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| FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2012 file photo, a police cruiser sits in the driveway and crime scene tape surrounds the home of Nancy Lanza in Newtown, Conn. Nancy Lanza was killed in the home by her son Adam Lanza before he forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn, killing 26 people. Search warrants released Thursday, March 28, 2013, revealed that an arsenal of weapons including guns, more than a thousand rounds of ammunition, a bayonet and several swords was seized in the Lanza home. |
And one of the shootings he was particularly interested in was the 2006 shooting at the Nickel Mines Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, sources said.
The news recently was released, along with details of what was recovered from Lanza's car and home following the December shootings in Connecticut, in which Lanza also shot his mother and later took his own life.
Sources familiar with the investigation said Lanza appeared to be particularly interested in two mass killings: the Nickel Mines shootings that killed five Amish girls and wounded five others, and the 2011 spree in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik in which he killed 77 people, eight of them by setting off bombs in downtown Oslo before he shot and killed 69 others at an island summer camp.
Hearst Connecticut Newspapers and other news organizations have reported in recent weeks that investigators found reams of documents at the Lanzas' home that suggest the 20-year-old gunman had studied previous mass murders.
RELATED: Parents of victims of Nickel Mines schoolhouse shootings grieve for bereaved parents in Newtown
Lanza killed 20 first-graders and six educators before turning a gun on himself in the December shooting. In a five-minute spree, he fired off 154 shots with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle.
When he killed himself with a single shot from a Glock handgun, Lanza still had more than 100 bullets at hand, according to warrants released by authorities last Thursday.
The warrants also provide the most insight to date into the world of the 20-year-old gunman, a recluse who played violent video games in a house packed with weaponry that was all too real.
The inventory of items taken from the spacious, colonial-style home included books on autism, a vast array of weapon paraphernalia, and images of what appears to be a dead person covered with plastic and blood.
Hearst Newspapers reported that, according to a law enforcement source, Lanza was fascinated by previous mass killings.
He exhibited particular interest in the October 2006 Nickel Mines shooting at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Bart Township, in which gunman Charles Carl Robert IV shot 10 school girls, five of them fatally, before killing himself.
"There was a lot of material on the Amish case," the source said.
The New York Daily News reported that State Police Col. Danny Stebbins had told a law enforcement conference in New Orleans that Lanza had tracked the details of previous mass killings by creating a 7-foot by 4-foot spreadsheet.
The weapons used in the Newtown shooting had all apparently been purchased by Lanza's mother, Nancy, with whom he lived, said prosecutor Stephen J. Sedensky III, in a statement accompanying the warrants.
She was found dead in her bed; Adam Lanza had shot her the morning of the massacre, Dec. 14. Authorities also found a holiday card from Nancy Lanza containing a check made out to her son for the purchase of yet another firearm.
If it's possible to determine a motive for the massacre, there may be clues in Adam Lanza's journals, which state police seized from the house and turned over to the FBI for analysis. But authorities say that so far no conclusions have been reached. Sedensky estimated the investigation will be finished this summer.
At the Lanza house, investigators found books about autism and Asperger's syndrome, as well as one with tabbed pages entitled: "Train Your Brain to Get Happy." Adam Lanza was said to have been diagnosed with Asperger's.
But the warrants also reveal an intense interest in weaponry and violence.
A gun locker in Lanza's bedroom was open when police arrived at the house in the aftermath of the shootings, and there was no sign it had been broken into.
Investigators found a 7-foot pole with a blade on one side and a spear on another, a metal bayonet, three samurai swords, a .323-caliber bolt-action rifle, a .22-caliber Savage Mark II rifle and a .22-caliber Volcanic starter pistol. There was a military-style uniform in Lanza's bedroom; literature seized from the house included a news article on a 2008 shooting at Northern Illinois University and a National Rifle Association guide to pistol shooting.
In a duffel bag, investigators found ear and eye protection, binoculars, numerous paper targets and an NRA certificate that belonged to Adam Lanza. The NRA said Lanza was not a member.
According to its website, the NRA doesn't offer formal certificates for membership, but certificates are offered for completion of firearms training and safety courses.
An unnamed person told investigators that Lanza was an avid gamer who played "Call of Duty" and rarely left his home. The affidavit, which is partially blacked out, also has that person saying that Sandy Hook, the school Lanza attended as a child, was his "life."
On the day of the massacre, Lanza took two loaded handguns to the school along with the Bushmaster rifle. A fourth gun, a loaded 12-gauge Saiga shotgun, was found in the passenger compartment of his Honda Civic, along with 70 shotgun rounds.
Lanza went through six 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster, although half of them were not completely empty, and police said he had three other 30-round magazines in addition to one that was in the rifle.
A judge's order to seal the warrants expired last Wednesday, and a Danbury Superior Court judge granted a request by Sedensky to withhold some details. Sedensky asked to redact the name of a witness, saying the person's safety might be jeopardized if the name were disclosed. He also asked that the release not include other information such as telephone numbers, serial numbers on items found and a few paragraphs of an affidavit.
Malloy, a Democrat in his first term as governor, said the fact that Lanza left smaller magazines at the house should boost support for a state ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.
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