Castaldo were the first
(18:00):
down.
They had been eating theirlunch in the grass.
Eric shot Richard in the armsand torso.
He hit Rachel in the chest andhead.
Rachel died instantly.
Richard played dead.
Eric fell for it.
Danny and his smoking buddiesLance Kirkland and Sean Graves
(18:23):
were headed up the dirt pathtoward their stairs.
They saw the gunman firing, butthey assumed it was a paintball
game or a senior prank and itlooked like fun.
They rushed straight toward theshooters to get closer to the
action.
Danny got out ahead, making ithalfway up the stairs.
Eric pivoted and fired hiscarbine rifle.
(18:48):
A shot tore through Danny'sleft knee, in the front and out
the back.
He stumbled and began to fall.
Eric fired again and again asDanny collapsed.
He took a second bullet to thechest and a third to the abdomen
.
The upper round went straightthrough him as well, causing
(19:12):
severe trauma to his heart.
It stopped pumping immediately.
The third shot lacerated hisliver and stomach because it
made your organ damage andlodging inside.
Lance tried to catch Danny butrealized he had been hit too
multiple times in the chest, leg, knee and foot.
(19:33):
Danny's face hit the concretesidewalk.
Death was almost instantaneous.
Lance went down on the grass.
He blacked out but continued tobreathe.
Sean burst out laughing.
He was sure it was paintball.
They were part of the game.
Now Sean felt a shot zip by hisneck.
(19:55):
It left a cool breeze in hiswake.
He felt a couple of pricks likean IV needle being pulled out.
He did not realize that he hadbeen shot.
He looked around.
Both his friends were down.
Pain signals reached Sean'sbrain and it felt like someone
had kicked him in the back.
He ran back for the door theyhad come out.
(20:17):
He nearly made it, but the painovercame him.
His legs gave out and hecollapsed.
He couldn't feel his legsanymore.
He could not understand whathad happened.
He seemed to have been shot bya tranquilizer gun.
Eric turned again and spottedfive kids under a clump of pines
(20:38):
in the grass.
He fired and the kids took offrunning.
One fell, he played dead, oh soAnother took a hit but kept on
running.
The last three got away clean.
The shooters kept moving.
Lance regained consciousness.
He felt someone hovering abovehim.
(20:59):
He reached up toward the guytucked on his pant leg and he
cried for help.
It was the gunman.
He said sure, I'll help.
The wait seemed like forever toLance.
He described the next event asa sonic blast that twisted his
(21:23):
face apart.
He watched chunks of it flyaway.
Breath came rapidly, air inblood out and he faded out again
.
Dylan made his way down the hilltowards Sean.
Several people in the cafeteriasaw him coming.
Someone ran out, grabbed Seanand started dragging him in.
(21:44):
An adult stopped him.
She said it was dangerous tomove a seriously injured person.
Sean ended up propped in theentrance with the door pressed
against him.
Someone tried to step over himon the way out, planted a foot
into Sean's back and said ohsorry, dude.
A janitor came by and reassuredSean.
(22:07):
He held Sean's hand, said hewould stay with him but he had
to help the kids escape first.
He advised Sean to play deadand Sean did.
Dylan fell for it again, orpretended to.
He stepped right over Sean'scrumpled body and walked inside.
A stampede was underway inthere.
(22:29):
The lunch crowd had panicked.
Most took cover under tables,some ran for the stairs.
Coach Sanders heard thecommotion in the faculty lounge
and ran to the danger.
I don't think he even thoughtabout it.
His instinct was to save kids.
Dave burst into the commons,tried to take charge.
(22:52):
Two custodians followed him toassist.
Sanders, directed students toget down.
He rethought that prettyquickly and then he yelled run.
Students started running andSanders looked around and there
were exits in three directions,but most of them looked bad.
(23:14):
There was one plausible optionacross the commons and up the
wide concrete stairway to thesecond floor.
No telling what was up there,but anything was better than
this.
Sanders led the way.
He ran across the open roomunprotected, waving his arms to
get the kids' attention, yellingfor them to follow.
(23:35):
The Tavers offered little trueprotection, but they felt a lot
safer.
It was scary out in the open.
The kids trusted Coach Sanders,though.
A wave of students swirledbehind Sanders.
Most of the 488 people in thecommons followed him toward the
stairs.
He bolted to the top and spunaround to direct traffic To the
(23:57):
left.
To the left, he said, and hesent them all down the corridor
to the east exit away from thesenior parking lot.
The whole time he was justsaving people.
One of the students said hetook me and just pushed me into
a room.
Some students stopped to warnothers, some just ran.
(24:19):
Someone ran into the choir roomand yell there's a gun.
Half the kids took over uh andstarted running, took cover.
The other half fled A few doorsdown in science room three
students were immersed in achemistry test.
