by Jeff Kass
Praise for Columbine: A True Crime Story
“Jeff Kass comes closer than anyone in explaining this national tragedy that is Columbine. His discussions with Hunter S. Thompson in the kitchen over the years revealed his depth of research and wisdom of this complex story, which he finally unmasks, a decade later in Columbine: A True Crime Story.”
—Anita Thompson, wife of the late Hunter S. Thompson, author of The Gonzo Way.
“It was the kind of tragedy that defined a genuine breakdown of social cohesion in the late nineties. America and guns go back a long way, as Hunter used to remind me, and demonstrate. But this was a lack of imagination, a cold assessment of cause and effect, devoid of compassion and the action of severely damaged psyches which could never have been introduced to the ramifications of consequence. Unfortunately, these kids have had many role models, filmic but very real demonstrations from A Clockwork Orange onwards on which to base their ideas. I reckon that the senseless motive for violence heightens the sick thrill of the act.”
—Ralph Steadman, artist, cultural satirist, and author of The Joke’s Over: Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, and Me.
“Could this happen here? The day after Columbine I was asked that question from parents, faculty, school administrators, students and police officers in Aspen. Columbine: A True Crime Story answers all questions about the killers, the families, and victims of one of the most iconic school shootings in this nation’s history and more.”
— Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis
“Kass has created a tour-de-force explaining not just Columbine, but the roots of all teen violence – not just an accounting of facts, but a sordid, painful, and in the end, hopeful tale that draws us in and won’t let go. It will remain with you long after the pages become dog-eared and weathered.”
—Paul Dobransky, M.D., Psychiatrist and first responder to Columbine.
COLUMBINE
A TRUE CRIME STORY
A Victim, the Killers, and the Nation’s Search for Answers
JEFF KASS
Columbine: A True Crime Story—A Victim, the Killers and the Nation’s Search for Answers. Copyright 2014 © by Jeff Kass, Second Edition. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Bower House books may be purchased with bulk discounts for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, contact Bower House P.O. Box 7459 Denver, CO 80207 or visit BowerHouseBooks.com.
Case study/profile of “Sandra” excerpted from Your Inner Conflicts-How to Solve Them (Simon and Schuster, 1974) Written by Hugh Missildine and Lawrence Galton. Used with the generous permission of Dan Missildine and Jeremy Galton. All Rights Reserved.
Columbine photos used with the generous permission of the Rocky Mountain News.
Drawings and notebook pages of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold obtained from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Cover illustration: Ralph Steadman
To George and Judi Kass:
My superlative editors, advisers, supporters, and of course, loving mom and dad
Preface to the New Edition
As this book first went to print in 2009, I sadly noted some breaking news: My main home as a reporter for ten years, the Rocky Mountain News had been put up for sale. Today, the update is even more sad. The 150-year-old paper was not sold, but shuttered. Without the Rocky’s reporting on Columbine—and any other number of events in the life of the state—there would be a hole in our history.
As this book is re-released near the fifteenth anniversary of Columbine, I must note another round of breaking news—actually, the past five years of breaking news that continues to horrify us unabated: public shootings from the targeting of then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona to the mass killings of moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado and schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut.
I am careful to use the word public shooting because the conventional term mass shooting—which is officially defined as at least four dead, not including the killer—does not begin to describe what appears to be a new phenomenon where gunmen bear down on dozens, if not hundreds, of potential targets in public places. Luck, civilian heroes, police officers, good medical care, and a shooter’s idiosyncrasies may work alone or together to reduce what would otherwise be massive death tolls in each instance. One, twelve, or none may die, but the shooters bear the same sentiment no matter how many are left dead: extracting their own twisted version of revenge. The wrongs these shooters list may be unseen, or nonsensical, to outsiders. But they are real to the shooters.
The persistence of—and increase in—these shootings that I detail in the new afterword underscores the threat they pose, not just to our physical safety but to our sense of well-being. Each shooting makes it that much harder for people to have a daily life free of fear.
I could not have anticipated that fifteen years after Columbine I would still be asked to give several media interviews a month regarding public shootings. Or garner the distinction of being one of the first reporters on the ground at two mass shootings only some twenty miles apart: Columbine and Aurora. I have moved from focusing on shootings at schools to shootings in almost every realm of public life.
If there is a silver lining, at least one solution still stands out: catching the warning signs. And there is almost always some type of sign. Unearthing signs in the days, weeks, months or years before an actual shooting is no easy task. If it were, we would have been able to act many times over. But examining the spectrum of public shootings is our best chance. And as the afterword recounts, it is exactly what four junior high school girls did after Columbine.
—Jeff Kass
November, 2013
FOREWORD
Jefferson County, Colorado entered our collective consciousness in a horrific way back in April 1999. A couple Holden Caulfields run amok stormed into Columbine High School and killed twelve classmates and a teacher and injured twenty-four others.
