Sandy Hook /// Part 1 /// 79 | Forensic Files

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brand [Music] [Music] [Applause] never [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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[Music] [Music] crime [Music] the worst grade school shooting in US history at least 27 dead 20 children
seven adults including the principal and the gunman killed himself and all over this town in churches like the United
Methodist Church behind us well the lights are on and they are still open for prayer tonight it will be all night
people have been Gathering here for prayer to lean on each other and lean on a belief in something bigger than
themselves to help get through what is just impossible to believe here or anywhere else the sentiment here echoed
in what you're seeing now down by the Washington Monument in DC uh M members of the Connecticut delegation was there
but this story is really about their home here New Town Connecticut just 27,000 people this is a place where
where people know each other families know each other and what happened today is known by all and it's not just about
how many were lost it's about the age what is hitting everyone so hard is the reality of these being children that
were targeted by a Madman we now know his name we know he's 20 years old Adam Lanza we know that before he came to
this school he shot his own mother Nancy in the face killing her at her home the
looming question is why this man then decided to come to this school he shows up at a place where they're making
gingerbread houses and preparation for the holidays and Christmas presents just kids a man in Black enters with a vest
and multiple weapons and begins a [Music] massacre [Music] Coline was not the first school shooting
in history but if you ask people my age that's the first school massacre that we
remember and you hate to force yourself to rank these tragedies but Sandy Hook certainly is one of the worst these
stories are becoming a common occurrence we won't say it out loud but we are becoming a little numb to these horrible
events mhm we used to kiss our kid and send them off hoping that they would learn something and make us proud but
these days we kiss our kids and we hope that they come back once we shake off the shock and try to comprehend these
tragic stories we must know why we seek out to answer every question one can think of but even after we have done so
we are still confused we have we have to blame someone that part is easy as usually the guilty party is found close
to his victims with a bullet in his head but that's just not enough that's not good enough because kids are not
supposed to die parents are not supposed to bury their children and children and
young adults are supposed to have too many exciting things to look forward to in their lives to ever think or consider
of carrying out these plans that end lives ruin families destroy communities and break the hearts of a Nation why do
these things happen is the problem our gun control laws is the problem mind altering Pharmaceuticals that treat our
troubled youth or is it the bullies we simply may never know but we're not going to stop asking why and we're not
going to stop looking into these events to try to prevent them from happening again yeah I believe most people our age
or maybe a little younger uh the the times of high school or middle school or Elementary School being a place of
safety a place of Education a place of where you had so many first experiences maybe your first best friend your first
first girlfriend your first kiss who knows what it was schools were a place of safety a place that you would
reminisce on once you left school you know the the Glory Days and now schools when you see a School flash on the news
screen you don't think oh something positive you immediately assume oh no another school shooting happen again and
with Sandy Hook it's more heinous because the victims were of age six and seven yeah and the the hard thing here
Captain was you know when we met in the garage last week and we left saying okay
next week is Sandy Hook we're very quickly thrown into the mix when we dive into these cases and this one especially
where where we're you know it's so difficult to to research because of the tragic events it's so difficult to
report on this because it's such it's such a horrible crime that happened the key thing here though is that at the end
of the day this story is about not about the monster that carried out this crime
but about the this story is about the school of Sandy Hook and its wonderful teachers and students by examining a
case like this we might be able to see what some of the causes were and that might be able to put us on higher alert
so we could prevent a tragedy like this happening again in another school in your town but it also is a reminder that
life is short and life is precious and while we're here on Earth that maybe we should have more respect for each other
and more love for each other Sandy Hook Elementary School is in the town of New Town Connecticut New Town is part of the
Danberry metropolitan area and the New York metropolitan area one person that everyone probably knows is Caitlyn
Jenner who of course back then would have gone by the name of Bruce attending New Town High School the population of
New Town is about 27 28,000 people so this is not a big town this is more of what I would call a sleepy town this is
an ex extremely Safe Community very very low crime rate it's like a modern Mayberry two of the residents in this
community in 200 12 are Adam Lanza and his mother Nancy now let's go back here a little bit we have Adam Lanza was the
second of two children of Peter and Nancy Lanza their first son is Ryan Lanza who is four years older than Adam
the L of family moved to New Town when Adam was only 6 years old back in 1992 this is when became the VP of
Finance for General Electric which is one of the more prestigious companies in the new town area Peter is described as
a workaholic often getting into work very early in the day and then staying until 10: p.m. or even later Nancy took
care of the kids Nancy grew up on a farm in New Hampshire and from a young age hunting was a hobby of hers she would
often go hunting with her older brothers uh she did work for John Hancock before
she decided to stay home home with her two boys if you watch the documentary New Town you'll notice that these are
larger Siz houses normally like two to four car garages and their lots are bigger so the average lot I would say
and I'm not I don't know the whole area but I'd say there's a lot of lots in this area that they're small communities
but they have about 2 acres per lot yeah quite a bit of space between the homes there um at a very young age Adam seems
different um and this is noticeable by his parents and his loved ones when he is 5 years old he is diagnosed with
Asperger syndrome which is a form of autism with a significant difficulties in the realm of social interaction uh
shortly after that he is diagnosed with sensory processing disorder this affects
the body's sensory signals the SPD Center describes this as signals that are not organized into appropriate
responses creating a neurological traffic jam that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving information
needed to correctly integrate sensor data Adam displays all of the common symptoms of this of this SPD uh avoiding
groups of people and kids recoiling from touch flinching at sudden movements seeking seclusion and he also prefers to
be in the dark Adam definitely seemed a little different and with his Aspergers obviously we we know why some of those
