Newtown: An American Tragedy
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Stronger gun laws would not have stopped Adam Lanza from walking into Sandy Hook Elementary School. Under Connecticut’s current legislation, it was already illegal for Adam, at the age of twenty, to own a firearm. But today more people have access to more powerful firearms that either didn’t exist fifty years ago or were not readily available.
“These assault weapons today are so powerful and destructive,” said Nicole Hockley. “Perhaps it is time to ask the question, why do all these people need to have such powerful weapons?”
Still, most of the “what ifs” fall on Nancy Lanza, who is no longer around to defend herself: What if Nancy Lanza, who knew her son was mentally ill and had seen his collection of violent images, hadn’t stockpiled her home with weapons? What if she hadn’t left her mentally ill son alone for weeks at a time? Or as Mark Barden, who lost his son Daniel at Sandy Hook, poignantly asked: What if Nancy Lanza had chosen a different hobby for her mentally ill son?
In hindsight, any number of “what ifs” or interventions could have been made during the chain of events leading up to the morning of December 14 that might have prevented the tragedy from unfolding. Yet no one scenario offers complete reassurance that history would have taken an entirely different course.
What if Peter and Nancy had stayed together? What if . . . What if . . .
The question moving forward is: How does society stop another massacre like this from ever happening again, especially given that mass shootings have occurred with such frequency in recent years that the phenomenon almost resembles an epidemic?
Despite the best efforts of lawmakers, no single piece of legislation could have prevented the Newtown tragedy and no single act can be reasonably trusted to safeguard against future acts of violence. Some believe the search for a solution will be found in the field of science.
Dr. Jeremy Richman, who lost his daughter Avielle at Sandy Hook, thinks future mass killings can be prevented by studying brain health. “These terrible tragedies happen all over the country,” he said. “Not only in schools, but in parks, places of worship, really anywhere. Each time the country responds in the same way, calling for improvements in school safety, gun legislation, and mental health. All three need to be dealt with, but with mental health we never get anywhere. We need to understand the pathologies, the things in their brains that go wrong. We need to understand it and prevent it.”
The Richman family founded the Avielle Foundation in the wake of their daughter’s death. It is funded through donations and grants and hopes to remove the stigma for people seeking mental health aid, develop the concept of a “brain health checkup,” and identify behavioral and biochemical diagnostics for detection of people at risk of violent behaviors. Richman, a researcher at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, has extensive research experience that spans neuroscience to neuropsychopharmacology. His wife, Jennifer Hensel, is a medical writer with her own company.
“Our immediate response to what happened to our daughter was that we had to do something about this so people don’t have to face what we are facing ever again,” Richman said. “We believe that starts with erasing society’s stigma and misperceptions about brain health. If you are told your child is psychotic and that child is labeled psychotic, there is nothing you can do and as a parent you are going to be in denial. It’s scary not to have hope. But if your child is diagnosed with diabetes or nut allergies, it’s something we can wrap our arms around and everyone wants to help.”
Richman hopes his foundation will enable people to see mental health issues in the same vein as they do more traditionally treated physical problems. “If you are diagnosed with too much dopamine, and as a result have trouble with impulse control, that’s not overwhelming,” he explained. “That can be dealt with.”
Richman wants to see the country shift from mental health to brain health and believes the language itself is counterproductive to helping those who are afflicted. “No doctor would look at your broken arm and call you a broken arm,” Richman said. “You are not your disease.”
What if Adam’s Asperger’s syndrome and sensory perception disorder had been properly treated?
From early childhood, it was clear to those around him that Adam Lanza was a deeply disturbed young man. While still in elementary school, he was diagnosed with mental illness. Always an outsider, he was prone to isolation and saw the world differently from his peers. His journals were filled with violent drawings, some of which were discovered by his school and his mother. Many of them can be seen as warning signs of potential future violence.
“It was obvious that Adam was not well and wasn’t getting the care he needed,” said Richman. “Once we know what to look for, we can treat these people.”
