Strange Sight | CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND UNSOLVED CASES

Columbine

[OVERVIEW]

Since this is the first mass shooting chapter, I'd figure I would do the one that is probably the most infamous one (And longest). That is Columbine.

The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting and attempted bombing that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went into their school, dressed in black trench coats and killed 13 people before turning the guns on themselves.

At the time it was the deadliest school shooting in America, not being surpassed until 2012 with the Sandy Hook shooting.

Columbine pired several copycats, and "Columbine" has become a byword for a school shooting.

[ERIC AND DYLAN]

In 1996, a 15 year old Eric Harris created a private website on AOL. It was made initially to host video games like Doom, Doom II and Quake.

Later on Eric started using it as a blog. He would joke and include thoughts on his parents, school and his friends. It also detailed Harris sneaking out of the house to cause mischief and vandalism, such as lighting fireworks with his friend Dylan Klebold and others.

Eric would later adopt the pen name Reb (after the school mascot) and Dylan would adopt the name voDKa (DK capitalized because of his initials).

Beginning in early 1997, the blog postings began to show the first signs of Harris's anger against society. By the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to make explosives. Harris wrote: "the first true pipe bombs created entirely from scratch by the rebels (REB and VoDKa)... Now our only problem is to find the place that will be 'ground zero'."

Harris's site attracted few visitors and caused no concern until March 1998. Harris ended a blog post detailing murderous fantasies with "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown"; a classmate of his. Brown claims that Klebold gave him the web address, in an effort to warn him of Harris's threats of violence against him.

After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. When investigator Michael Guerra accessed the website, he discovered numerous violent threats directed against the students and teachers of CHS. Guerra wrote a draft affidavit, requesting a search warrant of the Harris household. The affidavit also mentioned the discovery of an exploded pipe bomb in February 1998 and a suspicion of Harris being involved in the unsolved case. The affidavit was never filed.

On January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold broke into a van that was parked near Littleton and stole tools and computer equipment. Shortly afterwards, they were arrested by a police officer and subsequently attended a joint court hearing, where they pled guilty to the felony theft. The judge sentenced them to a juvenile diversion program.

As a result, both delinquents attended mandatory classes such as anger management and talked with diversion officers. Harris also began therapy with a psychologist and was prescribed antidepressants by a psychiatrist. They both were eventually released from diversion several weeks early because of positive actions in the program and put on probation. Harris continued his scheduled meetings with his psychologist until a few months before the massacre.

Nearly a year before the massacre, Klebold wrote a message in Harris's 1998 yearbook: "killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops!! My wrath for January's incident will be godlike. Not to mention our revenge in the commons." The commons was another term for the school cafeteria.

Harris and Klebold kept journals, which were released to the public in 2006. In the journals, the pair would eventually document their arsenal and plan of attack.