Eric complained about his medication. Before he transitioned from Andrea Sanchez, he told her the Zoloft wasn’t doing enough. He felt restless and couldn’t concentrate. Dr. Albert switched him to Luvox. The change required two weeks unmedicated, to metabolize the Zoloft out of his system. Eric told Andrea he was worried about going without. He told a different story in his journal. Dr. Albert wanted to medicate him to eradicate bad thoughts and quell his anger, he wrote. That was craziness. He would not accept the human assembly line. “NO, NO NO God Fucking damit NO!” he wrote. “I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts. but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit.”
It’s not clear exactly what Eric was up to with Dr. Albert. He might have actually complained about the Zoloft because it was too effective. Every patient reacts differently. The maneuver definitely solidified the facade of Eric working to control his anger.
“I would be very surprised if Eric was being honest and straightforward with his doctor,” Fuselier said. “Psychopaths attempt to, and often succeed, in manipulating mental health professionals, too.”
Wayne Harris was the hardest person for Eric to fool. He had seen Eric’s boy scout act. It never lasted. Wayne made one undated entry in his journal sometime after the orientation meeting for Diversion in April. He was frustrated. He listed bulleted points for a lecture for Eric:
* Unwilling to control sleep habits.
* Unwilling to control study habits.
* Unmotivated to succeed in school.
* We can deal with 1 and 2: TV, phone, computer, lights out, job, social.
* You must deal with 3.
* Prove to us your desire to succeed by succeeding, showing good judgment, giving extra effort, pursuing interests, seeking help, advice.
He put Eric on restriction again: a 10:00 P.M. curfew except for studying, no phone during study time, and possibly another four weeks away from his computer.
The crackdown was the last entry Wayne Harris would record—and nearly the last words the public would get from him. The search warrant exercised on his home a year later was specific to Eric’s writings. Nothing else from Wayne or Kathy or Eric’s brother was confiscated. In the ten years since the attack, they have issued a few brief statements through attorneys, met with police briefly, and with parents of the victims once. They have never spoken to the press. The outlines of Eric’s relationship to his father came through in their journals, and from testimony of outsiders. Kathy Harris is murkier, and a full picture of the family dynamic remains elusive.
With Eric, Dylan paid lip service to NBK. Privately, he was juggling two options: suicide or true love. He wrote Harriet a love letter, confessing all. “You don’t consciously know who I am,” he started, bluntly. “I, who write this, love you beyond infinince.” He thought about her all the time, he said. “Fate put me in need of you, yet this earth blocked that with uncertainties.” He was actually a lot like her: pensive, quiet, an observer. Like him, she seemed uninterested in the physical world. Life, school, it was all meaningless—how wonderful that she understood. Dylan caught a glimpse of sadness in her: she was lonely, just like him.
He wondered if she had a boyfriend. Odd that he’d never checked that out. He hardly saw her anymore. He realized this might be a bit much: “I know what you’re thinking: ‘(some psycho wrote me this harassing letter.)’” But he had to take the chance. He was sure she had noticed him a few times—none of her gazes had gone unnoticed. Dylan confessed his scariest intentions—just like Zack, who had found a soul mate in whom to confide his suicidal desires. At first Dylan was a little coy: “I will go away soon… please don’t feel any guilt about my soon-to-be ‘absence’ of this world.” Finally he conceded that she would hate him if she knew the whole truth, but he confessed it anyway: “I am a criminal, I have done things that almost nobody would even think about condoning.” He had been caught for most of his crimes, he said, and wanted a new existence. He was confident she knew what he meant. “Suicide? I have nothing to live for, & I won’t be able to survive in this world after this legal conviction.” But if she loved him as strongly as he loved her, he would find a way to survive.
If she thought he was crazy, please don’t tell anyone, he pleaded. Please accept his apologies. But if she felt something for him, too, she should leave a note in his locker—No. 837, near the library.
He signed his name. He did not deliver it. Did he ever intend to? Or was it just for him?
Eric, meanwhile, was upset. He lashed out at Brooks Brown by e-mail. “I know you’re an enemy of Eric’s,” it said. “I know where you live and what cars you drive.”
Psychopaths do not attempt to fool everyone. They save their performances for people with power over them or with something they need. If you saw the ugly side of Eric Harris, you meant nothing to him.
Brooks told his mom; Judy called the cops. A deputy wrote up yet another suspicious incident report and added it to the ongoing investigation of Eric. It said the Browns were worried. They’d requested an extra patrol for the night.
The threesome was over. Zack was not included in NBK, and Eric froze him out completely. Eric went cold on him that summer, Zack said—he never figured out why. Open hostilities erupted that fall. Dylan kept clear of it. He stayed close to Zack, away from Eric, chatting away by phone every night.
Randy Brown called the cops again. Somebody had tagged his garage with a paintball gun. He was sure it was that same old little criminal, Eric Harris. A deputy interviewed Randy and wrote up a report. “No suspects—no leads,” he wrote.
“Eric is doing well,” his new counselor, Bob Kriegshauser, wrote in Eric’s file at that time. Eric was exceeding expectations and covering his mistakes. He got into a bit of a procrastination jam on his last four hours of community service. He waited until the last day, and he wasn’t going to get to complete his full forty-five hours. So he sweet-talked the stranger in charge at the rec center that day, who was impressed enough to lie for him. As far as Bob Kriegshauser knew, Eric completed his service on time. Eric used the work for brownie points with a teacher that fall. He boasted about the summer he’d dedicated to the community.
The boys continued diverging philosophically: Eric held mastery over man and nature; Dylan was a slave to fate. And Dylan had a big surprise. He had no intention of inflicting Eric’s massacre. He enjoyed the banter, but privately said good-bye. He expected his August 10 entry to be his last. Dylan was planning to kill himself long before NBK.
Senior year started for the killers. Eric and Dylan began a video production class. That was fun. They got to make movies. The fictional vignettes were mostly variations on a formula: aloof tough guys protecting misfits from hulking jocks. Eric and Dylan outwitted the bullies, but saved the real contempt for their clients. They bled the losers financially, then killed them just because they could. The victims deserved it; they were inferior. The story lines spilled right out of Eric’s journal.
What an opportunity. Eric was guiding his unsteady partner: fantasy to reality, one step at a time. Dylan ate it up. He came alive on camera. His eyes bulged. You could sense true rage smoldering beneath his skin. The boys had riffed on NBK for months, but now they were acting out bits on film. They were celluloid heroes, screening their exploits for classmates and adults. Eric loved that. Hilarious to reveal his plans that way. He was right in the open, and they still couldn’t guess. And he had Dylan out there with him.