They heard something like rocksbeing thrown against the
(24:42):
windows, but the teacher assumedit was a prank and he said to
stay seated and concentrate onthe test.
Dave Sanders stayed behinduntil every kid had passed.
The tail end of the mop wasjust pushing its way to the
stairs.
As Dylan stepped inside thecafeteria there were 24 steps.
(25:05):
About 100 kids were caught onthe staircase racing for cover.
On the second floor they werewedged between each other and
the steel railings, nowhere totake cover.
They were arrayed at differentheights for easy access.
Crouching was not an option.
Anyone attempting to stop wouldget trampled.
(25:28):
The cafeteria was roughly 100feet wide.
Dylan was in easy firing range.
One or two pipe bombs or oneburst from his Tech-9 would have
halted the entire advance.
Dylan took a few steps in,lifted his weapon up to firing
(25:48):
position.
This was the second time sincesetting the timers that Dylan
separated from Eric.
For the second time Dylanappeared to lose his nerve.
He swept his rifle in an arcacross the room.
He watched the studentsdisappear up the stairs and he
did not fire.
He had only engaged his weapona few times.
(26:10):
Dylan looked around, thenturned and stepped back over
Sean in the doorway.
The heavy door whacked Seanhard again in its grip.
Dylan rejoined Eric at the topof the stairs.
It's not clear why Dylan madehis cafeteria excursion.
(26:31):
Many have speculated that hecame down to see what went wrong
with the bombs, but he neverwent near them.
He made no attempt atdetonation.
It's more likely that Eric senthim to check for opportunities
and rev up the body count.
Dylan did nothing on his own.
Dylan did nothing on his own,but Eric amused himself heartily
(26:53):
at the top of the stairs,shooting, laughing, hurling pie
bombs, he spotted a junior namedAnna Marie Holthalter getting
up from the curb to make a runfor it.
Eric hit her with a 9mm round.
She kept running and he hit heragain and this time she went
(27:15):
down.
A friend picked her up, draggedher to the building and got her
out of Eric's sight.
Then he let go of her and ran.
He ducked behind a car in thesenior lot and a pipe bomb
exploded where Anne Marie hadfirst collapsed and one of the
(27:36):
killers yelled this is awesome.
By the time Dylan rejoined Ericthey had used up all the easy
targets.
Everybody caught outside hadrun like crazy or hidden.
One last pack was still in theopen.
Outside had run like crazy orhidden.
One last pack was still in theopen.
(27:56):
These students had fled acrossthe senior lot, climbed over the
chain link fence and wereracing across the soccer field
near the base of Rebel Hill.
Eric had a go at them but theywere too far, not out of range,
just too hard to hit.
Dylan fired at the distanttargets, bringing his total shot
count up to five.
(28:18):
It was 11-23.
The killers had enjoyed fourhitting minutes.
Deputy Gardner was the firstofficer alerted.
Gardner was the first officeralerted.
The custodian radioed Gardneras soon as he started the new
surveillance tape and caughtsight of kids near the windows.
The custodian sounded scared.
(28:40):
The first 911 call came throughto Jeffco.
At the same time A girl wasinjured in the senior parking
lot.
The caller said I think she'sparalyzed.
The dispatch hit the police vanat 11.23, just as Gardner drove
around the building to thecommons and Dylan rejoined Eric
(29:01):
at the top of the stairs Femaledown.
The dispatcher said Gardner sawsmoke rising and kids running.
He heard gunshots andexplosions in a flurry of
dispatches on his radio.
He couldn't quite tell wherethe commotion was coming from.
Four minutes into the mayhemmuch of the student body was
(29:23):
oblivious.
Hundreds were running for theirlives but more sat quietly in
class.
Many heard the commotion, fewsensed any danger.
Most found it annoying.
The chaos and the solitude wenton side by side, often only
yards apart, as Dave Sandersushered kids to the common
(29:45):
staircase, part-time art teacherPatty Nielsen paced above him
on whole monitor.
Duty Nielsen paced above him onwhole monitor.
Duty Sanders herded the lunchcrowd up the stairway toward her
, but then down a parallelhallway.
Nearly 500 students' kidscharged the length of the
building.
Nielsen never so heard them.
(30:06):
She heard the racket outside,though, and some kids ran up
saying they heard gunfire.
Nielsen was annoyed.
She thought it was a prank,obviously, or a video shoot that
had gone on far too long.
She looked down the corridor tothe west exit and through the
large glass panes in the doorsshe could see a boy with his
(30:30):
back to her.
He had a gun.
He was firing it into thesenior lot.
She assumed it was a prop, aloud one and totally
inappropriate.
Nielsen stormed down thehallway to tell him to knock it
off.
A junior named Brian rackedalong to watch or tag along, I
(30:52):
should say To watch and theyapproached the exit just as the
shooters ran out of targets.