things would make him seem different but it didn't seem like he was that interested into fitting into any gr no
he never seemed to speak much or to try to make friends he just never seemed interested in making friends or
relationships with other people his age um at home he also didn't seem to want to have much of a relationship with
anyone in the lands of Home other than his mother Nancy was very much a helicopter mom when it came to Adam
Nancy and Adam built a bond through target shooting this starts when Adam is very young uh he shoots his first gun
when he's 4 years old Nancy encouraged their shared hobby for target shooting and an interest in Firearms this was
really the only outdoor activity that Adam seems to enjoy because of Adam's disorders Nancy was overly concerned
that Adam would become the target of bullies Adam's peers would often describe Adam as picked on occasionally
but really for the most part Adam was really he really wasn't bullied he was was just kind of ignored with Adam's SPD
his anxiety grew a lot more at home he would have these temper tantrums which would grow with age and so every time
he'd have these temper tantrums it would like he become more violent and the number of these fits as well they
increased yeah and this was getting worse for Adam in his middle school years yeah and it's around this time
that one of his middle school teachers would discover some of Adam's drawings now these are images depicting people in
various states of death at home Nancy is finding similar drawings of Adams as well as printouts showing scenes of
death and violence that he had found on the internet uh Nancy does seek help from a professional regarding these
images that she's finding and concern about Adam's well-being and maybe where his head's at right but she does not
feel that Adam's needs were being met by that professional and this would be difficult for any parent to deal with
with a typical kid but in Adam's case his his communication skills are not the best regardless this is a difficult
thing to to experience and to deal with because your your son is roughly let's say 14 at the time and you know I can
remember being a kid and I'm not going to pretend that to be some kind of expert parent nor do I fully understand
this disorder uh or either of these disorders that he has but you know when you're a young teenager you know
especially for me you're listening to Metallica and things like that and you doodle at school while you're trying to
pass time and SC s creep their way onto uh you know my my notebooks and my journals and things like that now did I
have any fantasies about going out and and collecting skulls or or or you know creating Havoc or death well a side note
we once were called to the principal's office cuz we had a band in high school and uh our buddies made a poster and
they called us into the principal's office cuz they thought that the drawings were satanic now we didn't make
those drawings but we didn't disapprove of those drawings either were we satanic
kids no we were not we just happened to be in a band and we just you know whatever we thought it was creative well
of course it raised a red flag for the the principal or vice principal or whoever called us down there and then
then they notify parents and then parents have to to be concerned because here's the issue too you know and I
understand Adam you know they found these drawings at school as well as at home MH uh which makes it you know that
more troubling but in our situation it was I think my parents kind of reacted like well maybe I should treat this like
it's some kind of big deal because the school thought it was a big deal they didn't they they saw it and really
didn't didn't really didn't get it either yeah I don't think my father ever got why I was in a band now in Adam
situation it's different it causes more of a red flag if you will because he has
lack of social skills and lack of social life and he just doesn't even talk to anybody I mean he doesn't talk to his
family he doesn't talk to his classmates he just doesn't talk period but to her benefit she seeks professional help for
Adam yes she does and she ultimately ends up removing him from that situation it's reported by her friends that her
complaint was she was so sick of hearing people tell her that Adam's just going to grow out of this situation but but
again here that's where I kind of take a bit of problem with the situation because yeah all these maybe the
teachers and the school counselors and this professional that you've sought out are telling you he will probably grow
out of this if you're feeling that his needs are not being met maybe stick with it a little bit longer but what a scary
situation to be in as a parent and maybe she had this gut intuition that maybe there was something a little more
Sinister going on with her child around this same time Adam's parents well their
marriage starts having problems and Peter and Nancy they would separate a couple of times before Nancy would file
for divorce in 2008 uh Adam's temper tantrums are getting worse and this isn't example of one there's there's
actually one day before school this is when Adam is in eth grade Adam is actually taken to the hospital due to an
anxiety attack that he's experiencing this is primarily because of his SPD he was afraid of going to school and it's
not because of the kids you know he wasn't afraid of going to school because he was bullied or because he wasn't
performing well in school no he was afraid because of this disorder he was afraid of like loud noises and the
crowded hallways the slamming doors the lockers the loud kids all of this was making it much harder for him to go to
school or to navigate through the hallways in the classrooms yeah and I have a longtime friend that is an
educator and his specialty is autistic kids or kids with aspergers and this is a common um symptom is that they really
are Disturbed uh by loud noises and by a lot of commotion well on this one situation where he's taken to the
hospital Nancy talks to the doctor and she wants to try to get a note from the doctor stating that Adam should be
homeschooled she wants to keep him home for the remainder of his eighth grade year so that he can kind of settle in he
can he can focus on schoolwork and not have to go to this place that's causing him this massive anxiety and a bit of
trauma so to speak uh she wants to keep him home from eth grade before he enters
high school but this does not end up happening she doesn't get a note from the from the hospital and she doesn't
keep him home yeah and in hdand sight you wonder if this would have helped his disorder helped what he was going
through um but I guess we'll never know and it's in eth grade that we start to see an increase in the troubles with
Adam as well as the disorders that are preventing him from wanting to go to school well now that he's in high school
you would think that you know the kids before weren't so there weren't necessarily mean but they weren't really
attentive of him he was just kind of invisible the invisible kid but I wonder if that that bullying uh or being picked
on ramped up much in high school well you're exactly right he is kind of the invisible kid it's we're going to see
that same underlining sentence that we had said earlier where he's not he has picked on occasionally it's described as
picked on occasionally but no one ever called it bullying my right my only problem with this though is this is
coming from all outside sources right and so I had a really good friend in middle school that actually switch