Suddenly the names of murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold became synonymous with derangement. Grotesquely, these two mass murderers had videotaped their plot to raid the school brandishing two shotguns, a rifle, and a semi-automatic pistol. A huge public debate erupted over everything from gun control to Goth culture, violence in films to the use of anti-depressants for young people. Columbine became a one-word banner for American dysfunctionalism.
Perhaps because Columbine was so disgusting to contemplate, few reporters probed deeply into the meaning of the debacle. After all, America had previously experienced two even more deadly school killings than Columbine.
The Bath School bombings in 1927 left forty-five, including the bomber, dead. The University of Texas shooter in 1966 killed fourteen. An even worse shooting spree occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007, but that is getting ahead of our story.
For only Columbine seemed to stab into the dark underbelly of the American psyche like a knife that kept being twisted. It remains a stain on our culture that can’t be rubbed out. All murders sicken the heart but Columbine continues to haunt the soul. Had our society gone completely wrong? Was Columbine a wake-up call to parents to start being more hands-on? Or were Harris and Klebold simply two bad seeds?
Out of all the reporters covering the Colorado disaster, only Jeff Kass of the Rocky Mountain News kept the big picture constantly in focus. While the TV media milked Columbine for its ghastly week of soap-opera-ish drama, Kass, with gumshoe persistence, stayed on the case like Sherlock Holmes.
When the national TV trucks left Colorado for another tragedy, he continued on the job with his tru
sty laptop and a jolt of coffee.
The result is this fine work of narrative storytelling and muckraking journalism. Modeling Columbine: A True Crime Story after Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Kass expertly probes the far-reaching consequences of the 1999 tragedy for a country where guns can be bought as if baseball cards at the Five and Dime store. Much like Norman Mailer in The Executioner’s Song, Kass captures the flatness of Colorado life, the mundaneness of small town living, and how two miscreants decided to spice things up.
The writing is rhythmic, sparse, and paced. The La-Z-Boy chair becomes as important to the narrative as the two sawed-off shotguns. Like any journalist worth his salt, Kass provides lots of minute detail, which adds immeasurably to the saga: “Jesus Christ Superstar” on the stereo, Blackjack Pizza for the paycheck, Apocalypse Now in the VCR, and on and on.
To produce this book, Kass had to overcome numerous obstacles, including an uncooperative sheriff’s office and the killers’ parents who tried to block information.
But if we make the leap that Columbine was a collective tragedy—a high school bloodbath that stained all our sensibilities—then only full disclosure can heal our gaping wound. Kass has delivered the goods in this important regard. This objective, honest, and eye-opening book sheds light on the warped phenomena of school shootings in general, which Kass believes are more prevalent in the South and West than anywhere else.
Dealing with insanity is no easy matter. Trying to get into the head of Hannibal Lecter-types is a crucifixion in its own right for an aspiring writer. It takes a steady hand to paddle through the muck: emotional swings, zombie behavior, anti-social personality disorder. It’s all a hard pill to swallow. How much more fun it is to cover Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. Add to the mix reams of legal documents and you understand why the typical reporter runs for the sun after the news cycle of an event like Columbine fades from the cable scroll.
But Kass stayed with the story, in all its ugly turns of gloom and misery, and the result is truly impressive. For ten years Kass worked on this book, sniffing out leads and procuring exclusives. So read it and weep. But also be glad that in our short-attention span society there is one old-fashioned reporter at the Rocky Mountain News who treats his journalistic oath seriously.
—Douglas Brinkley
January 6, 2009
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They got the dedication, but it’s still not enough. There was no stronger, nor better, force behind this book than my parents. I still remember my mother challenging me, nearly ten years ago in Denver, to write this book. And my brother, Brian, has always been there for me.
At the Rocky, I worked Columbine stories side by side with Kevin Vaughan and Lynn Bartels—as the many shared bylines will attest. I always thought that if one of us angered a source, the source wouldn’t talk to any of us. But Kevin and Lynn are great reporters and teammates.
I thank editor John Temple for the generous use of the Rocky’s photos—among the finest in journalism. I also appreciate the support and wise counsel from John each time a difficult decision came across his desk. Rocky managing editor Deb Goeken granted me the leave of absence to finish this book and I also thank Deb for shepherding through —and deftly editing—many of the biggest stories I have worked on at the Rocky. John, Deb, and all the other editors have also been extremely kind over the years in granting me a flexible schedule that allowed me to work on the book. Rocky photo editor Janet Reeves was also gracious with the photos, while columnist Penny Parker stepped in for a last-minute assist, as did the photog phenom Barry Gutierrez, who did the author photo. Other Rocky photographers whose powerful work has come to symbolize Columbine and is in this book are: Rodolfo Gonzalez, Ellen Jaskol, George Kochaniec Jr., Matt McClain, and Chris Schneider.
The magnificent, and now departed, Hunter S. Thompson had long been an inspiration. I was lucky enough to not only meet him, but write about him and his legacy for over five years. (Surely, one of the most unusual beats in the history of journalism.) The blurb from Hunter comes from one of the many conversations I had with him about Columbine over the years in which he encouraged me to write the book and offered his contacts.