There were two sets of doorsthere, separated by an airlock.
Nielsen and Brian passed thefirst set and reached for the
second handles.
Eric spotted them.
He turned, raised the rifle tohis shoulder, aimed at Nielsen,
(31:15):
and smiled.
And then he fired.
The glass shattered but thebullet missed.
Nielsen still thought it was aBB gun and then she saw the size
of the hole and that's when shescreamed dear God, dear God,
dear God.
She turned to run.
He fired again Another miss,but glass and metal shards and
(31:38):
possibly a gracing bullet torethrough the back of her shoulder
.
It burned.
Brian had turned too.
Nielsen heard him grunt, sawhim lurch forward, his back arch
, his arms flared and he hit thefloor hard.
That looked bad, but he gotright up onto his hands and
(32:00):
knees to scurry back through thefirst doors.
It was shrapnel, just like hers.
She got down too and theycrawled a short distance back to
the first doors.
They got one partially open andsqueezed through.
Once they had that door behindthem they rose to their feet and
ran.
Nielsen was desperate for aphone.
(32:21):
The library seemed like anobvious destination.
It was just around the corner,spanning most of the south
hallway, behind a glass wall,spanning most of the south
hallway, behind a glass wall.
Nilsen saw dozens of kidsmilling a ball inside, plainly
visible to the shooters shepictured on her heels.
She never looked back to see.
(32:46):
Nilsen ran into the library towarn them and she yelled there's
a kid with a gun.
There were no adults and thatsurprised Nilsen.
Teacher Rich Long had rushed inmoments before, yelled at
everyone to get out and thenfled to warn others.
Patty Nilsen had the oppositeinstinct.
(33:08):
She ordered them down.
Then Nilsen grabbed the phonebehind the counter and punched
in 9 and then 911.
She concentrated her detailslike an extra nine for an
outside line.
Nilsson expected the shooter toarrive any moment now, but Eric
(33:30):
was not following.
He had been distracted.
Deputy Gardner had pulled intohis lot with lights flashing and
siren blaring.
Gardner had stepped out of hiscar, still confused about what
he was walking into.
Eric opened fire.
He got off 10 rounds, allmisses.
Dylan did nothing, oh, mrsDillon did nothing.
(33:56):
Gardner took cover behind hispolice car and Eric didn't even
hit that.
Then his rifle jammed.
Eric fought to clear thechamber.
Dillon fled into the school.
Gardner saw his opening and helaid his pistol across the roof
and squeezed off four shots.
Eric spun around like he hadbeen hit Neutralized.
Gardner thought what a relief.
Seconds later Eric was firingagain.
(34:19):
It was a short burst.
Then he retreated inside.
It was 11.24.
The outside ordeal lasted fiveminutes.
Eric did most of the shooting.
He fired his 9mm rifle 47 timesin that period and did not use
(34:40):
his shotgun.
Dylan got just three shots offwith a Tech 9 handgun and two
with his shotgun.
They headed down the hallwaytoward the library.
Dave Sanders heard the shotswhen Eric fired on Patty Nilsen.
Coach Sanders ran toward thegunfire.
He passed the library entrancejust moments after Nilsen ran in
(35:03):
.
He spotted the killers at theother end of the hallway.
He wheeled around and ran forthe corner.
A boy peeked out of the choirroom just in time to see him
flee.
Sanders wasn't just running forit, he was trying to clear
students out of the line of fireand yell get down, get down,
(35:24):
we'll be right back.
The story took 28 minutes to hitlocal television.
The networks quickly followed.
Something awful was happeningat a high school near Denver.
Coverage began with confusedreports about a shooting in the
(35:45):
outlying suburbs.
No confirmation on injuries,but multiple shots, as many as
nine and possible explosions.
Automatic weapons might beinvolved, possibly even grenades
.
A fire had been reported.
Swat teams were mobilizing.
At 11.54 am, denver time, cnncut to DEFCO and stayed there
(36:07):
non-stop all afternoon.
To Jeffco and stay therenon-stop all afternoon.
The broadcast networks beganinterrupting the soaps.
Columbine quickly overshadowedthe war.
No one seemed to know what hadactually happened.
Was it still happening?
Apparently, as the networks wentlive with the story, gunfire
(36:31):
and explosions were eruptingsomewhere inside that school.
Outside it was a mayhem.
Shoppers circled, police,firefighters, parents,
journalists had descended on thecampus.
Nobody was going inside.
Fresh waves of support troopswere arriving by the minutes,
(36:52):
but they just crowded around thebuilding.
Occasionally students wouldscurry out.
Local stations kept surveyingthe area hospitals and a
journalist reported that thereare no patients yet.
But they were expecting onevictim with an ankle wound.
