The group observed a moment of silence for the Columbine victims. It then proceeded with the welcome ceremony. Traditionally, the oldest and youngest attendees are officially recognized at that time. The youngest is typically a child. “Given the unusual circumstances,” Heston announced that the tradition would be suspended this year.
When the conspiracy evaporated, it left a dangerous vacuum. Dr. Fuselier saw the danger early on. “Once we understood there was no third shooter, I realized that for everyone, it was going to be difficult to get closure,” he said. The final act of the killers was among their cruelest: they deprived the survivors of a living perpetrator. They deprived the families of a focus for their anger, and their blame. There would be no cathartic trial for the victims. There was no killer to rebuke in a courtroom, no judge to implore to impose the maximum penalty. South Jeffco was seething with anger, and it would be deprived of a reasonable target. Displaced anger would riddle the community for years.
The crumbling conspiracy eliminated the primary mission of the task force. The all-star team was left to sort out logistical issues: exactly what had happened, and how. Those were massive investigations, easy to get lost inside. Investigators wanted to retrace every step, reconstruct each moment, place every witness and every buckshot fragment in place and time and context. It was a Herculean effort, and it drew the team’s attention from the real objective: Why? The families wanted to know how their children died, of course, but that was nothing compared to the underlying question.
Early on, officials began to say the report would steer clear of conclusions. “We deal with facts,” Division Chief Kiekbusch said. “We’ll make a diligent effort not to include a bunch of conclusions. Here are the facts: You read it and make your own conclusions.”
The families were incredulous. So was the press. Make our own conclusions? How many civilians felt qualified to diagnose mass murderers? Isn’t that what homicide detectives were for? The public was under the impression that a hundred of them had been paid for months to perform that service.
Of course homicide teams draw conclusions. What Kiekbusch meant was that they avoid discussing those conclusions externally. That’s the DA’s role. The cops develop the case, but the DA presents it to the jury—and to the public, as necessary. But aside from the gun providers, there was no one to try for the Columbine killings.
Sheriff Stone kept talking up the conspiracy theory with the press. He was driving his team nuts. They had all but ruled it out. Every few days, Jeffco spokesmen corrected another misstatement by the sheriff. Several corrections were extreme: arrests were not imminent, deputies had not blocked the killers from escaping the school, and Stone’s descriptions of the cafeteria videos had been pure conjecture—the tapes had not even been analyzed yet. They did not try to correct some of his mischaracterizations, like when he quoted Eric’s journal out of context to give the impression that the killers had been planning to hijack a plane when they’d started their attack. He was quickly becoming a laughingstock, yet he was the ultimate ranking authority on the case.
His staff begged him to stop speaking to the press. But how would it look if subordinates spoke about the case while the head man was muzzled? A tacit understanding developed on the team: if Stone kept his mouth shut, they would, too. (Though they continued background interviews with the Rocky.) For the next five months, until an impromptu interview by lead investigator Kate Battan in September, law enforcement officers would divulge virtually nothing more publicly about their discoveries or conclusions. After that, it would be a slow trickle, and a fight for every scrap of information. Nine days after the shootings, the Jeffco blackout began.
Columbine coverage ended abruptly, too. A string of deadly tornadoes hit Oklahoma, and the national press corps left town in a single afternoon. The school would return periodically to national headlines over the years, but the narrative of what had happened was set.
37. Betrayed
Eric needed professional help. His father made that determination within forty eight hours of his arrest. Wayne picked up the steno pad that had sat idle for nine months and began filling half a dozen pages: “See psychologist,” he wrote. “See what’s going on. Determine treatment.” Wayne gathered names and numbers for several agencies and services and added bulleted items to them: anger management, life management, professional therapist, mental health center, school counselor, juvenile assessment center, and family adolescent team. Wayne documented several conversations with lawyers. He wrote “probation,” circled it, and added, “take any chances for reformation or diversion.”
Wayne checked out half a dozen candidates for therapist. Their rates varied from $100 to $150 per hour. He settled on Dr. Kevin Albert, a psychiatrist, and made an appointment for February 16.
Wayne logged page after page of calls to cops, lawyers, and prosecutors, working through their options. The juvenile Diversion program sounded ideaclass="underline" a year of counseling and community service, along with fines, fees, and restitution. If Eric completed it successfully and kept clean for an additional year, the robbery would be expunged from his record. But the DA’s office had to accept him.
Eric told Dr. Albert he had anger problems. Depression was an issue. He had contemplated suicide. He apparently did not mention the bombs he took to the park the previous evening. Dr. Albert started him on Zoloft, a prescription antidepressant. Eric continued meeting with him biweekly, and Wayne and Kathy began occasional sessions as well.
At home, the boys received similar punishments. Each was grounded for a month, and forbidden contact with the other. Eric also had his computer access revoked. He went to work on his pipe bombs. He lost one—or perhaps left it as a warning or clue. On February 15, the day before Eric’s first appointment with Dr. Albert, someone in the neighborhood stumbled upon his work: a duct-taped PVC pipe in the grass with a red fuse protruding. Kind of an odd sight for a suburban park in Jeffco. The Jeffco cops sent out an investigator from the bomb squad. Sure enough, it was a homemade pipe bomb. Officers didn’t find a whole lot of those around here. The investigator defused the bomb and filed a report.
Eric and Dylan hid their arrest from friends. They made excuses about their restrictions. Finally they began to come clean. Eric fessed up to a girl at Blackjack, and word traveled to Nate Dykeman. Nate couldn’t believe Dylan had been hiding it from him.
“Is this the reason you can’t go out?” Nate asked. Dylan turned red.
“He didn’t want to talk about it,” Nate said later.
After word leaked, Eric told friends it was the most embarrassing moment of his life.
Both boys were humiliated. And Eric was raging mad. Dylan’s response was more complex. Three days after his arrest, Dylan pictured himself on the road to happiness with Harriet. He sketched it out in his journal as a two lane highway with a road sign off one shoulder and a dashed stripe down the center. His road led off to a majestic row of mountains, with a giant heart guiding him onward. “Its so great to love,” he wrote. He was a felon now, but he was ecstatic. He filled half the page with drawings and exclamations: “I love her, & she loves me.”
Anger boiled up with the ecstasy. Dylan was beginning to see it Eric’s way: “the real people (gods) are slaves to the majority of zombies, but we know & love being superior…. either ill commit suicide, or ill get w Harriet & it will be NBK for us. My happiness. her happiness. NOTHING else matters.”