Connecticut massacre suspect Adam Lanza
was a 'nice kid,' some say
(CNN) -- He was a 20-year-old man who, by multiple accounts, was incredibly smart and quiet. He didn't appear to have any run-ins with the law.
But Adam Lanza's seemingly innocuous life was thrust into the spotlight when authorities said he perpetrated the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
On Friday morning, Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, dressed in black battle fatigues and a military vest" and began firing, according to a law enforcement source. By the time he was done, 26 were dead -- 20 of them young students.
The bloodshed ended when Lanza's own life did. He was found dead in a classroom with three firearms: a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle and two pistols, a Glock and a Sig Sauer.
Before Friday's rampage, authorities said, Lanza killed his mother in their home in Newtown's Sandy Hook community.
But Adam Lanza's seemingly innocuous life was thrust into the spotlight when authorities said he perpetrated the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
On Friday morning, Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, dressed in black battle fatigues and a military vest" and began firing, according to a law enforcement source. By the time he was done, 26 were dead -- 20 of them young students.
The bloodshed ended when Lanza's own life did. He was found dead in a classroom with three firearms: a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle and two pistols, a Glock and a Sig Sauer.
Before Friday's rampage, authorities said, Lanza killed his mother in their home in Newtown's Sandy Hook community.
A yearbook photo of Adam Lanza, taken during his sophomore year in 2008.
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The mass tragedy left people in the Connecticut town, around the country, around the world asking questions. Who was this man, and why did he do this?
Lanza moved to Connecticut from Kingston, New Hampshire, with his parents and older brother Ryan, according to a booklet for the town's Newtown's Bennetts Farm neighborhood. He enjoyed soccer, skateboarding and video games, the publication said.
In September 2009 -- when Lanza was 17 -- his mother and father divorced, court documents show. What happened after that for him isn't clear, except that he lived in the picturesque, 300-year-old Connecticut town.
His father, Peter, remarried and lived not far from Newtown, an official said. He was questioned by authorities after the shooting. So, too, was his 24-year-old brother Ryan.
Authorities have offered few details about Lanza. He had no known criminal record, a law enforcement official said.
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One of Lanza's aunts, Marsha, described him as a "quiet, nice kid," but he had issues with learning, she said. Her husband is Lanza's paternal uncle.
"He was definitely the challenge of the family in that house. Every family has one," she told CNN affiliate WLS. "They have one. I have one. But never in trouble with the law, never in trouble with anything."
She said Lanza's mother "battled" with the school board and ended up having her son home-schooled.
"She had issues with school," the aunt, who lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois, said. "I'm not 100% certain if it was behavior or learning disabilities, but he was a very, very bright boy. He was smart."
Alex Israel was in the same class at Newtown High School with Lanza, and lived a few houses down from him.
"You could definitely tell he was a genius," Israel told CNN, adding she hadn't talked with him since middle school. "He was really quiet, he kept to himself."
Others in Newtown who knew Lanza said they had no idea he'd ever be responsible for such horror.
His former bus driver, Marsha Moskowitz, told CNN affiliate WABC that he was "a nice kid, very polite" like his brother.
"It's a shock to even know (the family)," she said. "You can't understand what happened."
A relative told investigators that Lanza had a form of autism, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation.
But a national autism committee cautioned against speculating about any link between autism and violence.
"Some public comments have drawn potentially inaccurate and stigmatizing conclusions about a link between the diagnosis and a propensity for violence and lack of empathy," according to a statement from the Autism Research Institute's Autistic Global Initiative Project.
"Autism is not a mental health disorder - it is a neurodevelopmental disorder. ... The eyes of the world are on this wrenching tragedy -- with 1 in 88 now diagnosed, misinformation could easily trigger increased prejudice and misunderstanding."
A former classmate told CNN affiliate WCBS that Lanza "was just a kid" -- not a troublemaker, not anti-social, not suggesting in any way that he could erupt like this.
"I don't know who would do anything like this," the classmate said, before walking away distraught. "This is unspeakable."
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The suspect's father was also at a loss for explanation. He sent his condolences to the families of victims in a statement released Saturday.
"Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy," he said. "No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can."
Connecticut school shooting:
troubled life of Adam Lanza, a fiercely intelligent killer
Adam Lanza was reclusive, painfully shy and intensely bright. He also lived in a house full of guns.
Harriet Alexander, David Barrett, Laura Donnelly and Jon Swaine in Newtown
7:36PM GMT 15 Dec 2012
Set on the brow of a gently sloping hill, surrounded by two acres of woodland and well-tended lawns, the spacious property looked like any American family's dream home.