Jeffco 911 operators wereoverwhelmed.
(37:15):
Hundreds of students were stillinside the building.
Many had cell phones and werecalling with conflicted stories.
Thousands of parents from allaround the area were dialing at
the same center demandinginformation.
Many students gave up on 911and called the TV stations.
(37:36):
Local anchors beganinterviewing them live on the
air and the cable networks pickup the feeds.
Witnesses confirm injuries.
There seem to be no enoughwitnesses, though.
Most have seen chaos, but noone causing it.
A senior described the firstmoments of awareness.
(37:58):
He said OK, I was sitting inmath class and all of a sudden,
we look out, there's people thatare sprinting down the math
hall and we open the door wehear a shot, a loud bang, and
then we hear some guy go holycrap, there's a guy with a gun.
So everybody starts freakingout.
(38:19):
One of my friends goes up tothe door and says there's a guy
standing in there.
We evacuate to the corner ofour classroom and my teacher
just doesn't know what to dobecause she's so freaked.
So there appear to be severalshooters, or boys or white or
Columbine students.
(38:40):
Some were shooting in theparking lot, some in the
cafeteria, some upstairs, whilerobbing the halls.
Somebody was positioned on theroof.
Some of the assault team woret-shirts, others had bands and
long black trench coats.
One pair included one of each.
Some had hats.
One or two were hiding behindski masks.
(39:02):
Some of this mix-up wasstandard crime scene confusion.
Eyewitness testimony isnotoriously unreliable,
especially when witnesses wereunder duress.
Memories could jumble andwitnesses imagine missing
details without realizingthey're doing it.
But much of thismisunderstanding was due to
(39:26):
specific factors.
Eric, he discarded his trenchcoat at the top of the stairs
almost as soon as he beganshooting Dylan.
He kept his on until he got tothe library.
Each costume change createdanother shooter.
The school's location on a hill,with nearby entrances on both
(39:50):
floors, allowed Eric and Dylanto be seen upstairs and
downstairs almost simultaneouslyto be seen upstairs and
downstairs almost simultaneously.
The long-range weaponsscattered gunfire over a
shooting radius hundreds ofyards wide.
Distant witnesses had no ideawhere the shooters were.
(40:11):
They only knew they were underattack.
Some witnesses listenedcarefully and correctly located
the source of the turbulence.
But the bomb blast often ledthem astray.
Particularly when bombs landedon the roof, several kids were
sure something was coming fromup there.
(40:31):
They spotted a frightenedair-conditioner repairman and
instantly identify him as therooftop gunman.
Word whipped through theColumbine community.
Kids called home on their cellphones the minute they got to
safety or someplace they hopedwould remain safe.
(40:53):
About 500 students were offcampus, either for lunch or sick
or cutting class.
The first sign of a problemcame when they hid police
barricades as they tried toreturn.
Cops were everywhere, more copsthan they had ever seen.
(41:13):
Nate Dykeman was one of the kidsheading back in.
He was stunned by the storieshe heard.
Nate had gone home for lunch,same as he did every day, but on
the way out he had seensomething peculiar Eric walking
into the building from the wrongparking lot at the wrong time.
He should have been walking out.
(41:33):
Eric and Dylan had both beenmissing that morning.
They were up to somethingobviously Odd that they had not
included him or Cole.
At least Maybe not Eric, hewasn't the most thoughtful
friend, but Dylan Dylan was,dylan would have Cole.
There have been some weirdstuff going on between those two
(41:56):
lately pipe bombs and guns.
When Nate heard about theshooting he got nervous.
When someone mentioned thetrench coats, that sealed it and
Nate thought this isn'thappening, this cannot be
happening.
He ran into his girlfriend whowas stopped at the intersection
(42:18):
and she was also a good friendof Eric's.
She followed Nate home and thenNate did the same thing nearly
everyone was doing.
He started dialing friends,checking in to make sure they
were all safe.
He wanted to call Dylan's house, but this was just way too
scary.
He wanted to call Dylan's house, but this was just way too
(42:40):
scary.
Soon he thought to himself hewould call soon.
So he checked on some otherfriends first, while Deputy
Gardner was firing at Eric.
He knew help was on the way andhe heard at the police radio
(43:01):
traffic that somebody saidfemale down Jeffco issued a
metro-wide mutual aid requestprompting police officers,
firefighters and paramedics fromaround the city to begin racing
toward the foothills.
The police band got socongested so quickly that
Gardner couldn't alert dispatchthat he had arrived.
(43:22):
After engaging Eric, gardner gotback in his car and ready for
backup.
This time he got through.
Gardner followed protocol anddid not pursue Eric inside
Deputy Paul Smoker, who was amotorcycle cop riding a speeding
ticket on the edge of ClementPark when the first dispatch
(43:46):
came in.
