Columbine (57 page)

he had nearly seven hundred rounds:
Eric's journal chart for bomb production also included a section on ammo. He made a column for each gun, showing each acquisition and deducting for rounds spent in training. He did not label them, except for R (for Reb) beside one column and V (Vodka) next to another. Statements on the Basement Tapes a week and a half before the attack corroborate several entries and help identify what each column signifies. The chart tallies 143 rounds for Dylan's TEC-9, 129 for Eric's rifle, 295 for Dylan's shotgun, and 122 for Eric's (272 initially, less 150 fired off), for a total of 687. This was before Manes purchased the final hundred 9mm rounds, which could be split between the first two guns.

CHAPTER 9. DADS

It came up unexpectedly:
Dave's conversation with Mr. D in the bleachers was re-created based on my interviews with DeAngelis.

team captain, Liz Carlston:
The scene with Liz Carlston was based on her memoir.

Linda Lou was asleep:
The Monday and Tuesday scenes with Linda vary slightly from the depictions in the book she wrote with Saltzman. In my interview, Linda recalled a few things differently, and added more details.

CHAPTER 10. JUDGMENT

the boys rose early:
The killers' activities on Tuesday morning were compiled from several sources: 1) eyewitness testimony of parents and neighbors who saw them coming or going, 2) time-stamped receipts, 3) video surveillance cameras at two stores where Eric bought gas and in the Columbine cafeteria, and 4) the killers' handwritten schedules for the morning and taped descriptions of their plans. Several schedules appeared in their notebooks and on assorted scraps of paper, with minor variations. The external evidence indicated that they stuck close to plan.

They got something to eat:
Dylan's autopsy report indicted 160 cc of gastric contents, including "fragments of what appears to be potato skins." Given Dylan's love for fast food, that could have meant French fries. Eric's showed 250 cc, no specific contents.

CHAPTER 11. FEMALE DOWN

At 11:19 they opened:
For depictions of the shootings, I relied mostly on police interviews with witnesses, the Jeffco
Sheriff's Office Final Report,
the governor's report, and the El Paso County sheriff's report. Discrepancies were sorted out through interviews with investigators, particularly lead investigator Kate Battan. I treated all Jeffco statements related to its own culpability and police response skeptically. However, the team's documentation of the killers' activities on April 20 was generally thorough and meticulous. Notable exceptions, such as information about Danny Rohrbough's killer, have been corrected. The El Paso County sheriff's department thoroughly reinvestigated Danny's shooting, reinterviewing about 130 witnesses and approaching 65 others who refused. Its 450-page report supersedes the Jeffco report on most of the outside gunfire.

Times came from the
Sheriff's Office Final Report,
and were arrived at through a variety of means, including: witness testimony and time stamps on 911 calls, dispatch calls, and the surveillance video in the cafeteria. Patti Nielson's 911 call was particularly useful. She dropped the phone but left it off the hook, and 10 minutes, 48 seconds were recorded. The audio was then enhanced by the FBI crime lab. Every shot, crash, scream, and loud verbal exchange described by witnesses could be sequenced against a solid physical record.

Sean burst out laughing:
Sean's perceptions of what was happening came from his police reports, conducted by both Jeffco and El Paso counties.

CHAPTER 12. THE PERIMETER

The story took twenty-eight minutes:
I relied on transcripts from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and NPR for all descriptions and analysis of real-time TV and radio reporting. CNN stayed live for at least four hours. It had access to feeds from four local stations--affiliates of the three networks and one other station--and cut between them, providing a good cross section of local coverage as well.

CHAPTER 13. "1 BLEEDING TO DEATH"

Always the same question:
Most of the descriptions and quotes from the Columbine library were based on my observations. I spent about an hour there, in the early afternoon. Misty Bernall's thoughts and statements at the library are an exception; they were drawn from her book.

The Leawood scenes came from my later interviews with kids and parents there and from live TV reports I watched later on video.

