Friday, December 28, 2012

The Whole Truth About The Sandy Hook Shootings May Well Never Be Known

The Whole Truth About The Sandy Hook Shootings May Well Never Be Known As Questions Of Mental Health Are Still Stigmatized, Hidden Behind The Closed Doors Of Desperate Families And No Where Near Addressed Properly By The Health Care Systems Of This Nation.

BUT THIS IS THE INFORMATION WE HAVE SO FAR.

Sandy Hook Gunman 'Feared His Mother Was Planning To Have Him Committed To Psychiatric Home And Targeted The Children That She Loved More Than Him.

Newtown Resident Raises Possibility That Adam Lanza, 20, Was Angry And May Have Snapped Over Mother's Possible Plans To Commit Him
Nancy Lanza, 52, Was Shot To Death In Her Own Bed By Her Son Before The Sandy Hook Killings.

Lanza Killed 20 Children And Six Adults In The School Before Killing Himself As Police Closed In

By MEGHAN KENEALLY


Police are still searching for the motive of Adam Lanza's killing spree, but one working theory is that he was angry that his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility because he was becoming too difficult for her to handle alone.

Given his decision to kill his mother Nancy while she lay sleeping in her bed at their Connecticut home and then drive to his former elementary school to purposefully kill innocent children, there had to be a strong connection in his mind between his anger and the school.

Nancy, 52, was thought to volunteer at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so the theory extends to the fact that Adam felt he loved those children more than she loved him, since she was planning to send him away.

Fox News quotes a neighborhood figure, whose father works as the pastor of an area church, as saying that the 20-year-old shooter found out that his mother was in the legal process of having him committed and was upset.

That news, coupled with his jealousy of the time she allegedly spent with a group of kindergarteners at Sandy Hook, is thought to have served as the basis of the killing.

A NUMBER OF FACTORS ARE STILL UNCONFIRMED IN THE THEORY, AND IT APPEARS THAT THEY MAY REMAIN AS SUCH FOR SOME TIME.

Records of conservatorship filings, which Nancy Lanza would have needed to make in order to commit her son since he is over 18-years-old, are sealed by the courts so if any such filings were made they will not be released publicly.

'Adam Lanza believed she cared more for the children than she did for him, and the reason he probably thought this (was the fact that) she was petitioning for conservatorship and wanted to have him committed,' Joshua Flashman told Fox News.

One of the biggest questions remaining ever since the shooting was reported on Friday was Nancy's connection to the school which was clearly singled out as a target by Adam.

The majority of his shooting was limited to the reception, where he forced his way into the building and killed those standing in his way, and then to a single first grade classroom.

Those children are thought to be the ones that Nancy grew close with during the last academic year, when they were in kindergarten.

Initial reports immediately after the shooting claimed that Nancy was a full time or even substitute teacher at the elementary school, though as the chaos of the day slowed, school officials said that she was not on any records of having worked there in any formal capacity.

That option leaves the possibility open that she volunteered her time with the young children, though school board member Cody McCubbin could not confirm that role when asked by MailOnline.

That was echoed by Lillian Bittman, a former school board member who told the Wall Street Journal: ‘No one has heard of her. Teachers don’t know her.’

Though the court records will never back up the claim that Nancy was trying to have her son committed, her actions do lend credence to the idea because she had spent much time over the course of this year traveling to different schools to find a suitable place to send Adam.

Former babysitters of Adam's said that she warned that she could never turn her back on the young boy, meaning that when she went to visit prospective schools, Adam was either with her or very aware of the fact that she had gone shopping for his next home.

In a Facebook conversation between Nancy and her former sister-in-law Marsha, Nancy revealed that she had wanted to downsize from her $1.4million home in Newtown.

'I am still in the same place but getting to the point where I may want a smaller house. I travel a lot, spend time with friends, work with a couple of charities,' she wrote in one of the messages.