A wide veranda had views across the gardens. A swimming pool, flanked by a white pool house, was round the back of the two-storey building.
Yet behind the front door in the affluent Connecticut community of Newtown, all was not well at 36 Yogananda Street.
Three years previously, in 2009, Nancy and Peter Lanza had divorced after 28 years of marriage. The break up was traumatic, leaving the couple's sons devastated. Ryan Lanza was living away at university, meaning that his brother Adam, four years younger, was left at home alone with their mother at their £350,000 house.
Yogananda Street in Newtown, Connecticut (Rex Features)
He was not well known to neighbours, who describe him as being reclusive and troubled.
And when the news broke on Friday of the murder of 26 people at a primary school in the town, and Ryan Lanza was hastily identified as the killer, people who knew the family knew they had named the wrong brother.
"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," said Tim Dalton, a neighbour and former classmate, on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."
"This was a deeply disturbed kid," a family insider said. "He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall."
A further family friend said he had acted as though he was immune to pain.
"A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn't fall because he could get hurt and not feel it," said the friend. "Adam had a lot of mental problems."
Lanza's brother Ryan reportedly told police that his sibling had autism or Asperger's syndrome, and a personality disorder.
He gave no details, but anti-social disorder - also known as sociopathy - is the type most closely linked with violence and criminal behaviour.
Studies have suggested that 50 per cent of the prison population meet the criteria for the diagnosis.
Those with such disorders are more likely to embark on impulsive, risk-seeking behaviour, in an attempt to escape feeling empty or emotionally void.
In such cases, they are likely to have little regard for the consequences of their actions, and are unlikely to experience fear.
And when the news broke on Friday of the murder of 26 people at a primary school in the town, and Ryan Lanza was hastily identified as the killer, people who knew the family knew they had named the wrong brother.
"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," said Tim Dalton, a neighbour and former classmate, on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."
"This was a deeply disturbed kid," a family insider said. "He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall."
A further family friend said he had acted as though he was immune to pain.
"A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn't fall because he could get hurt and not feel it," said the friend. "Adam had a lot of mental problems."
Lanza's brother Ryan reportedly told police that his sibling had autism or Asperger's syndrome, and a personality disorder.
He gave no details, but anti-social disorder - also known as sociopathy - is the type most closely linked with violence and criminal behaviour.
Studies have suggested that 50 per cent of the prison population meet the criteria for the diagnosis.
Those with such disorders are more likely to embark on impulsive, risk-seeking behaviour, in an attempt to escape feeling empty or emotionally void.
In such cases, they are likely to have little regard for the consequences of their actions, and are unlikely to experience fear.
Ryan also said that he had not seen him since 2010.
As the news was breaking, Ryan was at work in accountancy firm Ernst and Young, sitting at his desk in Times Square.
To his horror, the 24-year-old found that his name was flashing up on the television news networks, wrongly accused of the massacre. He fled the office, jumping on a bus to return home to the house he shared in New Jersey. Shaken, he told his neighbour in an online message that he thought his mother was dead and he knew who was responsible for the multiple murder.
"It was my brother," he said.
Those on the autistic spectrum have a more limited emotional range and can miss social cues, making it more difficult for them to communicate and feel empathy with others. Difficulties communicating can cause frustration, which can spill over into aggression.
Several studies have found that violence and criminal behaviour are no more common in those diagnosed with autism than they are in the general population.
Asperger's syndrome is a type of autism which is more commonly diagnosed in those with higher than average intelligence.
And Lanza was said by classmates to be fiercely intelligent.
"You could tell he was, I would say, a genius," said Miss Israel. "There was something that was above the rest of us."
He'd correct people's Latin homework, when they were aged around 14, and at 16 was among the list of top students in his English class, studying "Of Mice and Men" and "Catcher In The Rye" - the classic tale of troubled youth.
"It was almost painful to have a conversation with him, because he felt so uncomfortable," said Olivia DeVivo, who sat behind him in English. "I spent so much time in my English class wondering what he was thinking."
"He didn't have any friends, but he was a nice kid if you got to know him," said Kyle Kromberg, now studying business administration at Endicott College in Massachusetts. He studied Latin with Lanza.
"He didn't fit in with the other kids," he said. "He was very, very shy. He wouldn't look you in the eyes when he talked. He didn't really want to lock eyes with you for very long."
He was also a technical whizz kid, keen on computers and video games, and part of a group who would meet up for computer programming get-togethers.
"My brother has always been a nerd," Ryan said, according to Gloria Milas, whose son was a club member along with Adam Lanza.
Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil on Friday evening in Newtown, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.
"He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths," she said.
The siblings certainly carved out different paths in life.