So he radioed that he wasresponding and got his
motorcycle into the grass.
He tore through soccer fieldsand baseball diamonds and
arrived at the north side of thebuilding just moments after
Gardner's gunplay.
He parked behind an equipmentshed where a bleeding boy had
(44:09):
taken shelter.
Another patrol car pulled upright behind him and then
another.
They all wound around thecorner from Gardner, just out of
sight.
The boy told them he had beenshot by Ned Harris.
Nobody had any paper so adeputy wrote his name on the
(44:29):
hood of his patrol car.
They ran forward to helpanother bleeding student lying
in the grass.
As they approached they passedinto Deputy Gardner's sight line
around the corner.
It had been two minutes sinceGardner's gun battle with Eric
and he was out of his car withhis pistol drawn.
(44:50):
Smoker and Gardner spotted eachother as Eric reappeared inside
the west exit doorway andGardner yelled there he is, and
he opened fire again.
Eric ducked back behind thedoorframe and he poked his rifle
(45:10):
through the shattered pane andreturned fire.
A couple of students were onthe move again and Eric tried to
nail them too.
Smoker could see where Gardnerwas firing, but the doorway was
blocked from view.
He maneuvered down to where hecould see Eric and got off three
(45:31):
shots.
Eric retreated.
Smoker heard gunfire inside.
More students ran out of thebuilding.
He did not pursue.
Deputies continued arriving.
They attended to the scared andwounded and struggled to
determine what they were upagainst.
Witnesses came to them and kidssaw that.
(45:54):
Their police cars at the top ofthe hill and came running.
Some were bleeding.
They were all desperate.
They lined up behind the carsand crouched near the officers
for protection.
They provided lots of accurateinformation.
Reports on the police radioconflicted wildly, but any one
(46:14):
group in one location tended tooffer remarkable, consistent
accounts.
These kids described two gunmenin black trench coats shooting
Uzi's or shotguns and throwinghand grenades.
At least one appeared to behigh school age and some victims
knew them.
Kids kept arriving and the carswere feeble.
(46:37):
Protection, protection and thecrowd were likely to draw
attention.
The deputies decided it wasparamount to evacuate them.
They directed some of the boysto tear their shirts into strips
and treat one another's woundswhile they devised an escape
plan.
And treat one another's woundswhile they devised an escape
(47:00):
plan.
They decided to line severalpatrol cars up as a defensive
wall and shuttle the students tosafer ground beneath them.
Every cop had been trained forevents like this.
Protocol call for containment.
The deputies broke into watchteams.
They could cover a handful ofthe 25 exits and protect those
(47:23):
students who were already out,and they called it setting up a
perimeter.
And they would repeat theperimeter phrase endlessly.
That afternoon Paramedics wereestablishing triage areas away
from the school and the deputiesworked on getting the kids
there.
Cops would lay down suppressivefire to protect evacuations and
(47:47):
scare off opportunistic attacks.
They had no idea whether thegunman was still present or
interested.
The officers did not observe orengage the gunmen for some time.
Nearly arriving officerscovered additional exits.
(48:07):
Gunfire was audible to thefirst officers and continued
through the arrival of hundredsmore.
Deafening explosions kepterupting inside the school.
The exterior walls along thecafeteria and the library
rumbled from some of the blast.
Deputy Smoker could see thegreen windows buckling.
(48:30):
Half a dozen students ran outthe cafeteria doors after one
shock wave.
They made it to another deputywho was guarding the south exits
and the deputy thought theshooters might flee the building
across the field and hop achain-link fence separating the
school grounds from the firstsubdivision.
(48:53):
And so one of the things thatDeputy Smoke said later is that
quote we didn't know who the badguy was, but we soon realized
the sophistication of theweapons.
These were big bombs, big guns.
We didn't have a clue who theywere, but they were hurting kids
(49:16):
.
End quote who they were, butthey were hurting kids end quote
.
When the networks went livearound noon, hundreds of
uniformed responders werepresent.
35 law enforcement agencieswere soon represented.
They have gathered anassortment of vehicles,
including a Loomis Fargo armoredtruck whose driver had been
(49:38):
working in the area.
One student counted 35 policecars speeding past him on his
one-mile ride home from school,ambulances and police cars
barging over mediums andmotorcycle cops weaving through
(50:00):
opposite traffic almost killingthemselves.
Half a dozen cops arrived everyminute.
Nobody seemed to be in charge.
Some cops wanted to assault thebuilding but that was not the
plan.
Whose plan was this?
Where had it come from?
They reinforced the perimeterand Eric had exchanged fire with
two deputies at 11.24 and 11.26am.
(50:24):
Five and seven minutes into theattack, law enforcement would
not fire on the killers again oradvance on the building.
Until shortly afternoon.
Ribbons of yellow police tapemarked the perimeter.
