Adam Lanza

**Adam Peter Lanza** (April 22, 1992 – December 14, 2012) lived with his mother, Nancy Lanza, in Newtown, 5 miles (8 km) from the elementary school. He did not have a criminal record. He had access to guns through his mother, who was described as a "gun enthusiast who owned at least a dozen firearms". She often took her two sons to a local shooting range, where they learned to shoot. Lanza's father has said that he does not believe Nancy feared Adam. She did not confide any fear of Adam to her sister or to her best friend, slept with her bedroom door unlocked, and kept guns in the house.

## Education

Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary School for four and a half years.[157] He began at Newtown Middle School in 2004,[158] but according to his mother was "wracked by anxiety".[159] She told friends that her son started getting upset at middle school because of frequent classroom changes during the day. The movement and noise was too stimulating and made him anxious. At one point his anxiety was so intense that she took him to the emergency room at Danbury Hospital. In April 2005, she moved him to a new school, St. Rose of Lima, where he lasted only eight weeks.[93]

At age 14, he went to Newtown High School, where he was named to the honor roll in 2007.[108][160] Students and teachers who knew him in high school described Lanza as "intelligent but nervous and fidgety". He avoided attracting attention and was uncomfortable socializing. He is not known to have had any close friends in school.[147] Schoolwork often triggered his underlying sense of hopelessness and by 2008, when he turned 16, he was only going to school occasionally.[156] The intense anxiety Lanza experienced at the time suggests his autism was exacerbated by the hormonal shifts of adolescence.[156] He was taken out of high school and home-schooled by his mother and father. He earned a GED.[161] In 2008 and 2009, he also attended some classes at Western Connecticut State University.[162]

## Developmental and mental health problems

Lanza exhibited developmental challenges before the age of three. These included communication and sensory difficulties, socialization delays, and repetitive behaviors. He was seen by the New Hampshire Birth to Three intervention program and referred to special education preschool services.[163] Once at elementary school, he was diagnosed with a sensory-integration disorder. Sensory-processing disorder does not have official status by the medical community as a formal diagnosis but is a common characteristic of autism.[164] His anxiety affected his ability to attend school and in 8th grade he was placed on "homebound" status, which is reserved for children who are too disabled, even with supports and accommodations, to attend school.[165]

When he was 13, Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome by a psychiatrist, Paul Fox.[156] When he was 14, his parents took him to Yale University's Child Study Center, where he was also diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). He frequently washed his hands and changed his socks 20 times a day, to the point where his mother did three loads of laundry a day.[166] He also sometimes went through a box of tissues in a day because he could not touch a doorknob with his bare hand.[167]

Lanza was treated by Robert King, who recommended extensive support be put in place and prescribed the antidepressant Celexa. He took the medication for three days. His mother Nancy reported: "On the third morning he complained of dizziness. By that afternoon he was disoriented, his speech was disjointed, he couldn't even figure out how to open his cereal box. He was sweating profusely ... it was actually dripping off his hands. He said he couldn't think ... He was practically vegetative."[156] He never took the medication again.[168] A report from the Office of the Child Advocate found that "Yale's recommendations for extensive special education supports, ongoing expert consultation, and rigorous therapeutic supports embedded into (Lanza's) daily life went largely unheeded."[163]

In a 2013 interview, Peter Lanza said he suspected his son might have also had undiagnosed schizophrenia in addition to his other conditions. Lanza said that family members might have missed signs of the onset of schizophrenia and psychotic behavior during his son's adolescence because they mistakenly attributed his odd behavior and increasing isolation to Asperger syndrome.[156][162][169][170][171] Because of concerns that published accounts of Lanza's autism could result in a backlash against others with the condition, autism advocates campaigned to clarify that autism is a brain-related developmental disorder rather than a mental illness.[172] The violence Lanza demonstrated in the shooting is generally not seen in the autistic population[173] and none of the psychiatrists he saw detected troubling signs of violence in his disposition.[156]

Lanza appears to have had no contact with mental health providers after 2006. The report from the Office of the Child Advocate stated: "In the course of Lanza's entire life, minimal mental health evaluation and treatment (in relation to his apparent need) was obtained. Of the couple of providers that saw him, only one — the Yale Child Study Center — seemed to appreciate the gravity of (his) presentation, his need for extensive mental health and special education supports, and the critical need for medication to ease his obsessive-compulsive symptoms."[165]

Investigators found Lanza was fascinated with mass shootings, such as the Columbine High School massacre, the Virginia Tech shooting and the Northern Illinois University 2008 shooting. Among the clippings found in his room, there was a story from *The New York Times* about a man who shot at schoolchildren in 1891. His computer contained two videos of gunshot suicides, movies that showed school shootings and two pictures of Lanza pointing guns at his own head.[174][175]

This only came to light after Lanza died, because he never permitted others to access his bedroom, including his mother. Lanza had also taped black plastic garbage bags over the windows in his bedroom to block out sunlight.[176] He had cut off contact with both his father and brother in the two years before the shooting and at one point communicated with his mother, who lived in the same house, only by email. A document titled "Selfish", describing Lanza's belief in the inherent selfishness of women, was found on his computer after his death.[156][177]

## Final Months

According to a report by the Office of the Child Advocate in Connecticut in November 2014, Lanza may have had anorexia nervosa. The authors wrote that "Anorexia can produce cognitive impairment and it is likely that anorexia combined with an autism spectrum disorder and OCD compounded Lanza's risk for suicide".[178] They also noted that at the time of his death, Lanza "was anorexic (he was six feet tall (183 cm) and weighed 112 pounds (51 kg)), to the point of malnutrition and resultant brain damage."[179]

He was also living in almost total isolation in his room, spending most of his time on the internet playing *World of Warcraft* and other video games. The report stated that he "descended" into a world where his only communication with the outside world was with members of a cyber-community, "a small community of individuals that shared his dark and obsessive interest in mass murder".[180]

In the weeks before the killings, Lanza's mother was considering moving him to another town.[181] She planned to purchase a recreational vehicle for him to stay in so that potential purchasers could see the house without disturbing him.[182] The Report of the Child Advocate stated that:

> In the wake of Mrs Lanza's stated plan to move out of Newtown in 2012, and perhaps stimulated by fears of leaving the "comfort zone" of his home, Adam planned and executed the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.[183] His severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems were combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence. Combined with access to deadly weapons, this proved a recipe for mass murder".[184]
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James Knoll, a forensic psychiatrist at SUNY Upstate Medical University, was consulted about what motivated Lanza to kill. Knoll states that Lanza's final act conveyed a distinct message: "I carry profound hurt — I'll go ballistic and transfer it onto you."[156]