Shortly after starting the Avielle Foundation, the Richmans were shocked by the outpouring of support they received. Messages began to flood in from parents around the country, all in need of support in coping with their children’s violent tendencies.
In reality, none of these solutions might work. In life, people are free to make choices. Nancy Lanza made her choices. Adam made his. This has led some people to choose a simpler explanation for what happened on the morning of December 14—evil. In a planet that is inhabited by seven billion people, no matter how society or culture evolves, a small percentage of those people will always make decisions to commit senseless and seemingly random, unspeakably horrific acts.
“For as long as we have walked the earth, there have always been acts of evil and there always will be,” said Monsignor Robert Weiss.
In confronting a tragedy so unfathomably terrible, people have a need to seek out a reasonable explanation for the senseless loss of life. Attaching a label to it gives back a feeling of control. Without an answer to the question of why, communities are left facing the random chaos of life. They are forced to face the realization that in a world with so many moving parts, it is impossible to have control over random events and tragedies. It leaves open the possibility that what happened at Sandy Hook could happen one day at their child’s school. It is an uncomfortably reality and one which forces the search for an explanation to go on.
“We have to keep looking for answers. We must keep examining these issues. The conversation must continue,” said Mary Ellen O’Toole, the former criminal profiler for the FBI who has studied mass killers. “The moment we stop asking why is the very moment we give up the future to the next mass killer, who is out there now plotting. We can’t stop believing that we have the power to stop it from happening again. We can’t sit back and just let it occur. The randomness has to be explored because we have to know why.
“We may never get to one final answer, but we have to keep trying.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is only possible because of those who graciously shared their stories with me, including families of the victims, survivors, first responders, and friends and family of the Lanzas. Thank you all.
It was the tireless work of my literary agent Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management who believed this was an important story that needed to be told and worked hard to make this book possible. Thank you, Sharlene.
I cannot say enough about the professionalism and expertise exhibited by my editor Tricia Boczkowski and the entire team at Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books—Jen Bergstrom, Louise Burke, Jen Robinson, Elana Cohen—an amazing group of people.
I’ve had many great editors over the years who have all contributed to this book coming to fruition; JoAnne Wasserman, Kirsten Danis, and Robert F. Moore of the New York Daily News.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to several other people. Chelsia Rose Marcius, a great journalist, writer, and friend who helped read through my copy and gave me inspiration in the fragile early days while I was trying to get this project off the ground. Dave Crawford, my seventh-grade English teacher at Danville Middle School, who helped preserve enough of my curiosity to get me through the most boring years of my life (middle school). New York City journalis
t and author Christina Boyle, whose expert eyes helped me with the manuscript.
My family was also instrumental in the completion of this book. My parents, Gina and Arthur Lysiak, and my mother-in-law Candace Belles, and John Thrash, who all generously opened up their home to my family during my months away in Newtown.
I also want to thank my daughters, Isabel, Hilde, and Georgia Lysiak, who understand that having a dad who is a reporter often leads to an unconventional childhood but always seem to effortlessly roll with it, and my wife, Bridget Lysiak, whose seemingly pathological pursuit to always better herself has proven contagious.
MATTHEW LYSIAK is a nationally recognized journalist who was on the ground at Newtown for two weeks, exclusively reporting for the New York Daily News, where he is a staff writer. He lives in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, with his family. Follow him on Twitter at matthewlysiak.
The author is donating a portion of his proceeds from this book to The Avielle Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building safer communities through brain health initiatives. Please visit www.aviellefoundation.org.
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First Gallery Books hardcover edition December 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lysiak, Matthew
Newtown : an American tragedy / Matthew Lysiak. — First Gallery Books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre, Newton, Conn., 2012. 2. School shootings. 3. Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newtown, Conn.) I. Title.
LB3013.33.C8L96 2013
371.7’82097469—dc23
2013034956
ISBN 978-1-4767-5374-4
ISBN 978-1-4767-5376-8 (ebook)