Through Hunter I met Ralph Steadman, artist extraordinaire. Among the most memorable moments is interviewing Ralph for C-SPAN and having him take control of the show. It was all great fun. I approached Ralph for a drawing because he and Hunter were expert in plumbing the dark depths of the American psyche through their previous collaborations (exhibit one being Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).
In examining Columbine, Ralph drew inspiration from the classic Edgar Allen Poe short story “Imp of the Perverse.” A passage from the story reads: “With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution.” Ralph sent me the drawing that now graces the cover with the note, “I thought of a picture that quantifies exactly the sum-total of a deprived kid’s mind . . .”
Curtis Robinson introduced me to Hunter. Curtis was my first editor, and remains my mentor. He’s not sure what that means—and as he notes, there’s no money in it—but it entails sage advice and a job recommendation at any time of the day or night. Curtis’ wife, Donna, died much too young. But she was an inspirational person, and editor, for all who knew her.
They say a reporter is only as good as his sources. So thank you to everyone who talked to me. You never know when the phone will be slammed down, or a door shut in your face. Psychologists Dwayne Fuselier and Aubrey Immelman were especially patient and thorough. Sam Riddle has been exemplary. Kevin Vaughan aided with fact-checking.
Those among the Columbine families who have been especially helpful were Randy and Judy Brown, Brian Rohrbough, and Michael and Vonda Shoels. Thanks to Bobbi Kass for excellent advice, and Gail Kass for world-class legal help. They stepped in on more than one occasion. Hope Hamashige jumped in at the last minute to help with fact-checking. Jaime Aguilar at the Rocky wrangled the photo files and Rocky design director Kathy Bogan found the art files that always seemed on the verge of being lost forever. I am greatly appreciative for the blurbs from everyone, especially Anita Thompson, who offered to go above and beyond the call of duty at the last minute. Douglas Brinkley did a wonderful foreword.
Two stalwart friends whom I consider blood brothers are Mike Gellman and Adam Newman. They and others have always stood by my side, criticized me when necessary, and been great travel partners, from Vegas to Vietnam: David Benlolo, Charlie Brennan, Joel Cherdack, Andy Fine, Brian Frenkel, James Gilbert, Josh Hanfling, David Kesmodel, fellow Hunter veteran Matt Moseley, Ean Seeb, Nevin Shrage, and Holly Yettick. Sorry for anyone I missed, but deadline calls.
When this book was first published, Jolie Coursen was my girlfriend who kept me fed and sane as I locked myself in the treehouse office. She is now my wife and continues to be a stalwart supporter of my work on Columbine and beyond.
W.H. Auden called murder a unique crime because the victim is dead and society is left to speak up on their behalf. But Columbine tells a more specific story: It was victims’ families who stood up for their loved ones, who fought for a new library, and who so often pushed for information.
AUTHOR’S NOTE—2009
When Columbine hit I was a part-time reporter in Denver at the Rocky Mountain News and stringing for a number of national publications. On Tuesday April 20, 1999, I was scheduled to take the test to work at the Associated Press because I had long wanted to be a foreign correspondent, and the AP has a multitude of overseas bureaus. At about 11:30 a.m., ten minutes after Columbine started, the deputy national editor I worked with at the Boston Globe, Dean Inouye, called me at home. He said there had been reports of a shooting at Columbine High School, a place I had never heard of. Dean said a student might be shot in
the leg—the reports were sketchy, and just coming in. Dean wasn’t sure he wanted me to go to the scene, but it was a possibility.
This might not be a big story, I thought. But I double-checked the local news. Wham. The wall-to-wall local coverage made clear that a full-blown school shooting had come to a Denver suburb. I called Dean back and said it was huge. I was going out to the school. As I was getting ready, editors at the other publications I freelanced for, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, and U.S. News & World Report, called in rapid succession in the breathless, desperate voice of journalists on deadline: Can you cover the story for us? Yes, yes, yes, I said, figuring I would sort it all out later.
I had never covered a war zone. But Columbine seemed to be a close approximation. Clement Park, which rubs up against the school, was the staging area for police, reporters, and grief. That first day, before the international hordes of media and the general public arrived, friends and family gathered in the park hoping to connect with missing Columbine students and faculty. Students who did not know if their classmates were dead would find them amidst the mass, and burst into hugs and tears. On that first day, then Sheriff John Stone said at an impromptu press conference on the park grass that the death toll might reach twenty-five. The news was so stunning it seemed improper for me to immediately ask a follow-up question. Stone, it turns out, was wrong. But the final number of dead, fifteen, remains no less mind-numbing.
In the following days, the park continued as a town square.
Grief was translated into clumps of teddy bears, flowers, and every manner of knick knack that twisted through the grass like a lumpy snake and stretched the equivalent of several city blocks. By the Friday after Columbine, spring snow turned Clement Park into a mud pit. War zone, I thought.