No one was getting out of there.
(50:45):
The issue became getting inOnlookers.
Journalists, parents wereappearing as fast as policemen
and they presented little threatto the deputies but significant
danger to themselves.
Misty Bernard was one of theearly arrivals.
She did not know that herdaughter was in the library or
(51:08):
what that might portend.
She only knew that Cassie wasmissing along with her freshman
son Chris was missing along withher freshman son Chris.
Misty's yard backed right up tothe soccer field where Eric had
fired on students.
Misty was a working mom so shewas not present to hear Eric
(51:30):
fire tour her house.
But her husband Brad was.
He had come home sick, heard acouple of pops but thought
nothing of them Firecrackers,maybe some pranksters.
He lived beside a high schoolso he was used to commotion.
He didn't even put his shoes onto have a look.
(51:52):
Half an hour later, misty satdown to lunch with a co-worker
and got a disturbing call.
It was probably nothing, butshe called Brad to check.
He put on his shoes and Bradwent out back and peered over
the fence and he saw that theschoolyard was swarming with
(52:15):
cops.
School yard was swarming withcops.
Misty Bernard headed for thehigh school and Brad hung by the
phone At the perimeter.
Officers struggled to hold backthe parental onslaught.
Tv anchors, broadcasters andtreaties said quote as difficult
as it may be, please stay away.
(52:36):
End quote.
But fresh waves of moms anddads kept swarming over the hill
.
Misty gave up.
Two rendezvous points had beenset up and Misty chose the
public library on the other sideof Clement Park.
She found very few students andshe started asking the question
(52:58):
where were they when theypoured out of the high school?
Students have seen two mainoptions a subdivision across
Pierce Street or the wide openfields of Clement Park.
Hardly anyone chose the park.
They crouched behind houses.
Anyone chose to park.
They crouched behind houses,worked themselves under
(53:18):
shrubbery, rolled under cars.
Any semblance of protection.
Some pounded frantically onfront doors but most of the
houses were locked.
Stay-at-home moms startedwaving strangers in off the
street and kids were piling intohouses, and one student said
(53:40):
that there must have been 150 or200 kids piled into one house.
The second rendezvous point wasLeawood Elementary, set in the
heart of that neighborhood, somost of the survivors gravitated
there.
Part of that neighborhood, somost of the survivors gravitated
(54:01):
there.
Parents were sent to theauditorium where kids were
paraded across the stage.
Moms shrieked, hugs, abounded,unclaimed.
Kids stopped quietly backstagebecause the kids were hard to
keep in one place.
So they decided to sign insheets to be posted on the wall
so that the parents could seeevidence in the child's own hand
(54:22):
.
There was no parade ofsurvivors at the public library.
Misty was conflicted, so livingfor Leawood was risky.
The roads have been closed soeverything was by foot.
Now she could easily miss herkids in transit.
(54:44):
A local minister got up on achair and shouted Please stay
here, the fax would arrive atany minute.
He assured them they would bemuch better off waiting.
The fax was a copy of thesigning sheets from Leawood.
Misty waited impatiently for itsarrival.
(55:06):
A slump of students wouldappear now and then over the
hill.
If they were not claimedimmediately, a pack of moms
would descend to interrogatethem and always the same
question how do you get out?
They needed reassurance thatthere was a way out and one
(55:27):
young girl said I didn't knowwhat to do.
We heard guns and I wasstanding there and the teacher
was crying and pointing to theauditorium and everybody was
running and screaming and weheard an explosion.
She said I guess that was abomb or something.
I didn't see this, but we weretrying to find out and I guess
(55:49):
they shot again and everyonestarted running and I was like
what's going on?
They started shooting again andthere was complete panic.
People were shoving their andthey were going into the
elevators and people would pushpeople off and we were all just
running.
Most of the stories sputteredout like that Disjointed
(56:11):
flurries of recreated mayhem.
The words ran together untilthe witness ran out of breath.
Every escape was different, butthey ended the same.
The kids escaped.
The accumulation was soothingand Misty questioned every kid
(56:31):
and she started shouting theirnames Cassie, chris.
She worked her way across thecrowd and back and nothing.
Coman had fallen to the newlyelected Jeffco sheriff, john
Stone.
He had not yet faced a murdercase in office.
The Metro cops were horrifiedto discover that the county was
(56:52):
in charge.
Many were open with theirdisgust.
City and even suburban officersthought of sheriff's deputies
as security guards.
They were the guys who shadoweddefendants to court from the
jail.
They stood guard while the realcops testified about the crimes
they have responded to andinvestigated.
(57:14):
The growths increased when theylearned who was heading the
command.
John Stone looked the part of anold West Sheriff.
He was big and a burly guy.
He had a pot belly and a thickgray mustache, weathered skin.