Ryan went to university; followed his father into finance; was living with friends in an attractive red-brick property in New Jersey. Indeed, when the tragedy of Friday was unfolding, one of his housemates, Jessica O'Brien, wrote on Facebook: "Do you need anything ready for when you get home? Can I set anything out for you to grab and go? Anything else I can do?"
By contrast, Adam Lanza had few friends and, as a child, went to great trouble not to mix with his fellow students at his state school. A Newtown resident also suggested he was home-schooled for some time.
"I always saw him walking alone, sitting on his own at a table or on the bus. Most of the time I saw him he was alone," said Alex Israel, who was at school with him as a young girl.
"He was really quiet. A little fidgety, uneasy. I think socially he was just going out (into the world) and not making friends with everyone."
Her mother Beth Israel, who lived nearby, said: "I know he had issues. He was a really troubled kid ... a very quiet kid, a shy kid, maybe socially awkward." He was not on Facebook, unusually for any Westerner of his generation, and did not appear in his 2010 High School Yearbook. Instead were written the words: "Camera shy".
Forty miles away from Newtown, in the well-heeled Connecticut city of Stamford, Lanza's father Peter – who was divorced from the boys' mother Nancy – was returning home on Friday afternoon. A highly-qualified academic who a year ago was appointed vice president of taxes for energy investment firm GE Energy Financial Services, Mr Lanza wound down the window on his blue Mini Cooper and asked the person outside his home how he could help her.
"I explained that I'd been told someone at his address had been linked to the shootings in Newtown," said Maggie Gordon, a reporter from the local newspaper.
"His expression twisted from patient, to surprise, to horror."
Mr Lanza had moved out in 2009, remarrying a University of Connecticut librarian in January 2011. He was said to have last seen his son Adam in June. But the painfully shy young man had taken the divorce badly.
"The kids seemed really depressed" by the break-up, said Ryan Kraft, 25, who stayed with Adam when Mrs Lanza went out.
"He would have tantrums," Mr Kraft said. "They were much more than the average kid [had]."
Mr Lanza's lawyer Gary Oberst said: "He was very upset that he was getting divorced, but he didn't want to take it out on anybody.
"He did more than he had to with the divorce. When he came in to consult with me, I said 'This is what your obligation is.' And he said: 'That's not enough. I want to do more.'"
Mr Lanza agreed to pay $240,000 (£148,400) annually to his ex-wife, and Mrs Lanza appeared to live in comfort with Adam. There was also suggestions that she was unable to work.
"She needed to be home with Adam," one family insider said.
Marsha Lanza, aunt to the boys, described Mrs Lanza as a good mother and kind-hearted. Mrs Lanza would host games of dice, or else venture out to visit her neighbours for a glass of wine. The home was immaculate; the swimming pool behind the house well maintained.
But Mrs Lanza was also, according to friends, an avid gun collector.
Dan Holmes, owner of a Connecticut landscaping firm, said Mrs Lanza once showed him a "high-end rifle" that she had purchased, adding, "She said she would often go target shooting with her kids".
The gun used to shoot Mrs Lanza was her own.
Yet, perhaps predictably, the owner of the local rifle range was defiant.
Richard Dravis, who gives shooting training at Wooster Mountain rifle range, 15 miles away from the school, said: "We don't train crazy people. I think that if we would address the mental health issue here we could possibly do something in the future. But we can't count the number of rounds in the magazine of a nut head."
His grandmother was too distraught to speak when reached by phone at her home in Florida, Associated Press reported.
"I just don't know, and I can't make a comment right now," Dorothy Hanson, 78, said in a shaky voice as she started to cry.
As the news was breaking, Ryan was at work in accountancy firm Ernst and Young, sitting at his desk in Times Square.
To his horror, the 24-year-old found that his name was flashing up on the television news networks, wrongly accused of the massacre. He fled the office, jumping on a bus to return home to the house he shared in New Jersey. Shaken, he told his neighbour in an online message that he thought his mother was dead and he knew who was responsible for the multiple murder.
"It was my brother," he said.
Those on the autistic spectrum have a more limited emotional range and can miss social cues, making it more difficult for them to communicate and feel empathy with others. Difficulties communicating can cause frustration, which can spill over into aggression.
Several studies have found that violence and criminal behaviour are no more common in those diagnosed with autism than they are in the general population.
Asperger's syndrome is a type of autism which is more commonly diagnosed in those with higher than average intelligence.
And Lanza was said by classmates to be fiercely intelligent.
"You could tell he was, I would say, a genius," said Miss Israel. "There was something that was above the rest of us."
