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.
a throbbing teen prayer mosh: I was present for the mosh, which went on for several minutes. The Rocky Mountain News featured a giant photograph of the incident. Whenever possible in this book, I checked my observations against photographs, television footage, and news accounts by other journalists.
“I smell the presence of Satan”: I attended the worship services where Reverends Oudemolen and Kirsten are quoted. I obtained additional information by interviewing them, attending services periodically for months, listening to cassettes of other sermons by Reverend Oudemolen, and enrolling in Bible study at West Bowles Community Church, with the consent of Reverend Kirsten, who led the class.
Most of the mainliners: I interviewed a few dozen local ministers, as well as countless attendees of local Sunday services during the first few weeks of the aftermath. A powerful consensus developed against active recruitment in most congregations and among most ministers. The scene described by Barb Lotze came from my interview with her and was confirmed by many students attending.
The kids kept pouring into the churches: Huge numbers of students described meeting up at the churches that week.
They turned the corner: DeAngelis and Fuselier independently described this scene in separate interviews with me.
They traced Dylan’s TEC-9: Information on the TEC-9 ownership came from the search warrant for Manes’s bank records. The relevant descriptions are on JC-001-025739.
Detectives interviewed Robyn: Robyn’s interrogation was documented in great detail in her police report. It devoted twenty single-spaced pages to the back-and-forth of the questioning. The passages in italics are paraphrases of her statements. This same report laid out her activities the previous day and her admissions about what she knew and when she suspected Eric and Dylan’s involvement. Eventually, she confessed to strong suspicions early in the shooting, so there was little reason to doubt her.
CHAPTER 23. GIFTED BOY
By third grade: Many sources cite Dylan as starting in second grade, but he did not transfer to Governor’s Ranch Elementary School until third. Tom and Sue Klebold provided many of the details of Dylan’s early life in their report.
Judy first saw him: The creek bed scene was described by Judy Brown during my interview with her and her husband. Dylan’s quote was from her recollection. The incident matched many relayed by reliable people who knew Dylan as a boy and through high school. I chose this one because it encapsulated much of Dylan’s early experience and fragile psyche.
They celebrated Easter and Passover: Tom and Sue described their religious and family background in their police report. Reverend Marxhausen filled in details during interviews with me. Dylan’s writings and videos provided more.
Tom described Dylan: Tom’s quote came from his police report. He also described Dylan as being sheltered in the CHIPS program.
CHAPTER 24. HOUR OF NEED
He organized a vigiclass="underline" Depictions of the vigil and the funeral came from my interviews with Reverend Marxhausen. Additional information came from his statements in news reports.
CHAPTER 26. HELP IS ON THE WAY
when the first shot hit him: Dave Sanders’s four-hour ordeal was painstakingly documented before I covered that aspect of the story, so I corroborated existing accounts with sources from both sides of the eventual lawsuit, as well as the 911 tapes released by Jeffco. On most points, they concurred. The police issued voluminous reports documenting the department’s take, and for the Sanderses’ side I relied most heavily on Angela Sanders’s legal team, which researched the case for months and eventually prevailed. This included interviews with lead attorney Peter Grenier, his excellent thirteen-page summary of the case after it was over, and the forty-two-page complaint filed in April 2000. The report by the governor’s review commission and the accounts in the Rocky and the Denver Post were extremely helpful in providing additional details, especially the Rocky’s “Help is on the way: mundane gave way to madness…” In interviews, Linda Sanders and several friends of Dave’s provided their perspective on what happened.
hurl a chair: This incident comes from the Sanderses’ lawsuit and the case summary by their attorney Peter Grenier. It is consistent with other accounts.