schools going into high school did not go to our high school he was picked on so much that his family everybody
decided hey he's going to a different high school now I knew that because I was one of his best friends but people
around didn't really understand well why is he not going to our high school and I'm going well you didn't understand how
bad it was now the difference between my friend and Adam was my friend talked to
his parents told counselors what was going on I wonder if in Adam's case there was a lot of bullying or being
picked on and and some other things going on that just never were reported well you have you have two arguments
here um Nancy would Nancy believed that he was being picked on that he was bullied where you have the school
children and his peers saying that no that wasn't the case he just he we knew he was different uh he didn't fit in
that's that's easy to see but he never tried with us he didn't want to talk to any of us he didn't want to have a
relationship with any of the kids here and therefore I don't think any of the kids made an effort on their end either
well Nancy wasn't helping out Adam at all with giving him that Lloyd Christmas haircut it's strange that you say that
because there's actually a story by the the man that cut his hair for years and he described the situation as strange
because you know you go to a barber shop or you go to get your hair cut and it's
usually a place where the the person cutting your hair is trying to make small talk with you and usually it make
talk back and sometimes it it Sparks up conversations and whatnot this was not the situation for Adam or for Nancy and
I and I bring ny's name into this because the man specifically says that on every time that Adam went to get his
hair cut he was he was with his mother his mother would come in and basically tell Adam where to go to sit down uh
Adam would go to the the barber chair and rather than you know the barber says I constantly try to to make jokes or to
talk about things that were going on to spark up conversation with the boy yeah try to ease his mind when he put that
metal bow on his head to give him the haircut and and I think a lot of that too is that you know these Barbers
usually are are are people people people person yeah and he probably saw that there there was some anxiety with this
young man and he was trying to make ease the ease the trip for him but he said that Adam would just stare at the tiled
floor and it was it was strange that the boy never really interacted with any body at the shop there it was all of his
mom kind of telling him where to go okay Adam we're done now let's leave um you know like I said a bit of that
helicopter mom again I think the whole uh hindrance you know hindsight of the whole thing is maybe she was enabling
him too much and holding his hand too much and not not enabling him to grow mhm and you worry that that might have
been the situation had she been successful taking him out of eighth grade maybe sometimes sometimes these
fears we have to face them to to overcome them um once Adam starts High School uh they started off by they put
together a plan to kind of ease him into the school uh this plan was devised by Nancy working with the school and the
school's officials he started off the year in a private setting and once he got used to the new school to the high
school he was slowly introduced into the traditional classes with other kids and
he was taking a lot of honors classes again even though he had these disorders he was not he was not a dumb kid you
know he was he was bright and he he excelled at academics and oddly enough um Adam seems like a little bit of a
cartoon character yeah his peers in the school officials would later recall that
Adam wore the same outfit to school every day he wore baggy khaki pants and the same blue polo shirt and he carried
a briefcase uh and I wonder if it's not the actual same Polo or if it was was just like we have multiple of the same
outfit but maybe Adam didn't really give a [ __ ] so then his parents were like you
know what we'll just you kind of give him a uniform yeah I don't think that you know he he's not communicating well
with anybody I don't know that he's able to communicate or desires to communicate
to his parents what he wants to wear to school so maybe they just buy some things that he seems comfortable with
but yeah he could have created his own uniform wearing that same blue polo shirt and khaki pants the weird thing
about the briefcase first of all that's a strange thing to carry in high school uh but the thing about this too is a lot
of people when they saw the briefcase opened they said it was practically empty so it seemed even more strange
that he would carry this briefcase it sounds to me there's a lot of accounts that when he was trying to navigate
through those hallways that he was using the briefcase as kind of a buffer between him and the other kids that he
would typically walk right on the edge of the hallway right up against the wall and keep that briefcase either right out
in front of him or to the side of him that would kind of block him from the other children yeah well with the
Asbergers it would you know that makes a lot of sense because he does not want to
be touched most uh people with Asbergers have a real issue with personal space and it was not uncommon for Adam to
require an escort to help him navigate through the hallways of the high school and we'll get right back to the case
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2023 cheers everybody where we left off Adam Lanza was entering High School his mother is concerned Nancy is concerned
with his uh mental state and kind of what's going on in his head and she's having a very difficult time
communicating with Adam yeah and at the start of his sophomore year uh we do see
a little bit of progress uh from from Adam as far as the social aspects concerned uh he surprises everybody and
he signs up for an after school program uh this is one of those AV Tech clubs uh
where he is the he's video recording the school's foot basketball games um so what we're seeing here Captain I believe
is that we have this Young Troubled Man right this this boy who has trouble fitting in and he doesn't want to be at
school because of his anxieties and his disorders however he's very smart and I think that when he's starting to see
classes that challenge him a little more that he's able to dive into that and this might Peak his interest and he's
coming out of his shell a bit here uh he's he's in a way opening up and like we said a lot of his classes at this
point are honor classes yeah and he's taking things that seem a little little more fun to him like shop class and then
he's involved in this AV tech club um he does trade in the blue polo shirt uh for
a green one and he will wear that shirt for the remainder of his sophomore year uh he does lose the briefcase and he he
gets a more traditional bag m uh that you would be used to seeing um yeah I always Rock the two straps it's around
this time that Nancy starts adding to her collection she's purchasing more guns more Firearms again she is
encouraging her son's hobby of target shooting because other than this AV tech club he Adam still doesn't have any
hobbies other than video games and target shooting uh It is believed that she kept some of the guns for herself
but that she also gave some of the guns to ad now this has been a topic of of discussion quite a bit that that were
the guns you know the guns were obviously hers and maybe she should have kept them locked up better but there's