He wore the uniform, the badgeand the pistol.
(57:36):
But he was a politician.
He had been a county supervisorfor 12 years.
He had run for sheriff lastNovember and had taken the oath
in January.
He had appointed John Dunawayas his undersheriff, who was
another bureaucrat.
The sheriff and his teamdefended the perimeter.
Gun blast came and went.
(57:58):
The SWAT team seethed.
When was somebody going toallow them to advance?
Dunaway, named Lieutenant DavidWalter incident commander.
Operations would now bedirected by a man who did police
work for a living, withoversight from Dunaway and
(58:19):
Sheriff Stone.
The three set up a command postin a trailer stationed in
Clement Park half a mile northof the school.
Just after noon a SWAT teammade its first approach on the
school, the officerscommandeered a fire truck for
cover.
Its first approach on theschool, the officers
commandeered a fire truck forcover.
(58:40):
One man drove the truck slowlytoward the building while a
dozen more moved alongside Nearthe entrance.
They split in half, six and six.
Lieutenant Terry Manwaring'steam held back to light down
suppressive fire and later workits way to another entrance At
(59:01):
approximately 12.06,.
The other six charged inside.
Additional SWAT team membersarrived moments later and
followed them.
The team thought they were instriking distance of the
cafeteria.
They were on the opposite endof the building.
Lieutenant Manwaring had beeninside Columbine many times but
(59:24):
he was unaware it had beenremodeled and the cafeteria
moved.
So he was perplexed.
The fire alarm had not beensilenced.
The men used hand signals.
Every cupboard or broom closethad to be treated as a hot zone.
Many doors were locked so theyblasted them open with rifle
(59:46):
fire.
Kids trapped in classroomsheard gunfire steadily
approaching.
Death appeared imminent.
Parents, reporters, even copsoutside heard the shots and came
to similar conclusions.
One room at a time, the teamworked methodically toward the
killers.
It would take three hours toreach their bodies.
(01:00:10):
On the west side, where thekillers were active, a fire
department team staged a riskieroperation.
Half a dozen bodies remained onor near the lawn outside the
cafeteria.
Several showed signs of life.
Anne-marie, lance and Sean hadbeen bleeding for 40 minutes.
Deputies along the perimetermoved in closer to provide cover
(01:00:34):
while three paramedics and anEMT rushed in.
Eric appeared in the secondfloor library window and fired
on them.
Two deputies shot back, otherslaid down suppressive fire.
The paramedics got threestudents out.
Danny was pronounced dead andleft behind Eric disappeared
(01:01:01):
dead and left behind Ericdisappeared.
Lieutenant men wearing half ofthe SWAT team had inched around
outside the building using thefire truck for cover.
They arrived at the oppositeside half an hour later.
They rescued Richard Castaldofrom the lawn around 1235, an
hour and a quarter after he wasshot.
They made another approach toretrieve Rachel Scott and they
(01:01:30):
brought her back as far as thefire truck and then they
determined that she was dead andaborted and they laid her there
on the ground.
And finally they went for DannyRobo, unaware of the prior
finding, so they left him on thesidewalk.
(01:01:50):
At 1.15, a second SWAT teamcharged the building from the
senior lot, smashed a windowinto the teacher's lounge and
vaulted in.
The officers quickly enteredthe adjacent cafeteria but found
it nearly deserted.
Food was left half-eaten on thetables there were books,
(01:02:11):
backpacks, assorted garbagefloated about the room, which
had been flooded by thesprinkler system.
Water was three to four incheshigh and rising.
A fire had blackened ceilingtiles and melted down some
chairs.
They did not notice the duffelbags held down by the weight of
(01:02:32):
the bombs.
One bag had burned away.
The propane tank sat exposed,mostly above water, but it
blended into the debris.
So signs of panic wereeverywhere.
But no injuries, no bodies, noblood.
The team was shocked to discoverdozens of terrified students
(01:02:53):
and staff.
They were crouched in storageclosets up above the ceiling
tiles or plainly visible undercafeteria tables.
One teacher had climbed intothe ceiling and tried to crawl
clear through the ductwork outto safety to warn police, but
had fallen through and requiredmedical care.
(01:03:14):
Two men were shivering in thefreezer, so cold they could
barely lift their arms.
The SWAT team searched in andshuttled them out the window.
They came in.
At first that was easy, but thefurther they moved, the more
officers they had to leavebehind to secure the route.
(01:03:36):
They brought in more manpowerto assist Overhead, circling
steadily.
There were chopper blades thatbeat out a steady sound.
And Robin Anderson.
She watched this all from theparking lot.
(01:04:00):
She had headed to Dairy Queenwith her friends.
She zipped through thedrive-thru, circled back to
school and there were a wholelot of cops.