The grousing increased when:
Assessments of police reaction that afternoon came from several sources who were present and in a position to hear.

a SWAT team made its first approach:
Actions of the SWAT team came from the
Sheriff's Office Final Report
and from numerous other documents released by Jeffco. The movements outside were corroborated by news chopper footage. Sources for Dave Sanders's nonrescue are described in the notes for Chapter 26.

Rachel Scott:
Some witnesses reported that Rachel cried for several minutes, and the story gained great currency. However, Investigator Kate Battan makes a convincing case that Rachel's gunshot to the temple killed her immediately.

Robyn Anderson watched it all:
Most depictions of the killers' friends' reactions came from their police interviews. Additional details came from TV interviews some of them gave.

Nate dialed his house:
All the action involving the Klebolds here comes from a combination of their police report, TV interview transcripts from Nate, and news stories documenting Byron's interaction with coworkers. The calls between Nate and Tom were described by each of them, with only minor discrepancies.

kicked Byron out:
Dylan's Diversion file contains several references to Byron's eviction. The "Drug/Alcohol History" section of the summary states Byron "was kicked out of the house for continued drug use."

CHAPTER 14. HOSTAGE STANDOFF

Two to three hundred:
This is Kate Battan's estimate.

The cops were livid:
Police reactions to news coverage were based on my interviews with senior officers and school officials among them that day. Their statements in news reports served as a secondary source.

CHAPTER 15. FIRST ASSUMPTION

Detectives arrived at the Harris place:
Several officers filed detailed reports about their encounters at the Harris and Klebold homes.

Fuselier got the call:
Most scenes involving Agent Fuselier were drawn from interviews with him; his wife, Mimi; and their two sons. Much of it was corroborated by police reports, his published work, and research by other journalists. I questioned Agent Fuselier more than fifty times between 2000 and 2008.

CHAPTER 16. THE BOY IN THE WINDOW

Mr. D arrived in the hallway:
The account of Mr. D's rescue of the girls' gym class was based on interviews with him and some of the girls in the class.

John and Kathy Ireland knew:
Most scenes involving the Ireland family and their earlier life were drawn from my interviews with them. Additional sources are noted in later chapters.

CHAPTER 17. THE SHERIFF

The SWAT teams:
I am indebted to the
Rocky Mountain News,
whose wonderful piece "Help Is on the Way" provided the basis for much of my description here. Kate Battan added and corrected details.

Lead investigator Kate Battan:
Accounts of Kate Battan's involvement were drawn from my interviews with her, police reports, and the excellent "Inside the Columbine Investigation" series, led by investigative reporter Dan Luzadder and published in the
Rocky Mountain News
in December 1999. I also discussed Luzadder's findings with him, and I am grateful for his generous support.

At 4:00
P. M.
,
Jeffco went public:
Quotes and descriptions from this fateful press conference were based on my observations and the audiotape I recorded. I spent most of the late afternoon near the command post in Clement Park. Stone and Davis spoke regularly. Students kept wandering through to provide their evolving perspectives.

"We ran for our lives":
Several quotes from Tom and Sue Klebold--lincluding this one and the ensuing statement by their lawyers--were made to David Brooks in 2004. He reported them in his
New York Times
column.

CHAPTER 18. LAST BUS

Brian Rohrbough gave up:
Most of my accounts of Brian Rohrbough and Sue Petrone were based on numerous interviews with them. I also used their TV interviews and countless news reports quoting them. My accounts of John and Doreen Tomlin came from Wendy Zoba's book
Day of Reckoning,
which was based on her interviews. The descriptions of the Red Cross volunteer Lynn Duff came from my interview with her. Details involving DA Dave Thomas and the coroner came from police reports and news accounts, particularly Luzadder's "Inside the Columbine Investigation" series.

CHAPTER 19. VACUUMING

Marjorie Lindholm had spent:
Marjorie Lindholm's reflections came from her memoir.