HE NEVER SPOKE OR MADE EYE CONTACT': ADAM LANZA'S HAIRSTYLIST SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE 'UNCOMFORTABLE' APPOINTMENTS

As a teenager, Adam Lanza would come in for a haircut about every six weeks without speaking or looking at anyone and always accompanied by his mother, said stylists at a Newtown salon.

He stopped coming in a few years ago, and the employees at the salon thought he had moved away, said stylist Bob Skuba.

Adam in the chair: Hairstylist Diane Harty said Adam was difficult to deal with

The comments from him and his colleagues were among the first describing how the Lanzas interacted with each other. Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack, one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

Cutting Adam Lanza's hair 'was a very long half an hour. It was a very uncomfortable situation,' stylist Diane Harty said. She said that she never heard his voice and that Nancy Lanza also hardly spoke.

Another stylist, Jessica Phillips, echoed their descriptions of the Lanzas and added that Nancy Lanza would give her son directions about what to do and where to go.

Adam would move only 'when his mother told him to,' Skuba said.
'I would say, "Adam, come on." He wouldn't move,' Skuba said.
'And his mother would have to say, "Adam, come on, he's ready." It was like I was invisible.'

He said Adam also wouldn't move from his chair after his hair was cut until his mother told him to.

If a stylist would ask Adam a question, Skuba said, his mother would answer.

'He would just be looking down at the tiles ... the whole time,' Skuba said.
Former classmates have previously described Adam Lanza as intelligent but remote, and former high school adviser described him as anxious and shy. Several people who knew his mother have described her as a devoted parent.

Divorce paperwork released this week showed that Nancy Lanza had the authority to make all decisions regarding Adam's upbringing. The divorce was finalized in September 2009, when Adam Lanza was 17.


EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, The Family Secret That Haunted The Tragic Mother Of Sandy Hook Shooter, Her Plans To Find A New Home For Her Troubled Son - And How She Feared 'Her Time Was Running Out'

The mother of the Newtown shooter spent her last months alive criss-crossing the globe in a desperate search for a new home as she knew that ‘time was running out’, MailOnline can reveal today.

Nancy Lanza's sister-in-law Marsha revealed that she had traveled to nine cities in three countries because she wanted out of the mansion she shared with her troubled son Adam - and could have known the end was coming.
It is thought that Nancy - who was suffering from multiple sclerosis - wanted to downsize and find a place for him to go to college as she was tired of home schooling the troubled 20-year-old.


In a Facebook conversation seen by MailOnline, Nancy also gave the most revealing account of her own family problems and how they may have shaped her life

She revealed how her own father shut out one of his other daughters at a young age and lived a ‘secret life’ until his past came out.

He ‘turned his back’ on baby Cheryl when he remarried and moved away from his home in Ohio to New Hampshire.

There he started afresh and gave birth to Nancy Lanza whose son Adam killed 28 people including himself and Nancy on Friday during his school rampage in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut.

In a Facebook message to a relative just two months earlier Nancy spoke in candid terms about her family and said: ‘Yes, life is funny and strange. Lies people tell and try to live in those lies. Sad’.

The disclosure could explain why Nancy was so devoted to Adam even though she was struggling with his mental issues.

But it raises grave and urgent questions over her own family and suggests that secrets and lies run deep amongst them.

Nancy, who herself had been diagnosed with MS, supposedly had a ‘charmed upbringing’ in Kingston, New Hampshire, where her mother was the school nurse.

She married her high school sweetheart Peter Lanza and they moved to Newtown, Connecticut, in 1999 where they moved into a $1.5m Colonial property.

Ten years later however they divorced - but Nancy’s troubles were only just beginning.

Speaking to MailOnline Marsha Lanza, from Crystal Lake, Illinois, said: ‘Nancy opened up with me and told me she had been diagnosed with MS.

‘This was a few years ago but I don't think many of the family knew. She wasn't someone to make a fuss. She accepted life as it was.

‘Over the last year she suddenly seemed to be traveling a lot. I know she went to England and was all over the US.

