“There were 14 coats hanging there and 14 bodies”
On Friday morning, as Lanza turned left, toward the first-grade classrooms, Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Scherlach, shocked by the sounds of gunfire and shattering glass, bolted into a corridor from a conference room across the hall from the classrooms.
He shot them both with the rifle.
The first classroom that Lanza reached was that of teacher Kaitlin Roig. Alarmed by the gunfire, she had hidden her students in a bathroom and closed her classroom door. For reasons that could not be explained Saturday, Lanza passed by Roig’s classroom.
The classroom he chose to enter was substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau’s, where he proceeded to systematically shoot everyone inside — the 14 children who investigators believe were huddled and clutching one another in fear, Rousseau and a special education teacher who happened to be in the room. Rousseau was filling in for the regular teacher, who was out on maternity leave. Rousseau had been teaching at the school for six weeks.
“There were 14 coats hanging there and 14 bodies. He killed them all,” said a law enforcement officer involved in the case.
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There needs to be a warning on these articles, now I wish I hadn’t read even this little bit because I can’t process the horror.
This is what drove me to church on Friday, the thought that evil so terrible existing in the world HAS to have a balance, it just has to or what’s the point? I feel like I’m turning.
Bishop on December 16, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Good lord. Loss for words.
celticdefender on December 16, 2012 at 10:38 AM
When I read how he methodically went about his killing how eerily it seemed like a script for a video game. Surreal.
HotAirian on December 16, 2012 at 10:38 AM
Just awful. It is times like these I wish I believed in a Hell.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 16, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Yeah, that’s tough reading including the next classroom he went to where the teachers tried to divert him.
Blake on December 16, 2012 at 10:45 AM
Fewer than the three to eleven rounds he pumped into each child.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 16, 2012 at 10:50 AM
I want him back alive so I can kill him again SLOWLY. When the news came in, I was in my daughter’s kindergarten class glueing gingerbread houses. I looked around at the children around me and wondered what kind of evil it takes to look at that kind of innoncence and beauty and shoot and kill.
melle1228 on December 16, 2012 at 10:52 AM
If they don’t want to arm the teachers, maybe we could arm the moms like you and I who are at the school all the time, helping in the library, in the cafeteria, etc. I would be willing to take a shift just walking the halls. Whatever it takes to put a stop to this.
Night Owl on December 16, 2012 at 10:56 AM
I agree and as a Mama bear- I would have shot to kill as I believe most mother’s would have. But I live in Tennessee where they are wonderful with conceal and carry.. You go down to the DMV and there ya go..
melle1228 on December 16, 2012 at 11:04 AM
I wouldn’t be shocked if he actually romanticized children and thought he was doing them a favor by making sure they never grew up.
Seth Halpern on December 16, 2012 at 11:07 AM
That may not be a coincidence.
A socially isolated young man, a troubled mind, and violent video games sounds like a bad combination.
AZCoyote on December 16, 2012 at 11:18 AM
Evil. Thats what this is. Not insane or mentally retarded. EVIL. We forget that it exists. But now and then, it pops up.
tommy71 on December 16, 2012 at 11:29 AM
One of the things that’s so insulting about the knee-jerk calls for “gun control” is the assumption that every legal gun owner is one life setback away from doing the same thing. In reality, most of us legal gun owners wish we’d been there with our firearms to keep this piece of excrement away from those kids.
Quisp on December 16, 2012 at 11:36 AM
Until we know more it is unwise to assume the killer understood the monstrous nature of his actions.
First event psychosis for sufferers of mental illness can occur with frightening speed. The transformation from merely maladjusted to delusional psychosis can occur in a matter of hours.
In many situations it is very difficult to recognize the signs and symptoms and the seriousness of the problem. Sufferers often cycle in and out of more and less psychotic states, and are perfectly capable in many instances of pulling themselves together long enough to convince those who might call in authorities not to do so. They are also often capable of forming plans and carrying them out. Doing so doesn’t mean they are rational, only that hey are operating rationally within a delusional framework.
People who are suffering psychotic episodes, particularly first event psychosis, need to be confined and treated immediately. Doing so poses many problems, but it long past time to address them.
novaculus on December 16, 2012 at 11:37 AM
Or, that he hated other children for their normalcy. It will be interesting when the FBI pieces through his intentionally smashed hard drive and get into his lunatic mind.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 16, 2012 at 11:37 AM
Agreed.
Night Owl on December 16, 2012 at 11:55 AM
I think the media deserves some blame. Every time one of these shootings, the media portrays their pictures, and names, and we get endless news footage describing them as ‘methodical’ ‘calculating’ ‘relentless’. The murderers are none of these things. They kill in this dramatic fashion in order to get fame and a brief moment of power. I really think if our media would black out these murderers names and pictures and portray them as anonymous, pathetic, losers you would see a drop in these crimes.
bitsy on December 16, 2012 at 12:25 PM
Wait a sec. He killed the principal in the hall with the rifle?
It’s been reported that the rifle was in the car. It was reported he killed himself in the school, or at least this was my recollection.
If those two facts are correct, then he went back out to the car to put the rifle in it and came back in and then went to the classroom and then killed himself.
Is there something I missed?
Dusty on December 16, 2012 at 12:43 PM
He killed everyone with the rifle, save maybe himself and his mom.
When you think he shot a group of children huddled together…
…he did make a move for another room, but everyone was barricaded.
This isn’t autism. This is psychosis.
He spent years in front of a computer, with no human contact save his mom.
He broke apart his hard drive? C’Mon.
That means he was the guy who posted a warning on 4chan the night before.
It’s the failure of his parents. They took him out of the schools and dropped him online, which only made it worse.
budfox on December 16, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Do not read the second page of that article. God, you’d think reading about the heros would have helped, but no, I did not loose it until the second page, awful.
One point, the father and brother have not had contact with the killer in years. At all. There is going to be a lot of history that comes out in relation to that. Until then, I think I’ll reserve judgement on the mother, she could have been 100% at fault, or dealing with something way beyond her capabilities we do not know. The father could have been trying to do better by the son and finally gave up in exasperation, or he could have been a dick who made it worse or mentally ill himself and the mother was trying to hide and protect herself and her physco son away from him and the world in a really misguided way. There is a lot of background we don’t know.
But just don’t read the second page. Horrific.
rose-of-sharon on December 16, 2012 at 1:23 PM
It’s a good thing they weren’t armed. Somebody could have gotten hurt if they were.
xblade on December 16, 2012 at 1:42 PM