Newly Released Documents Detail Sandy Hook Shooter’s Troubled State of Mind

He spent much of his time in his mother’s basement and in his bedroom with blacked-out windows, essentially turning into the “homebound recluse” a psychiatrist who had evaluated him feared he could become. He obsessed over violence, culling together an elaborate spreadsheet documenting decades of mass killings. His worldview appeared bleak in interactions with others.

“I incessantly have nothing other than scorn for humanity,” he wrote in an online message to another gamer.

In December 2012, 20-year old Adam Lanza acted out on his predilection for violence, anger and isolation by walking into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, with an assault rifle and killing 26 people, including 20 first graders, in an attack that horrified the nation.

Details about the gunman in the years leading up to the massacre emerged in a trove of documents, which were obtained by The Hartford Courant after a five-year court battle with the state. The documents served as the basis of stories they published this week about Lanza, who shot and killed himself in the attack.

The excerpts published by The Courant illustrated how the gunman grew increasingly isolated and his obsessive behavior intensified. But they also showed how his behavior might not have been enough of a warning sign to his mother and others of the violence he was capable of committing.

Some criticized the newspaper for publicizing the documents, claiming that doing so may provide an example for others. But The Courant defended its decision in an editorial published Sunday.

“The state hid the writings, reports and records not just from the press, but from researchers, experts and clinicians who could have learned more about what early warning signs might have been missed; what educators and clinicians need to pay attention to when dealing with angry, lonely children; what prevention strategies might be helpful in preventing another such tragedy from ever happening again,” the editorial read.

The trove, which was collected by the Connecticut State Police during its investigation, covers about 15 years of his life, including personal writings, school work and education and psychiatric records. It includes photographs that show how he evolved from a small boy posing with a bat in his Little League Baseball card to a pale and emaciated young man who had walled himself off from outsiders, and even his family, and spent his days playing combat video games.

The documents, which fleshed out the findings of multiple official investigative reports over the years, laid bare a life punctuated by issues that led him to separate from his peers. In preschool, developmental speech delays made it difficult for him to communicate with classmates, and later, he developed intense germophobia, an aversion to human contact and sensitivity to light and sounds.

The response to The Courant’s coverage has touched on an enduring struggle to report on recurring episodes of mass violence as part of the public’s right to know what happened, which the newspaper said motivated its reporting, and avoiding raising the profile of perpetrators.

In October, the Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of releasing the documents, which had been collected from the Lanza’s home.

The newspaper has argued that its reporting helped bolster the public’s understanding of the circumstances precipitating the attack. “The information had value to those who wanted to make sure no parent ever had to live through the kind of horror the Sandy Hook families were forced to endure,” The Courant said in the editorial.

Still, as the Sandy Hook shooting became but one in a drumbeat of deadly mass shootings, a mounting effort sought to discourage the news media from spreading a shooter’s name and photograph, fearing that it could glorify their actions and spur a so-called contagion effect.

“Don’t turn these people into celebrities,” said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama who studies mass shootings. Photos, videos and social media posts by a gunman, he said, “can inspire celebrity worship.”

“We’re not at a point where people are naive to the risks anymore,” Lankford said.

Some relatives of victims have criticized The Courant’s coverage, noting the decision to publish the stories just before the sixth anniversary of the massacre Friday.

“You guys absolutely suck for releasing this now,” Nelba Márquez-Greene, whose 6-year-old daughter, Ana Grace, was killed in the attack, wrote on Twitter.

In a separate statement, Márquez-Greene acknowledged that details of the shooting “can help inform response and possibly even help to prevent tragedy in the future.” Yet, she added, “The timing of this makes it nothing but click bait.”

Since the Supreme Court ruling, The New York Times, along with other news organizations, have tried to obtain the documents using the Freedom of Information Act. The Courant received the documents without redaction, but State Police officials said Monday that a redacted version would be released to other journalists next week.

The excerpts offered a glimpse into Lanza’s life as he holed himself away, his interactions largely limited to chats online with other gamers.

Investigators also found some of his personal writings, as well as notes from a play he wrote about a sexual relationship between a 30-year-old man and a child.

His writings showed a disdain for “fat people.” Doctors have said that he was anorexic and malnourished, standing 6 feet tall and weighing 112 pounds when he died. In the excerpts, he called starving “an example of will power” and said, “I want to walk in the snow and leave no footprints.”

On the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, shooting her four times as she slept. He then drove to the Sandy Hook campus, where he stormed inside carrying an AR-15-style Bushmaster rifle. In a span of less than five minutes, he fired 154 rounds before fatally shooting himself. (The weapons had been legally bought by his mother.)

A year later, state officials released a report stating that, in his final months, he kept black trash bags over the windows of his bedroom to keep out light and had communicated with his mother through email, even though he lived with her.

Another report, released by the Connecticut child advocate’s office in 2014, stated that Lanza had orchestrated a “purposefully thought-out and planned attack.” The report said that he had repeatedly visited Sandy Hook’s website and also studied the school’s security procedures. Investigators also noted that he had long been on a path headed toward “a deteriorating life of dysfunction and isolation.”