plenty of evidence here that we will see going forward that these guns were purchased for Adam mhm now remember we
have this divorce that the parents and the family have just gone through recently and it's Adam's classmates that
say that Adam was greatly affected by his parents divorce and that while he did not talk to most of the other kids
he did seem to write about the separation often mhm in September of 2009 Adam starts playing and becomes
obsessed with a video game called combat arms this is a multi-player game it's a
modern style firstperson shooter game the player is in control of a gun and the object of this game is to kill the
most enemy players in this game there is a form of gam playay where whomever kill
KS the most players in the shortest amount of time is the winner and you can also increase your kill number by
killing yourself this situation is quite different from real life obviously in the game world he would fit in he would
fit in you know they would have these forums and these groups that you could talk to he was accepted into these
groups where he would discuss game strategies and occasionally joke around uh Adam creates an online and gaming
Persona in which he calls himself self cane breed this becomes a positive social experience for Adam yeah for I
think a lot of parents you might go well this is a little odd but the fact I mean
the fact that he is talking to anybody or he's excited about anything that he is social with uh that's a positive step
in the right direction and it's probably because of these games that he's playing
but he's also having an increasing military Obsession and fascination Adam also becomes involved in an online
community for gun enthusiast uh he knows his stuff too from from his interactions
on this form again he fits in very well and he's knowledgeable about Firearms yeah and what we're also seeing with
Adam is that he's not very good with social situations but it seems like when he's behind a computer screen or a TV
screen when he's playing these games that he's kind of excelling more so than he ever has as far as the social
communication and it seems like he's definitely willing to yeah he's fitting in and he's reaching out to other people
and communicating with them I do want to point out that this you know I mentioned
the game combat arms that this is only one of many games that Adam was playing uh most of these games were very violent
games yeah I've never actually heard of that game before I had not either so I and I don't know where to like rank
these games as far as violence go it sounds to me like all of them were pretty violent one of the games that was
playing is a situation where the shooter was even killing women and children in the game yeah which is awful but in this
case in this conversation if you will the big conversation always is with these violent g games are kids more
likely to commit violent acts I don't personally have an answer or a stance on that I don't have an answer either and I
don't want anybody saying well Nick saying take away the violent video games because I think there there is a place
for them uh but one thing that we see see time and time again in these situations where you have a mass shooter
especially one that's a younger person that we are seeing a common it's a common occurrence that these guys are
playing violent video games and I say guys because almost all of these crimes are committed by young males right but
then the question becomes did the violent game you know in you know did the violent game cause the person to
become more violent or was this person already a sociopath or psychopath and they were drawn to the violent games I
think each situation is probably different um I don't think that we can say that it's the violent video games
100% I do think that what it does do though is that it desensitizes them you know when you're logging 500 hour you
know there there was one of these games I'm not sure if it was the combat arms game or not but we talked about how
violent that game is but there was one of these violent games that Adam had logged over over 500 uh times that he
had played the game I think in defense of his mother on this I mean Adam is in honor you know in honor programs and
he's doing well in school academically not socially and his only social Avenue are these games so maybe she thought
this was you know this would help his uh social skills outside you know in the real world and not just the virtual
world well is it kind of an easy way of being a parent that when you have a son that likes to lock himself in the
basement and he's taped off off all the windows so that he remember he likes to be in the dark he prefers to be in the
dark is it an easy way to be a parent when when you're your troubled son just goes off into the basement for hours
upon hours and you don't have to deal with him you don't have to put up with the temper tantrums because he's happy
he's entertaining himself and you're not really fully aware nor seem to care what
he does in that room because you know he's safe and you know that he's he's entertained and he's not disturbing you
well and in nany's defense I mean you have a child that has a lot more challenges faces probably more
challenges than the typical kid um but we see this time and time again with just typical kids you know the parents
just go oh well you're on a phone or you're on an iPad or whatever do you know who cares if it's healthy for you
uh I just don't have to deal with you right now I do think though that it again it desensitizes these kids to that
certain level of violence even though it's just onscreen violence uh but again if he's if he's logging over 500 games
on this one particular game that's thousands upon thousands of hours spending watching those violent images
over and over again and we do know from studies that if if a kid is young enough
that they almost cannot separate the the the reality you know real life reality from what they're seeing on the screen
and I right and I don't know much I don't know a lot about Asbergers but I've also heard that you know they can
get hyperfocused on something and so do you really want your kid that can get super hyperfocused on something to be
hyperfocused on killing people or you know what I mean or or violence in general well it's around the same time
that the Adam would start to spend countless hours studying Mass Killers online he spent about seven months or so
just collecting information on these killers to the point where he was an expert on mass murders to the point
where he was going on to Wikipedia and he was correcting entries you know if people had put wrong dates on there he
would go in and correct them if somebody had put you know names of locations were
wrong but most of the time he was correcting the weapons that were used or descriptions of those weapons that were
used in those attacks yeah and at this point Lloyd Christmas is getting pretty creepy right and I think at this point I
can put point a finger at Nancy on the idea of if your kid that is hyperfocused on mass murders and going on Wikipedia
and changing dates and stuff this is something you should be aware of you're right yeah or or at least have a hint of
it right right if you're if he's spending hours and months on this project that he's created but well but
okay I'm going to play devil's advocate for myself okay but if he's not communicating it makes it tough how
would she know I mean you'd have to go the extra step and look at you know look here's a I'm not a parent but I think
all parents should do this I I was a parent for a time I was a stepfather and kids had cell phones and iPads but at