CHAPTER 20. VACANT

There is a photograph:
The
Rocky Mountain News
did an outstanding job in capturing the pain of this tragedy visually, and won the Pulitzer for those photos. Fourteen of the most iconic can be viewed at the Pulitzer Web site.

the survivors had changed:
Virtually all accounts of students' reactions that week came from my observations and conversations with survivors. I spent most of that week in Clement Park, area churches, and student hangouts. I interviewed perhaps two hundred students during that time, and observed hundreds more. The depiction was also informed by media accounts I absorbed at the time and revisited later.

Light of the World seats eight hundred and fifty:
This scene was drawn from my observations and audiotape. The event was not announced to press, and the major news outlets were asked not to go inside. I was told about it by students in Clement Park. As a freelancer, I got no notice not to avoid it, and no signs were posted. I saw TV crews outside and assumed that cameras were forbidden but reporters were allowed. Consequently, to my knowledge, this scene has not been depicted in print, except in my profile of Frank DeAngelis a few months later in
5280,
Denver's city magazine.

It's shocking:
Quotes from the
Rocky Mountain News.

the crime of the century in Colorado:
For depictions of the police investigation I relied heavily on thousands of pages of police files and my interviews with Agent Fuselier and senior Jeffco officials, including Kate Battan and John Kiekbusch. Luzadder's "Inside the Columbine Investigation" series was extremely helpful for corroboration. Dan spent months working on the series and was generous and candid in discussing his observations and perceptions with me.

30,000 pages of evidence:
This figure includes approximately 4,000 redacted pages.

CHAPTER 21. FIRST MEMORIES

It didn't start:
Information on Eric and Dylan's childhoods and activities during their final years came from a wealth of sources, including hundreds of pages of their writings, appointments in their day planners, their videos, extensive police interviews with their friends, television interviews with those friends, my interviews with investigators who examined all the evidence, news accounts by trusted journalists (particularly Lynn Bartels), and my interviews with some of their friends, including Joe Stair, Brooks Brown, and several kids who had known them earlier. Some of their closest friends chose not to cooperate with me but gave detailed statements to police detectives. Tom and Sue Klebold provided a wealth of details about Dylan's childhood in their police interview. Bartels and Crowder's
Rocky Mountain News
profile "Fatal Friendship" was particularly helpful; I relied heavily on it. Other key profiles were Simpson, Callahan, and Lowe's "Life and Death of a Follower," Briggs and Blevin's "A Boy with Many Sides," and Johnson and Wilgoren's "The Gunman: A Portrait of Two Killers at War with Themselves."

"I just remember":
The quotes from childhood friends and neighbors of Eric's in Plattsburgh and Oscoda were drawn from the Jeffco
Sheriff's Office Final Report
and the profiles cited above
.
The accounts were remarkably similar and fairly unrevealing: Eric seemed like an average kid prior to high school. This corresponded to both Eric's depictions of his younger self and friends' accounts to police.

Major Harris did not tolerate:
My characterizations of Wayne Harris's parenting style came from several sources: his own twenty-five pages of notes in a steno pad he labeled "Eric"; Eric's frequent complaints about his dad's punishment in his writings; eight-and ten-page questionnaires about the family filled out by Eric and his parents for entrance to Diversion; Eric's statements to his Diversion counselor, which were recorded in his file; and statements by Eric's friends, primarily in their police reports but also in interviews with me and in some TV interviews.

"Fire!" Eric screamed:
Most of the scenes in this chapter came from Eric's school assignments, recalling his youth. I chose material he returned to repeatedly.

CHAPTER 22. RUSH TO CLOSURE

Ministers, psychiatrists, and grief counselors cringed:
The
Denver Post
headline was merely the most appalling example of early proclamations of healing. They were everywhere. I interviewed a great number of ministers, psychiatrists, and grief counselors during those first weeks, as well as over the following nine years. From the beginning, virtually all thought the premature assessments were a terrible mistake.