He'd correct people's Latin homework, when they were aged around 14, and at 16 was among the list of top students in his English class, studying "Of Mice and Men" and "Catcher In The Rye" - the classic tale of troubled youth.
"It was almost painful to have a conversation with him, because he felt so uncomfortable," said Olivia DeVivo, who sat behind him in English. "I spent so much time in my English class wondering what he was thinking."
"He didn't have any friends, but he was a nice kid if you got to know him," said Kyle Kromberg, now studying business administration at Endicott College in Massachusetts. He studied Latin with Lanza.
"He didn't fit in with the other kids," he said. "He was very, very shy. He wouldn't look you in the eyes when he talked. He didn't really want to lock eyes with you for very long."
He was also a technical whizz kid, keen on computers and video games, and part of a group who would meet up for computer programming get-togethers.
"My brother has always been a nerd," Ryan said, according to Gloria Milas, whose son was a club member along with Adam Lanza.
Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil on Friday evening in Newtown, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.
"He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths," she said.
The siblings certainly carved out different paths in life.
Ryan went to university; followed his father into finance; was living with friends in an attractive red-brick property in New Jersey. Indeed, when the tragedy of Friday was unfolding, one of his housemates, Jessica O'Brien, wrote on Facebook: "Do you need anything ready for when you get home? Can I set anything out for you to grab and go? Anything else I can do?"
By contrast, Adam Lanza had few friends and, as a child, went to great trouble not to mix with his fellow students at his state school. A Newtown resident also suggested he was home-schooled for some time.
"I always saw him walking alone, sitting on his own at a table or on the bus. Most of the time I saw him he was alone," said Alex Israel, who was at school with him as a young girl.
"He was really quiet. A little fidgety, uneasy. I think socially he was just going out (into the world) and not making friends with everyone."
Her mother Beth Israel, who lived nearby, said: "I know he had issues. He was a really troubled kid ... a very quiet kid, a shy kid, maybe socially awkward." He was not on Facebook, unusually for any Westerner of his generation, and did not appear in his 2010 High School Yearbook. Instead were written the words: "Camera shy".
Forty miles away from Newtown, in the well-heeled Connecticut city of Stamford, Lanza's father Peter – who was divorced from the boys' mother Nancy – was returning home on Friday afternoon. A highly-qualified academic who a year ago was appointed vice president of taxes for energy investment firm GE Energy Financial Services, Mr Lanza wound down the window on his blue Mini Cooper and asked the person outside his home how he could help her.
"I explained that I'd been told someone at his address had been linked to the shootings in Newtown," said Maggie Gordon, a reporter from the local newspaper.
"His expression twisted from patient, to surprise, to horror."
Mr Lanza had moved out in 2009, remarrying a University of Connecticut librarian in January 2011. He was said to have last seen his son Adam in June. But the painfully shy young man had taken the divorce badly.
"The kids seemed really depressed" by the break-up, said Ryan Kraft, 25, who stayed with Adam when Mrs Lanza went out.
"He would have tantrums," Mr Kraft said. "They were much more than the average kid [had]."
Mr Lanza's lawyer Gary Oberst said: "He was very upset that he was getting divorced, but he didn't want to take it out on anybody.
"He did more than he had to with the divorce. When he came in to consult with me, I said 'This is what your obligation is.' And he said: 'That's not enough. I want to do more.'"
Mr Lanza agreed to pay $240,000 (£148,400) annually to his ex-wife, and Mrs Lanza appeared to live in comfort with Adam. There was also suggestions that she was unable to work.
"She needed to be home with Adam," one family insider said.
Marsha Lanza, aunt to the boys, described Mrs Lanza as a good mother and kind-hearted. Mrs Lanza would host games of dice, or else venture out to visit her neighbours for a glass of wine. The home was immaculate; the swimming pool behind the house well maintained.
But Mrs Lanza was also, according to friends, an avid gun collector.
Dan Holmes, owner of a Connecticut landscaping firm, said Mrs Lanza once showed him a "high-end rifle" that she had purchased, adding, "She said she would often go target shooting with her kids".
The gun used to shoot Mrs Lanza was her own.
Yet, perhaps predictably, the owner of the local rifle range was defiant.
Richard Dravis, who gives shooting training at Wooster Mountain rifle range, 15 miles away from the school, said: "We don't train crazy people. I think that if we would address the mental health issue here we could possibly do something in the future. But we can't count the number of rounds in the magazine of a nut head."
His grandmother was too distraught to speak when reached by phone at her home in Florida, Associated Press reported.
"I just don't know, and I can't make a comment right now," Dorothy Hanson, 78, said in a shaky voice as she started to cry.
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