‘There was no sign her health was getting worse. She still looked beautiful, so full of life, but maybe she felt time was running out.’

The Facebook conversation seems to back this up. On October 9, Nancy wrote to Marsha that she had been to ‘a little bit of everywhere’.

She wrote: ‘Boston, New York, Maine, Toronto, London, San Francisco, Nantucket, Charlotte, Baltimore...that covers this year : )’

Nancy also talked about wanting to move to a smaller house but did not want to sell her home at a loss.

She also wanted to keep ‘stability’ for the sake of Adam, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s and was withdrawn.

She writes of a ‘low key life and very happy’ but her family past has clearly disturbed her.

Nancy, 52, said on Facebook that her half-sister Cheryl was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but that her father and her mother appear to have disowned the child.

She writes: ‘She seems nice and I would like to meet her. I feel sorry that my parents turned their backs in her at such a young age. No one is talking so I don't know the real story.

‘As for Cheryl...she had no clue what happened. Her mother is dead, our father is dead, and my mother won't say. It's a mystery. We will never have answers...just have to deal with what is.’

In the conversation Nancy reflects on Adam and her other son Ryan, 24, and says that  ‘they do grow up too fast'.

But in yet another sign of family strain, Ryan and Adam have not spoken in two years. Peter Lanza has also not spoken to Adam over the same period.
Marsha said that Nancy ‘loved spending time with her boys’ even if there were deep divisions between them.

She said: ‘I knew she had issues with him [Adam] but she never felt threatened by him. If she had felt threatened she'd have gone for help.
‘I don't think the two boys were that close. They were just two very different kids.’

Nancy had dedicated her life to looking after her autistic son Adam, who, after killing his mother, took her car and three of her guns to Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday and shot dead 20 children and six adults. He then turned the gun on himself.

She moved to Newtown with her husband Peter in 1998. He would commute to the city for his job as vice president of General Electric.

The couple divorced in 2009 after their marriage 'irretrievably broke down'. Peter made $445,000 a year and agreed to pay $240,000 a year in alimony and child support, according to court records.

This was likely due to the cost of Adam's care.

As the once-peaceful New England town continues today to bury the victims of Friday's massacre, it was revealed the bodies of Nancy and Adam Lanza are not being released by the medical examiner for another week.
Marsha Lanza told the Washington Post her brother-in-law Peter will likely organize the funeral.

'She was my friend,' she said. 'I said to my husband, "Who’s going to bury Nancy?" He said, "Knowing my brother, he’ll take care of it, because that’s the right thing to do".'

Nancy's family - her mother and three adult siblings - have gathered at the family's 1740s farmhouse in Kingston where the 52-year-old had a charmed upbringing.

When she married her high school sweetheart in 1981, the couple built a house next door to the home where they lived until they moved to Newtown.

Adam Lanza, 20, had lived his whole life at the $1.4million home in Newtown where he killed his mother while she lay in bed in her pajamas.

Nancy Lanza was described as a 'gun enthusiast' who taught Adam, who had autism-related Asperger's Syndrome, how to shoot.

The four weapons, including a Glock 10-mm handgun, a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun and a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, used in the mass shooting at the elementary school all belonged to Nancy Lanza.

Friends of the mother-of-two told the Today show on Monday that she was not a 'survivalist' despite earlier reports that she had been stockpiling food because she thought the world economy was on the verge of collapse.

John Bergquist said: 'Shooting was one of her hobbies. It wasn’t her main hobby. She loved the arts, culture. She loved the finer things in life. She loved to go to Red Sox games, and that’s the Nancy I knew.'

Another friend Ellen Adriani said Nancy was devoted to her two sons and took care of all Adam's needs.

Her other son, 24-year-old Ryan works for Ernst & Young in Manhattan and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Nancy was believed to have been planning a new life with her 20-year-old son Adam as he made plans to go to college. She had been thinking about going wherever he decided to study engineering - Seattle or one of the Carolinas - and live nearby, according to the New York Post.

Russ Hanoman told the Post: 'They had recently gone to many different colleges looking for the right program for Adam, and the right living situation.'

'WE WILL NEVER HAVE ANSWERS' - NANCY LANZA'S LAST CONVERSATIONS WITH HER SISTER-IN-LAW
October 6

Hi Marsha!!! All is well here...all is pretty much status quo. What a change! I am still in CT and all is well. What are you up to? Where do you live?

I hear you there...no sense selling at a loss! Best to keep stability in the kid's lives. Moves are so tough at that age. Not surprised you are doing sewing stuff... You were always SO talented! I am still in the same place but getting to the point where I may want a smaller house. I travel a lot, spend time with friends, work with a couple of charities. Low key life and very happy.

A little bit of everywhere... Boston, New York, Maine, Toronto, London, San Francisco, Nantucket, Charlotte, Baltimore...that covers this year : )
I discovered I have a half sister in Ohio, so I have to get there to meet her soon!

Ha! Yes, indeed....definitely part gypsy

Yah...that's what I thought too but apparently my father was married previously and actually lived in Ohio...secret life and all. Weird.

Cincinnati .... Story TOO long to text off my little I Phone... But yes, life is funny and strange. Lies people tell and try to live in those lies. Sad. She seems nice and I would like to meet her. I feel sorry that my parents turned their backs in her at such a young age. No one is talking so I don't know the real story.

As for Cheryl...she had no clue what happened. Her mother is dead, our father is dead, and my mother won't say. It's a mystery. We will never have answers...just have to deal with what is.

Ryan works in Manhattan...Adam still at home. Yes, they do grow up too fast. I am off to bed...SO good to hear from you. Let's keep in touch! Maybe I can visit you when I visit my sister.... I'll be half way there : )

October 29th (during Superstorm sandy)

Texting Ryan. The water is three-feet deep outside his apartment. He is OK on the second floor.

December 14 (after the shooting. Nancy and Adam are both dead)

Marsha to Nancy: Hi Nancy, Just checking in to see if you are OK and what you might know about the school shooting. Isn't this the town you live in? not sure. Drop me a line when you get a chance. My prayers go out to all.


'Never Turn Your Back On Adam': Nancy Lanza's Chilling Instructions To Babysitter Before He Watched 'Gifted Killer Who Could Not Feel Physical Pain'.
Ryan Kraft Described Adam As Very Intelligent, Quiet And Introverted
Required Extra Supervision At School From A Physical Disorder Which Meant He Could Not Feel Pain

His mother would sometimes have to be summonsed to deal with him
A school psychologist was assigned to monitor Adam full time.

Federal agents say there is no evidence that Lanza went to a firing range in recent months to practice for the shooting.

When he was freshman at high school he was flagged to the school security chief.

She withdrew him when he was 16 after ongoing disputes about his care
Nancy planned to move to North Carolina or Washington state so she could enroll him in another college.

Governor implies that school gunman Adam Lanza killed himself and may have been stopped in his tracks before he could kill more people.

The babysitter who watched the Sandy Hook Elementary school killer Adam Lanza when he was nine-years-old was warned by mother Nancy to never turn his back on the child, not even to go to the bathroom.

Ryan Kraft, who now lives in California, said he started shaking when he heard that the young boy he once looked after had shot his mother in the face before gunning down 20 innocent children and six adults on Friday.
Mr Kraft recalls Nancy Lanza's chilling words to him before she left him in charge of her young son.

'[She said] to keep an eye on him at all times...to never turn my back, or even to go to the bathroom or anything like that.'

He described Adam as a quiet, very intelligent and introverted.

'Whenever we were doing something, whether it was building Legos, or playing video games, he was really focused on it. It was like he was in his own world,' he told KCBS.

It was also revealed that the 20-year-old killer, who some who knew him described as a 'genius,' suffered from a condition which meant he could not feel any physical pain.

Newtown school district’s then head of security, Richard Novia, told the Daily Beast that the disorder meant he required extra supervision whenever he handled equipment with which he might unknowingly injure himself.
Novia recalls that Adam also suffered psychological spells as a result of the physical condition, withdrawing so much that his mother would have to be summoned.

'He was very withdrawn and meek, he was one of those freshmen in very much in need of watching. he would have episodes where he would just shut down. He'd sit staring at the ground and refuse to talk to anyone.
'If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically. It was my job to pay close attention to that, Mr Novia said.

He told the Wall Street Journal that it was not unusual for school officials to meet about troubled students, but that Lanza's problems were more severe than most, so much so, that he was assigned a permanent psychologist.

Mr Novia said he told the school's three security staffers who reported to him to carefully monitor the student and 'where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing.'

Federal authorities said on Monday that Lanza, 20, had fired guns at shooting ranges over the past several years, but there's no evidence he did so recently as practice for the rampage.

Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the AP that investigators have no indication now 'that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months.'

One of the major unanswered questions has been whether Lanza trained in advance for Friday's attack that killed 20 children and six adults inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

When he was in his sophomore year at high school, Nancy Lanza decided to withdraw her 16-year-old son after ongoing disputes with the school district over what she believed was the inadequate care and attention he was receiving.

Her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza revealed over the weekend: 'Nancy had issues with school...She battled with the school district.

'I'm not 100 per cent certain if it was behavior, learning disabilities, I really don't know. But he was very, very bright. He was smart.'

Newly revealed divorce paperwork shows that Nancy had the authority to make all decisions regarding her son's upbringing.

The court papers were made public on Monday and said the marriage broke down 'irretrievably'. The divorce between Nancy and Peter Lanza was finalized in September 2009, when Adam Lanza was 17

Lanza enrolled in some part-time courses in Western Connecticut State University, in nearby Danbury. Classmates there also described him as an outsider, revealing he would sit alone at the back of the class with a hooded sweatshirt on.

In an evening German class, he was the youngest student there.

'We tried to say "hi" to him every so often, and he just seemed nervous,' classmate Dot Stasny told the Journal. 'He didn't have anybody to connect with because we were all older.'

He soon dropped out of the class. He did however excel in computer science, with an A and an A-minus in two courses in summer 2008, when he was just 16, according to Paul Steinmetz, a university spokesman.
He said the university had no record of any disciplinary issues with the part-time student. he wasn't pursuing a college degree and had a final grade-point average of 3.26.

Police are currently searching the hard drive of two computers take from the killer's home which were smashed into pieces.

Nancy Lanza told a friend she feared she was losing her son just a week before he shot her multiple times in the face.

Though his former classmates describe him as a 'computer geek', he strangely had no online presence on popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Details on the man behind Friday's monstrous act remain maddeningly scarce as small tidbits of information are slowly being revealed by the few people who knew him - though he had no friends to speak of.

Those few who spoke with the deeply disturbed young man described him as shy, intelligent, and a masochist.

It seems Lanza went from meek fresh-faced schoolboy to a home-schooled loner who hurt himself so that he could 'feel something'.

At his most innocent, Lanza is described as a mild-mannered student in high school, making the honor roll, and living with his mother Nancy, who in turn loved playing dice games and decorating their upscale home for the holidays.

He also suffered from Asperger's syndrome and was painfully shy and awkward, former classmates said.

But a troubling portrait has emerged of the 'Goth' loner, who dressed all in black and was obsessed with video games.

Not long before the shooting at Sandy Hook, Nancy Lanza expressed concerns that her troubled young son was spiraling out of control.

An anonymous friend said Nancy had confided he was 'getting worse' over craft beers just days before the shooting.

'I don't know. I'm worried I'm losing him,' the friend quoted her as saying.
The friend added that Nancy believed her son was hurting himself.

'Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,' he recalled of a conversation they had roughly one year ago. 'It was like he was trying to feel something.'

'I asked her if she was getting him help and she said she was,' the friend recalled.

It has also been reported that Nancy had decided to move to Washington State or North Carolina so that Adam could attend a college in another state.

Nancy had recently been considering moving Adam to Washington state, said Mark Tambascio, a restaurant proprietor and close family friend, because she had discovered a school she thought would be good for him.
'They were going to move out there together,' he told the Washington Post. 'She was willing to uproot her. Nancy pretty much made it clear that she needed to be with him [Adam] because he couldn't handle being on his own.

'He was her whole life. She was very proud of both of her sons. She never mentioned that [Adam] was suicidal or violent. Nothing like that. Everyone that had spent any time around him, they knew he was a little bit different, but you never saw any major, major issues, he added.

Some other friends of Nancy spoke to NBC this morning, telling Savannah Guthrie: 'Adam was calm, withdrawn, typical of someone who has Asperger’s. But she never feared him. She was devoted to both her sons.

Adam and his needs came first.'

Another friend Ellen said: 'Adam would isolate himself and [Nancy] was conscious of how she would react to him. She was a kind and caring friend.
'She taught Adam how to shoot to teach him that guns had to be treated with respect and would absolutely have had them under lock and key.'

They also recalled a time when Adam was ill, he didn't want his mother to be in his room with him. So she slept outside the door on the carpet all night.

He called out to her frequently to make sure she was there but he didn’t want her to be too close.

Nancy was his first victim when the 20-year-old began his rampage by shooting her face multiple times in the family’s $1.6million home in Newtown, Connecticut, dubbed America’s 'safest town'.

He then then took three of her guns and drove her black Honda Civic to Sandy Hook Elementary School around 9.30am, where he killed 20 young children and six adults before shooting himself in the head.

Lanza used two semi-automatic pistols, a Glock and Sig Sauer, and wiped out an entire classroom of young children, then shot several in a second class before taking his own life as police closed in.

Police revealed yesterday that Adam was carrying an arsenal of ammunition big enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time, according to police.

Adam Lanza shot himself in the head just as he heard police drawing near to the classroom where he was slaughtering helpless children.

But now it has been revealed he had more ammunition in the form of multiple, high-capacity clips each capable of holding 30 bullets, raising the possibility Lanza had planned an even deadlier massacre and was stopped short.

'There was a lot of ammo, a lot of clips,' said state police Lt. Paul Vance.
'Certainly a lot of lives were potentially saved.'

The chief medical examiner has said the ammunition was the type designed to break up inside a victim's body and inflict the maximum amount of damage, tearing apart bone and tissue.

Former classmate Olivia DeVivo said she remembered Lanza talking about ‘blowing things up’, but added: ‘I put that down to the usual talk of boys. I think he went so unnoticed people didn’t stop to think, “There’s something going on here – maybe he needs some kind of help?”

‘No one is surprised. He always seemed like he was someone who was capable of that because he didn’t really connect with our high school, with our town.’

Another former school friend, Jamie Crespo, 19, said: ‘He used to hang with the freaks, guys who dressed in trench coats.’

Other students remember him walking through school dressed in black, carrying a black briefcase.

Newtown High School's 2010 class president Ben Federman is like the rest of his classmates - he can barely remember Adam Lanza.

Mr Federman, who was home from attending college at Vanderbilt University, told MailOnline that he had heard from many graduates from the class of 2010 and none of them can think of a single friend Lanza had.
'The only time I ever saw him was in the hallway and he never seemed to engage anyone. He was just focused on walking from one class to another,' Mr Federman said.

His only memory of the 20--year-old Lanza was the bizarre way he dressed - always in button-down shirts that were too big for him. He also usually had pens in his shirt pocket and usually carried a black leather briefcase.
'You noticed that because it was different. He carried a briefcase and not a backpack,' Mr Federman said.

Shooter's Persona Drew Concern at School

Not long into his freshman year, Adam Lanza caught the attention of Newtown High School staff members, who assigned him a high-school psychologist, while teachers, counselors and security officers helped monitor the skinny, socially awkward teen, according to a former school official.

A high-school yearbook photo shows Adam Lanza, third from the right, as part of the technology club.

Churches in and around Newtown, Conn., held vigils and special services to help comfort those affected by the shootings that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Video by WSJ's Evan Simon.

Both members of the community and visitors in and around Newtown, Conn., are erecting makeshift memorials to honor the victims of the shooting spree on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Their fear wasn't that he was dangerous. "It was completely the opposite," said Richard J. Novia, the director of security at Newtown School District at the time in 2007. "At that point in his life, he posed no threat to anyone else. We were worried about him being the victim or that he could hurt himself."

Long before Mr. Lanza allegedly killed his mother and then blasted his way into a Connecticut elementary school on a rampage that left 27 dead, authorities were concerned about a young man who was unusually withdrawn and socially maladroit. The scrawny teenager with a mop of brown hair evoked feelings of sympathy, not fear, from teachers and the few classmates who even noticed him.

Authorities have declined to discuss a motive for the shootings, and those who knew Mr. Lanza, 20 years old, said they are at a loss to even speculate. Marsha Moskowitz, a retired school-bus driver, said Mr. Lanza stood out simply because he never smiled. "He was so quiet," she said.

Much remained unknown about Mr. Lanza on Sunday, including whether he had ever been diagnosed with a mental-health illness or if he had graduated with classmates at Newtown High School.

Few remember him well, though he showed some academic promise, making the honor roll as a freshman, joining a technology club and taking college-level courses at age 16.

Friends and acquaintances of his mother, Nancy Lanza, a gun enthusiast who grew up in rural New Hampshire and took her kids to target practice, said she rarely spoke about Adam, her younger son. But when she did, there were indications their relationship was fraught.

"It got to the point where she did not have a close relationship with her son," said Dan Holmes, a local landscaper who worked on her property and who would see her from time to time at a local bar in town called My Place.

But another friend of Ms. Lanza's, Tom Phillips, said she was a devoted mother who doted on her youngest son, Adam. "She said he was special, that he required a little extra attention," Mr. Phillips said.

Others who knew the family said Mr. Lanza wasn't close with his older brother, Ryan, 24, who lives in Hoboken, N.J., and works for Ernst & Young. Mr. Lanza's parents divorced in 2009 after a long separation, according to public records and family members. Adam Lanza's father, Peter, who lives in Stamford, is a tax director and vice president for GE Financial Services.

In a statement released Saturday night, Peter Lanza said the family is "heartbroken" and "in a state of disbelief," the Associated Press reported.

After the divorce, Adam Lanza remained with his mother in their upscale Newtown home.

His high school classmates took little notice of Mr. Lanza, but school officials did. Newtown school officials assigned a permanent psychologist to Mr. Lanza in his freshman year of high school in 2007, and flagged him to the school's security chief when he was still in middle school, a former school official said. "He was very withdrawn and meek," said Mr. Novia, who left the district in 2008. He said Mr. Lanza "was one of those freshmen coming in very much in need of watching."

Mr. Novia said it wasn't unusual for school officials to meet about troubled students, but Mr. Lanza's problems were more severe than most. He said he told the school's three security staffers who reported to him to carefully monitor Mr. Lanza, concerning "where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing."

To help Mr. Lanza become more socially adept, school officials directed him to a "tech club," a broadcast class that filmed school events for a public access channel in town. While many students thrived there, Mr. Novia said Mr. Lanza didn't—even though his older brother, Ryan, had done well in the same group.

At Western Connecticut State University, in nearby Danbury, Mr. Lanza took classes, but he was also an outsider there. In an introductory German course in spring 2009, two classmates recalled him sitting alone, towards the back of the class, often in a hooded sweatshirt. It was an evening course, and Mr. Lanza was the youngest person there.

"We tried to say 'hi' to him every so often, and he just seemed nervous," classmate Dot Stasny said. "He didn't have anybody to connect with because we were all older."

At one point, a friend of Ms. Stasny and another classmate, Gretchen Olson, invited Mr. Lanza to join them at a bar after class, Ms. Olson said.

"No, I can't, I'm 17," Mr. Lanza responded, according to Ms. Olson. "We were like, 'Oh, OK,' and then he went home."

Mr. Lanza dropped out of that class, and the professor, Renate Ludanyi, didn't remember him when asked by a reporter, but found his name in her records. He received a D on one test, she said.

Mr. Lanza excelled in computer science, with an A and an A-minus in two courses in summer 2008, when he was just 16, according to Paul Steinmetz, a university spokesman. During the following term, in "Philosophy 101: Introduction to Ethical Theory," Mr. Lanza got a C.

John J. Blom, whom university records show taught that course, said he had no recollection of Mr. Lanza.

Mr. Steinmetz said the university had no record of any disciplinary issues with Mr. Lanza, who studied as a part-time student and wasn't pursuing a degree. The last classes he took in 2009 were "American History Since 1877," in which he received an A-minus, and an introductory macroeconomics course, in which he received a B. His final grade-point average was 3.26.

Mr. Lanza's history professor declined to speak, according to Burton Peretti, history department chairman. "They certainly were shocked" to realize Mr. Lanza had been in the class, Mr. Peretti said of the professor.

History classes have around 40 students, Mr. Peretti said. Other history professors said it would have been possible for Mr. Lanza to get a high grade without saying much of anything if his written work was strong.

Ms. Stasny also remembers Mr. Lanza as an occasional customer at a local branch of GameStop, GME -0.88% the videogame retailer, where she worked.

"He was one of those customers that came in, got his stuff and left," she said.

'HE IS GETTING WORSE': GUNMAN'S MOTHER TOLD FRIEND OF HER FEARS LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE BLOODY RAMPAGE THAT BEGAN WHEN HE SHOT HER MULTIPLE TIMES IN THE HEAD

Just days before Adam Lanza would begin a bloody rampage beginning with shooting her multiple times in the head, mother Nancy Lanza confided that 'she was losing him' and that 'he was getting worse.'

An anonymous drinking buddy said Nancy made the remarks in a disturbing conversation over craft beers at a bar called My Place in Newtown, Conn.

The friend asked not to be named by press.

On Friday morning Adam shot Nancy Lanza, 54, several times in the head before his horrifying

Cold blood: Adam Lanza opened fire on Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 26 people at the school before turning the gun on himself.

rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 children and six others.

The friend knew Adam had been troubled, and he rarely came up in conversation, with Nancy preferring instead to talk about son Ryan if she discussed her children.

The friend said they knew Adam was prone to hurting himself.

'She just looked down at the glass and said, 'I don't know. I'm worried I'm losing him,'  the friend told the Daily News.

'She said it was getting worse. She was having trouble reaching him.'

It wasn't the first time Nancy told him something was wrong with her son.

'Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,' he recalled of a conversation they had roughly one year ago. 'It was like he was trying to feel something.'

With Adam now dead and the nation mourning his victims, Nancy words earlier in the week seem foreboding, the friend said.

'It was weird. She never really talked about (Adam),' he said. 'She mainly talked about her oldest kid (Ryan). I knew about the other one but she never spoke much about him.

'She looked disturbed. She was looking down at her glass and kind of talking slowly.'

The friend never met Adam.

'I asked her if she was getting him help and she said she was,' the friend recalled.

'Adam learned how to shoot a rifle by the time he was 9 years old,' said the friend. 'They would go to the range.'

Nancy was always careful with her firearms.

'Nancy was a responsible gun owner,' the friend said. 'It was important that she teach her son how to responsibly use a firearm.'

And she had a strained relationship with her ex-husband, Peter Lanza.

'She didn't talk about him a lot. But I knew they didn't get along," the friend said. 'I don't think she ever saw him.'