any time I would just go let me see your phone like they might be laughing a little too hard and I just go let me see
your phone and if they didn't want to give me their phone that phone was taken away for a week but it was constantly
checking their you know not constantly but you know just double- checking what is is their uh what are they searching
on the internet yeah and I and and I like these households where you see parents saying you know there's not a
closed door in this house this is an Open Door House you know that we're not going to hide behind closed doors so
that way everybody in the household kind of knows what's going on with the children I I do understand the older
that these kids get that gets a little tougher they do deserve some privacy well and it's harder in this community
as well because these houses were larger yeah so it wasn't like you know the shoe
boxes we live in I mean these were houses that you know a person over here you know on one side of the house and
the person on the other side of the house might not even hear each other not only larger but emptier I mean as Adam
has gotten older you know the parents get divorced the father moves away uh Ryan's four years older than him he
moves away as well uh that the house is big and it's and it's empty mhm you know
internet search is a side there's a lot lot of items that Adam had that his mother should have found well we talked
about him researching these Mass killers and wanting to know everything about them but he also kind of had some kind
of like memorabilia of them where he he had newspaper clippings and stories that
he had printed from the internet regarding these different Mass Shooters so those were would be physical items
that his mother could have found now one of the most disturbing probably the most
disturbing item that that we know of is a spreadsheet that he created now I'm not certain that this was a physical
spreadsheet I don't know that he actually printed this off and referenced it right but we do know that it was an
at least an electronic thing that he had stored on his computer now what was this
spreadsheet this was he had he had listed several hundreds of mass Shooters and just just to hear that sentence
alone is terrifying to remind yourself that there's been hundreds of these situations right but he had list listed
several hundreds of these Mass Shooters and created this spreadsheet that has been reported to have been approximately
7 foot long in length yeah so we don't know if it was actual physical or if it was digital but if you did print it then
it' be 7 foot in length you're right and it would be approximately 4 foot wide Jesus so this is a massive uh collection
of data here and this this appeared to be Adam had ranked them from you know number one to whatever however many
hundreds of these people he had researched but it seemed to be mostly based off of who had had the most kills
or created the most dramatic situation um you know so we we have that's some pretty extensive research there Captain
um some serious time that he spent diving into these these other people that that are creating Havoc yeah and
frankly this is becoming a lot more disturbing after some faculty changes at the high school Nancy started not to
believe that Adam's needs were being met remember we talked about when he started
his freshman year he she had worked with some school officials so that he could start off in a private setting yeah and
he could work his way into the general population of the school um one of those faculty members or I I don't know
exactly who she worked with to be honest with you but they were no longer there at the school as as the years G by and
at some point she feels that there are not there's nobody there that understands Adam that understands his
disorders and or his needs right she doesn't have an ally in the fight anymore correct so this would be uh his
junior year just after his junior year Nancy decides to take Adam out of New Town High School uh and it's it's
reported by people at the school that that Nancy seemed to be angry with the school but Adam also seemed to be angry
with the school because of this because he was leaving this place even though he
had this anxiety about going there we did see some progress while he was in high school and like you said you know
it's supposed to be a place that you look back on that that's of good memories um even though he had this
anxiety we don't know that maybe he didn't have good memories there you talk about a boy that that it his family's
moving away it's just him and his mother in a house other than violent video games and research about violent
criminals that maybe his only social interaction outside of those four walls was the school maybe the only thing he
was leaving the house for was to go to school I mean other than the shooting range and to go rent some video games
well and I wonder also at this point he was playing video games online um assuming and being in part of that
Community sometimes kids you know will find a couple buddies at school that also play so maybe had a couple people
that maybe just even said hi to him and maybe that was enough for him to enjoy that experience at school you're right
it could be a bit of a common ground give him something to talk to other kids about um so after high school after he's
taken out of high school of his junior year uh Adam is enrolled in Western Connecticut State University Nancy
believed that he would do better in a more adult environment where there would be less chaos um and well I feel for her
too because that at some point you're grasping at straws right yeah I don't the thing is what we're seeing is we're
seeing a a mother that cares she absolutely cares it's just she doesn't know what to do and I and I don't know
that every that most of us would know what to do in the situation but we're seeing her try some different things to
me I just question if she could have received a little more information from the people around her on on ways to cope
with this and to deal with this um I don't know that her answers were always the best and I know that I'm sitting in
a seat where I'm able to look back after this terrible tragedy and and go well she didn't she didn't do the right thing
did did Nancy love Adam yes 100% we see we see that we see a mother giving a lot
of effort here but uh you know we we also know that effort doesn't always take place of intelligence or or
informative decisions right and and I think sometimes uh we'll never know but I think sometimes people are lost causes
you know it's like you know the whole what came first to the chicken or the egg we don't know but I mean possibly in
this case he just had these Demons Inside him from the beginning yeah there's also some question with Adam
about on top of these disorders did he have any kind of anorexia um you know because he is a
very thin very thin young man MH um and so there there's been a lot of question about that I've heard different accounts
couldn't really put my thumb down on it if that was the actual case but I know that his size and his stature also led
her to believe that that he would be a even more so a target of bullying yeah I think when you see pictures of him and
some of the famous pictures of him you know he looks I mean he was 20 years old at the time of the attack he doesn't
look 20 at all no he looks almost 12 yeah and his his bone structure and his face is very prominent and and he almost
looks malnourished very pale uh but again we said he preferred the dark and and and you know we know he was in the
