Following the December 14, 2012 mass shooting of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Murphy organized a series of hearings across the nation on the issue of mental health. Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the shooting, had been diagnosed with a range of mental health problems which deteriorated severely and, "combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence... (and) access to deadly weapons... proved a recipe for mass murder," according to the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate.