The much-anticipated final report on the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting peeled back the mystery surrounding the mass murderer to reveal his mad obsession with killing schoolchildren.
Adam Lanza, 20, prepared for the Dec. 14 2012 slayings on a computer game called “School Shooting,” in which the player enters a school and randomly fires on students and teachers, the report revealed.
Lanza — who gunned down his own mother in the home they shared before opening fire Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six adults — also had clippings of newspaper articles from 1891 that detailed the shooting of schoolchildren.
Other dramatic details include:
- Lanza shot his way into the locked school building with a Bushmaster model XM15-E2S rifle, blowing out a plate-glass window to the right of the locked schoolhouse door.
- The entire rampage unfolded in five horrifying minutes, from the time he shot his way in and opened fire on anyone he saw to the moment he put a bullet in his own head.
- Lanza’s Internet browser had bookmarks on firearms, military, politics, mass murder, video games, music, books, Army Rangers, computers and programs, ammunition, candy, economic books.
- His obsession with murder dated at least as far back as fifth grade when he wrote the “Big Book of Granny,” in which the main character has a gun hidden in her cane that she uses to shoot people. The story included violence against children.
- In seventh grade, his writing focused on battles, destruction and war — far more than among others his age. “The level of violence in the writing was disturbing,” the report says.
- The report also showed that Nancy Lanza had written out a check to buy her son yet another high-powered gun, a CZ 83 semi-automatic handgun used by the Czech military, as a Christmas present, just days before the massacre. The check was marked with the notation, “Christmas Day.”
The report by Connecticut State Police also features never-before-seen photos of the killer’s creepy lair, and pictures of chilling crime-scene evidence.
There are also photos of the master bedroom where he shot his own mother, and of the black Honda Civic he drove to the school, leaving it in a No Parking zone.
Lanza took his own life in Classroom 10 with a single shot from a 10mm Glock 20 pistol, just one piece of the arsenal of weapons and ammunition he carried for his one-sided battle against defenseless teachers and schoolchildren.
“It is the conclusion of this State’s Attorney that the shooter acted alone and was solely criminally responsible for his actions of that day,” the report said.
“The obvious question that remains is: ‘Why did the shooter murder 27 people, including 20 children?’ Unfortunately, that question may never be answered conclusively . . . there is no clear indication why he did so, or why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School.”
The report also lays out in dramatic detail the five minutes of hell teachers, students and administrators endured before Lanza ended his own life.
Witnesses told investigators that after Lanza stepped through the broken-glass entrance, he walked calmly through the hall and was breathing normally.
He said nothing to a single soul.
Near the main office, in a conference room off the hall, Principal Dawn Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach were meeting with staff and a parent.
When they heard banging and glass breaking at about 9:30 a.m., Hochsprung and Sherlach left the room to investigate.
Hochsprung shouted, “Stay put!”
The next thing witnesses heard was gunfire, and Hochsprung, 47, and Sherlach, 56, fell down. They were among the dead. Someone inside the room called 911.
Lanza then went into the main office, where cowering staffers had taken shelter. They escaped the bloodbath. The gunman moved on to two classrooms where he killed four more adults and 20 children before killing himself as police converged.
The report notes that his computer had numerous bookmarks for Web pages related to guns, ammunition, mass murder and the military, among other subjects.
While he lived on the same floor as his mom, he communicated with her only via e-mail and wouldn’t let her clean his room — even though she had to do his laundry daily because he often changed his clothes during the day.
Lanza’s mom even got rid of her pet cat because he didn’t want it in the house.
While he depended on his mom, the report says, Lanza had no emotional connection to her. She once asked him if he’d feel bad if anything happened to her.
“No,” he replied.
Lanza refused to leave their house, even when the power went out in Hurricane Sandy and his mom booked a hotel room.
Lanza who was diagnosed with Aspergers’s syndrome, a form of autism, in 2005, had no feelings or emotions, the report said.
“He lacked empathy and had very rigid thought processes,” it states.