basement constantly at home with the with the windows taped up so that there was no light coming in yeah and then a
lot of these kids that get super focused on whether it's iPad or or video games or whatever it is that they lose track
of time and they they don't you know they forget to eat or they don't even care to eat academically he had no
problem with high school um and intelligence wise he had no problem with handling the classes or or the the
school um it's just I just really wonder here if that's the right thing to do to
remove a kid from high school and then place them in an adult setting in an adult environment such as a as a
community college yeah in all fairness though I mean you know I school is not a huge step up you know going from high
school to college is not a huge step up so it's not like you know he would have been a senior the following year so he
only stepped up one year in advance he did take seven classes uh when he was at Western Connecticut State University uh
receiving a 3.28 grade average um so again academics is not a problem for this young man um in 2010 Adam's Father
Peter now let's talk about their divorce for a little bit okay Peter we had said
was very successful worked for General Electric uh was a vice president he he made approximately like half a million
dollars oh good for him well in the divorce uh how did you say that dores yeah Nancy received a lot of alimony or
a lot of child support right um but it was also agreed upon the two that they both understood that Adam had plenty of
issues needs and Peter understood that Adam needed to be cared for practically 247 even even as a young man and
probably as an adult as well and so he understood that his son that nobody could go off and work a full-time job
and care for him at the same time so I don't think that Peter fought any of anything that was decided in the divorce
he it was agreed upon that he he gave almost half of his salary to Nancy so that Nancy could stay home provide for
Adam and take care of him yeah and that's good on Peter right and and again this was not only for the time that Adam
was a child but as an adult as well Nancy would receive this amount of money for the rest of her life with steady
increases annually as well um so money is not the problem money is definitely not the problem but what is also decided
is that Nancy would have primary custody of the kids mhm and but Peter's going to
spend regular time with the children as far as visits go you know how these things work you take them on the
weekends or for holidays uh try to take the kids places so he's spending an ample amount of time with both of his
sons uh it's in 2010 that Adam's Father Peter begins dating again or at least to the point
that it's serious enough for Adam to recognize this and at this time Adam decides to stop seeing and communicating
with his father at the same time he also decides to do the same with his brother
as well as an uncle that he was close to Growing Up also in 2010 Adam receives his driver's license uh but again the
only places he's really interested in going to would be the shooting range and the video game store uh he also drops
out of school at this time he stops going to college so 2010 there's a there's a lot of things happening here
right uh we we see we see a boy that's taken of high school he goes into the college situation for one year and then
he shortly after that he's dropped communication with his father his brother his uncle collects his driver's
license practically just staying at home might as well not have a license at all
with the exception though it should be noted though he was going to the shooting range on occasions by himself
at this point once he had the dri's license um but then dropping out of college ultimately one could assume that
he's going to the driving range with his own guns as well but right of course you
mean the shooting range he's not going to the driving range and scaring the hell out of the golfers with his own
guns let's fast forward in time just a little bit to 2012 yeah Nancy Lanza starts getting out
of the house more we have to think about this situation here we have a we have this troubled child and it's probably
caused her obviously a lot of stress uh on her life and her situation and in 2012 she she developed some more
friendships with some of the locals she starts going to a local pizza place for a beer or two during happy hour a few
times a week um some of the information that we would later find out about the relationship between Nancy and Adam
would be from some of these friends that she created at at this happy hour yeah everybody needs somebody to vent to and
what better but what better way to vent than with some pizza and beer well she also starts going on overnight trips
with friends from time to time as well you know it Adam is very much an adult and even though he doesn't have any
hobbies or anything other than locking himself in the basement and playing violent video games he's fine with
inside of those four walls he's able to care for himself and she goes on these overnight trips I believe she went on a
dozen or so in uh the year of 2012 um remember we talked about Adam having this growing obsession with the
military well he had he wanted to become a marine and this was something that he
was only really being vocal about with his mother and he had posters all over the walls in the basement of different
combat situations you know things like tanks and aircraft carriers and things that you would heavy machinery that you
would see in the armed forces um at some point Nancy has to have a long talk with
Adam and explain to him that he's never going to be a marine um this obviously because of his disorders he could never
be a marine he I mean you're talking about a kid that had trouble leaving the home a person that had trouble going to
school which I have some uh trouble with because I think on some level she could
say well look you know we get you into some counseling and there are certain things that may you know maybe set it as
a goal maybe he won't reach that goal but it gives him something to kind of get out of bed get out of the basement
try to do something productive with his life she would also tell friends that she's hanging out with that Adam's time
in front of the computer screen or in front of a video game screen seems to be increasing now that he has less
responsibilities or obligations and he also seems to be turning away from her as well uh maybe this is just him
getting older or maybe this does have to do with his time spent with these video
games yeah or maybe like I said I I I believe on some level she has this Mother's intuition and maybe that she
knows that there's something more Sinister going on here Adam is 20 now and Nancy is still finding disturbing
drawings in his possession you know this thing that that all the experts the people at the school had told her he
would probably grow out of well now he's 20 he's a young man he's not a boy anymore and she's still finding these
disturbing drawings one of them and and these are drawings that he these are sketches he's making one such sketch is
of a woman holding a rosary and she is shot she's being shot by Machine Gun fire okay another one is an open field
and in the open field lie mutilated bodies of children scattered throughout the field their faces are so bloodied
that you couldn't discern any of their features yeah at this point this guy really needs to be seeking professional
help and there is also a drawing of a what appears to be a younger Adam with a with blood pouring from his forehead and