When they got back, officerswere assembling the perimeter
but the entrance to the seniorlot was still open.
So Robin pulled into her space.
(01:04:21):
A cop strolled up with his gundrawn and said Stay where you
are.
He warned it was already toolate to back out.
Robin and her friends wouldwait in her car for two and a
half hours.
Robin ducked when she saw Ericappear in the library window.
She couldn't tell it was him.
She was too far back.
(01:04:44):
All she could make out was aguy in a white t-shirt firing a
rifle in her general direction.
Sorry about that, I have alittle bit of bronchitis going
on.
So anyway, um, she couldn'trecognize that it was eric.
(01:05:10):
So all she could tell was um,you know, a guy in the white
t-shirt firing a rifle in theirgeneral direction.
Robin looked over to herfriend's spaces.
You know Eric, dylan and Zach.
They have assigned spots therein a row.
(01:05:34):
They could see.
She could see Zach's car, butEric's and Dylan's cars were
missing.
Nate Dykeman was terrified ofwho might be responsible.
So he had called most of hisclose friends but had held off
(01:05:56):
on Eric and Dylan.
But had held off on Eric andDylan, he had been hoping to
hear from them.
Hoping but not really expecting.
Dylan would break his heart.
They had been tied for yearsand Nate spent a lot of time at
his house and Tom and SueClaiborne had looked after him.
Nate had a lot of trouble athome and the Claibornes had been
(01:06:17):
after him.
Nate had a lot of trouble athome and the Claibornes had been
like a second mom and dad.
Dylan did not call Around noonNate died at his house.
Tom Claiborne would be homebecause he worked from home and
you know he was hopefullythinking that Dylan was with him
(01:06:38):
.
So Tom picked up and he askedfor Dylan and he said no, dylan
was not there, he's in school.
And Nate said no, actually heisn't.
Dylan had not been in class andNate didn't want to worry Tom.
(01:06:58):
But there had been a shooting.
There had been descriptions,the gunmen were in trench coats
and Nate knew several kids withtrench coats.
He was trying to account forall of them.
He hated breaking the news buthe had to say it.
He thought Dylan was involved.
(01:07:19):
Tom went up to Dylan's room andchecked his closet for the coat
and he said oh my God, it's nothere.
Tom was shocked and Nate saylater quote I thought he was
going to like drop the phone.
He just could not believe thatthis could possibly be happening
(01:07:41):
and his son was involved.
And so Tom told Nate pleasekeep me informed.
Whatever you hear.
Tom got off the phone and heturned on the TV and there it
was everywhere.
So he called his wife, sue, andSue came home.
(01:08:02):
Tom called their older son.
He and Sue had kicked Byron outfor using drugs so they would
not tolerate that behavior.
But this was too important.
Tom apparently withheld hisfears about Dylan.
Byron told co-workers that hewas terrified.
(01:08:23):
His brother was trapped and hewas also worried about younger
friends still in school.
And lots of Byron's workmateswere connected to the school, so
they all headed home.
Lots of Byron's workmates wereconnected to the school, so they
all headed home.
Tom Kleber would call 911 towarn them that his son might be
(01:08:43):
involved and he also called alawyer.
The televised version of thedisaster was running 30 minutes
to an hour behind the cops' view.
Anchors dutifully repeated theperimeter concept.
The cops had sealed off theperimeter.
But what were all those troopsdoing exactly?
(01:09:03):
There were hundreds out there.
Everyone seemed to be millingabout.
Anchors started wandering aloudand luckily no one seemed to be
seriously injured.
Around 1230, the story took itsfirst grisly turn.
Local TV reporters gainedaccess to the triage areas and
(01:09:25):
it was awful so much blood itwas hard to identify the
injuries.
Lots of kids had been loadedinto ambulances.
Area hospitals were all onalert.
Half a dozen used choppercircle, but they withheld most
of their footage For a fewminutes.
Stations had broadcast live fromthe air, but the sheriff's team
(01:09:47):
had demanded they stop.
Every room in Columbine wasequipped with television.
The gunman might well bewatching.
Cameras would home in on thevery images most useful to the
killers.
Swat maneuvers and wounded kidsare waiting rescue.
(01:10:09):
So TV stations also held backnews of fatalities.
Their shopper crews have seenparamedics examine Danny and
leave him behind.
The public remain unaware.
The stations also caughtglimpses of a disturbing scene
playing out in a second-storyclassroom in another wing of the
(01:10:31):
building, far from the libraryscience room number three.
It was hard to make out exactlywhat was going on in there.
But there was a lot of activityand one disturbing clue.
Someone had dragged a largewhite marker board to the window
(01:10:53):
with a message in huge blockletters.
The first character looked alot like a capital I, but it
turned out to be a numeralnumber one or one bleeding to
death.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
(01:11:17):
Have a great week.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.