his arms are held up into the sky it's like a almost like a suicide picture that he's thrown of himself yeah and
Lloyd Christmas just keeps getting creepier and creepier well we had the talk about her explaining to Adam that
he couldn't become a Marine uh here's some added stress though to the situation because now Nancy starts
discussing the idea of moving to another state with Adam um and the plan was to move to Washington state which is quite
a bit of ways from connetic is this for a romantic no I I don't know the reasons
for the moving but it doesn't sound like she had developed any type of relationship that would have taken her
there um but but Adam was to go with her um so so that family portion would not be disrupted it would just be
transplanted um again Adam at first he seems pretty hip to the idea of moving but as it becomes closer to you know the
goal of moving and as these talks become more and more serious Adam starts to shut down even more now he now we're
seeing the opposite reaction from him he's not liking the idea of moving uh Nancy was planning on moving with Adam
to Washington State this probably would have taken place sometime in 2013 uh but also the other thing here
too that that has not been well reported in my opinion was that by this time nany's health is really starting to fail
her as well um this again is probably a lot of this is probably just due to stress yeah cuz she's only 52 years of
of age you know and a lot of her friends seem to think that she she appeared to be healthy but she did have some uh she
had some hidden health problems uh that that were coming about and really starting to take their toll on her uh as
she was still trying to care for her now adult son yeah and before we get to December of 2012 uh tell me again about
nany's Dream well this was a situation that happened this is something she told her friend about uh in September of 2012
that she had had a dream about Adam that she she in the dream she was outside with Adam they were enjoying like a
beautiful day right when all of a sudden a large gust of wind comes and it starts
to slowly lift Adam up into the air now Nancy runs over and grabs Adam's legs and she's trying to hold on to him but
the pull just starts to get stronger and stronger and then she loses her grip on her son
and Adam slowly lifts up into the air higher and higher into the sky Nancy watches Adam get smaller and smaller as
he gets further and further from him to the point where she cannot see him any longer it's kind a crazy dream when you
think about how involved she had to be and being that helicopter mom and always watching over him and even when she
couldn't be there trying to make sure others were watching out for him as well and as he's growing older you know this
this is the dream that she has that that at some point he's a man and on top of that if her health gets
worse who's going to be around to to watch after him well and maybe some kind of metaphor for the fact that he was
withdrawing anyways or like I said and what I've been saying from the get-go I I really believe that she had a gut
feeling uh uh about her and and and a a gut feeling that she didn't want to have well what should
have happened here Captain is that gut feeling you got to use that and talk to some other people again I my complaint
here is not that Nancy didn't care for Adam I think she cared for him an unbelievable amount um I just don't
think that she even though she thought she did I don't think she knew what was best for him well thank you Captain
Obvious I also want to talk about a few other things that were taking place leading up to December 2012 mhm so Nancy
these are all things that Nancy had told friends of hers um now keep in mind we the neighbors would describe Nancy and
AD Adam as kind of like ghost like they were just not there you know this was a community where people went out and they
spoke to their neighbors and they did things in the community well Adam we know obviously didn't do that and other
than some friendships that that Nancy had we don't see a lot of that either and a lot of that's probably her being
home with her son caring for for her son yeah or just the extra stress of it um but she would tell friends that leading
up this is just a couple weeks before uh the event took place that she had had an
experience with Adam that this was he was not leaving the home by this point 3 months before December he was basically
on lockdown and he had locked himself up and he not leaving the house self locked
down right he he's not going to the video game store he's not going to the shooting range anymore he's not going to
the driving range either yeah he's not doing anything with this driver's license and things got so strange that
he at some point started only communicating with his mother through email they live in the same in the same
home the two of them are in the same home and he's only communicating with her through email now one thing that
happened too was that Nancy was planning a you know we talked about these overnight trips that she started to do
well those were just that just over one night they were just short trips well late that year she was planning to take
a much longer trip she wanted to go to London and this would be a bit of a household experiment if you will this
would be a point for her to go off and have some Leisure Time and get away from the stresses of home and to see if Adam
could handle himself for more than one night on his own yeah cuz normally at this point as a parent you know your
your child is 20 years old sometimes moves away to go to college or if they're still living at home they're in
school they probably have a job they're just not around the house that much and it becomes back it gets back to me time
right and she doesn't have that luxury now Adam bumps his head she reports this to some of her friends that there's some
kind of accident in the home and she she states that he bumped his head pretty badly and he was taking it very badly as
well so he's he's injured somehow we don't know the details of this but for whatever reason and it's probably this
situation she states that she canell her London trip and simply just states to friends that it's because of things
going on at home that she's no longer going to go on this London trip and I'm sure she's talking to Adam about this
trip so maybe you know maybe it's this elabor plan cuz he doesn't want her to leave mhm and she I mean she's really
backed in a corner here right I mean she he's no longer communicating with his father and or brother or uncle and now
he's only communicating with you through email yeah and now you can't go somewhere you can't take this trip
because he he probably does need somebody to look after him he might not be able to handle uh being alone for
that amount of time right but there's also there's probably something going on through her head right nany's head MH
he's 20 years old she wants to she wants to get on with her life she wants to have a life right I wonder at
this point it's she going okay well now am I because he's my son am I am I locked down forever am I you know
handicapped by his handicaps basically um it's really tough spot for her to be in yeah and she can't get the father
involved she can't push Adam off onto the father to to get away for a week because he's broken communication with
him and and now only communicating through to you through email if you if you attempt something like that he might
break off communication with you as well and might be lost completely oh yeah right right this brings us to Friday
December 14th 2012 MH now sometime between or sometime before 9:30 that morning Adam got up and he's planning
something and he's doing some things in the house we're a little unclear of what
those movements are and we'll come to those later however what we do know that takes place that morning before 9:30 is
that Nancy at only 15 52 years of age she's shot dead MH and this is the situation she's found in her bed still
wearing her pajamas she's lying on her back and she's shot four times in the head with a 22 caliber Savage
mk2f bolt action rifle mhm now she's shot at such a close distance that they are almost certain that the barrel of
the gun would have been touching her head meaning that even if she was still asleep when this took place she probably
there was probably enough time that from the time that it was pointed to her head
that she may have opened her eyes just in time to see her son shoting her right um the hopefully not she was shot so
badly and at such a close range four times that it almost took off her head uh to to to put it you know bluntly yeah
obviously we don't we don't fully know if he took her hostage for any length of time or if she was aware of what was
going on all we can go off of is the evidence that we see afterwards and that of her being in her bed still in her
pajamas so it is assumed that she was probably attacked act in her sleep that morning mhm this all took place uh just
before 9:30 and right afterwards uh if if he killed her at 9:30 then immediately afterwards he got into her
car and he drove away and the problem with covering these shows or these cases is we all know what is next and that's
what we're going to dive into tomorrow cuz I I I just can't do yeah I think it's been enough for one day well it's
been enough for the whole week you know I you I can't iterate as we we put cases
on there then you dive in and it physically affects you and it's and and this one uh more so than anything
watching the documentary uh new town which you know at the end of it has it has no informational value really other
than the pain and the suffering that these families go through and but we you know we sign up to do a
show every week on True Crime and we it was too almost too late to back out yeah
um but just for anybody that's concerned about listening tomorrow we will be um as respectful as we can and and very
aware of you know we don't want to cause anybody emotional uh Trauma from listening to The Show by any means if
it's something you don't think you can handle by all means don't listen to that show um but we will not be graphic about
that right or anything we want to be respectful to the victims and the victim's family on a lighter note I do
have some recommended reading for today um this week recommending the spider in the fly by Claudia row uh in this superb
work of literature True Crime a uh spellbinding combination of a memoir and a psychologic iCal suspense we have a
situation where we have a female journalist who Chronicles her unusual connection with a con convicted serial
killer and her search to understand the darkness inside of him and what might lie inside of all of us now I'm
recommending this one not only because it's a fantastic book but because last week I misspoke when we were talking
about the National Force serial killer oh you or me Miss speak never happens I last week I was referring to a uh
another serial killer and I call I said Joseph fris and his actual name is Kendall franois and I was actually just
going off of off of my poor memory there but uh this book is about uh the journalist having a relationship with
Kendall Francois that serial killer that I talked about briefly in our last episode was it just a friendship or was
it sexual no no no she she was a journalist and she was uh reporting on his story once he was already in prison
so she went to meet with him on multiple occasions now she's a young attractive journalist so this is very kind of
Silence of the lambish you know where you have the young woman meeting with the the the psychopath yeah and there I
want to read a little quick caption from the book to you uh it goes like this well well Claudia can I call you Claudia
I have to give it to you when confronted at least you're honest as honest as any
reporter you want to go into the depths of my mind and into my past I want to peek into yours it's only fair isn't it
and that was by the serial killer Kendall Fran W that and that really comes off as that Silence of the Lambs
type feel yeah so check out the spider in the fly by Claudia row and you can do that by going to our website we have a
recommended page you're going to see lots of books to choose from even a couple of movies on there as well and
again a special thanks to everybody that shares on social media it's it's been awesome uh check out some of our new
stuff on YouTube uh make sure you tell a friend uh we appreciate it and it it's the reason why we're able to give uh
we've been trying to do on two parters almost every week now and we will see you again here in the garage tomorrow
and until then be good be kind and don't glitter [Music] you can live out your Master Chef
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Sandy Hook ////// 79

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It didn't start with Columbine but if you ask people my age that's the first School massacre that we remember and you hate to force yourself to rank these tragedies but Sandy Hook certainly is one of the worst. These stories are becoming a common occurence. We won't say it out loud but we are becoming numb to these horrible events. We use to kiss our kids and send them off hoping they would learn something and make us proud but these days we kiss our kids and hope that they come back. Once we shake off the shock and try to comprehend these tragic stories we must know why. We seek out to answer every question one can think of but even after we have done so, we are still confused. We have to blame someone, that part is easy as usually the guilty party is found close to his victims with a bullet in his head. But that's just not enough. That's not good enough. Because kids are not supposed to die, parents are not supposed to bury their children and children and young adults are supposed to have too many exciting things to look forward to in their lives to ever think or consider carrying out these plans that end lives, ruin families, destroy communities and break the hearts of a nation. Why?Is the problem our gun control laws? Is the problem mind altering pharmaceuticals treating our troubled youth? Or is it the bullies? We may never know.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Sandy Hook shooting, Adam Lanza's troubled life, and the implications of mental health and gun control.

Key points

The Sandy Hook Tragedy. A deep dive into the events of the Sandy Hook shooting and its impact.
Understanding Adam Lanza. Exploring the background and struggles of Adam Lanza leading up to the tragedy.
Adam's Struggles with Fitting In. Adam faced bullying and isolation at school, feeling different from his peers.
Nancy's Concern for Adam. Nancy worked with school officials to help Adam transition into high school.
Adam's Online Persona. Adam created an online gaming persona, finding acceptance in virtual communities.
Adam's Disturbing Spreadsheet. Adam created a spreadsheet listing hundreds of mass shooters, raising alarm.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Kids are not supposed to die.

Expressing the pain of losing children to violence.

8:00WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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