Adam Lanza’s Father, in First Public Comments, Says ‘You Can’t Get Any More Evil’

[SecularMotion]

Peter Lanza had not seen his son Adam for two years before the day walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and murdered 20 schoolchildren and six adults.

Since that morning, Mr. Lanza cannot go an hour without thinking about his child. And now, he says, he wishes his son had never been born.

“You can’t get any more evil,” he said in his first public comments since the shooting. “How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he’s my son? A lot.”

In a series of emotionally wrenching interviews with the writer Andrew Solomon, Mr. Lanza detailed his son’s medical history and increasing isolation, his ex-wife’s struggle to deal with their troubled child, and his own role as the father of the person who committed one of the worst mass shootings in the nation’s history. Mr. Solomon, the author of the book “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity,” recounts the interviews in an article in this week’s issue of The New Yorker magazine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/nyregion/adam-lanzas-father-in-first-public-comments-says-you-cant-get-any-more-evil.html?hp

[JI7]

1. any mention about all the guns ?

[Blue_Tires]

5. That's my question as well...

[SoCalMusicLover]

63. Guns Are NEVER To Blame

How can you blame an inanimate object?

Besides, he LOVES his guns. You probably could not pry the guns from his cold, dead hands.....but yet it is his son that he wishes had never been born. But give up his guns? NEVER!

[Ecumenist]

81. Umm, he wasn't the one with the guns...It's was his son's first victim...

HIS MOM who bought and had the guns.

[Dorian Gray]

90. you're

barking up the wrong tree. The father was not taking his son to the gun range to shoot. Sadly, that was his mother, and she paid with her life. The article paints the portrait of a very disturbed young man who did not get the help he needed.

[roguevalley]

98. guns, smuns. What father says this about his own son? How about

his fathering? He had a high needs son. How can you say something like he has said. Maybe you feel it. You don't kill him over again. Seriously, WTF?

[Tumbulu]

104. my thoughts exactly

lots of pain before and now still after, clearly.

[Dorian Gray]

130. I think if my child

murdered 27 people, I would have to face facts and call that act evil. That's what his father did.

Reading the 8 pages of the article was painful. It was the first time I felt sympathy for Adam, actually. It painted a bleak picture of Adam's life and his many diagnoses. He was troubled and disordered. On top of being diagnosed with Aspergers, which made assimilation into high school difficult for him, he had many other troubling problems, and the article speculated that he may have had psychosis.

The child did NOT receive the help he needed. The father makes that clear. And the mother ended up giving into his whims on a daily basis to make things "easier."

When he started having violent fantasies that he wrote about in school, there needed to be an intervention.

That is clear to me after reading this article. And I believe that was his father's intention. To help people to NOT ignore the problems. To face them.

It's inconceivable for me to imagine my daughter mass murdering a classroom of kids. I'm sure it was inconceivable to Peter, too. And now he has to live with this. It's obvious it's his biggest pain and regret in life.

[pnwmom]

103. Do you even know if he has guns?

The stories I read said the ex-wife was the one taking Adam to the gun range.

[WatermelonRat]

85. As I recall, it was the mother who was the gun nut.

The father divorced her and lived somewhere else.

[BainsBane]

2. That shows how Lanza got to the state where he thought

firing on a bunch of 6 and 7 yr olds was a good idea. What an awful father.

[Ed Suspicious]

7. What leads you to believe he was an "awful father?"

[BainsBane]

16. He said his son was evil. He hadn't seen him for two years.

Hello?!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. Huh? And you know that

there was a no contact order against dad, and no order of protection, and that he never ever tried to reach out to son, only to be shot down (figuratively) for making the effort?

You know all of this how, exactly?

Wow, talk about projecting without any facts or background.

[LisaL]

26. And in fact father tried to contact his son, but son didn't want to see his father.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

30. well, hell, that's GOT to be dad's fault. That would make me so f&&&ing angry I

want to take a gun to some school, that's how angry I am.

No wonder tea baggers laugh at us at times.

[missingthebigdog]

62. Might want to consider using the sarcasm thingy

Just sayin'

[Paladin]

76. Yeah, a sarcasm alert would really be a good idea.

Never assume a basic grasp of sarcasm---not on a gun-related thread.

And as for your knowledge of tea baggers laughing at us: I don't even want to know.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

89. Quite probably true.

But given the topic, the sarcasm should be painfully obvious.

[BainsBane]

58. I know what is in the news article

because I read it.

[Dorian Gray]

91. Did you read the article?

His son refused to see him. And the evil comment came as a result of his shooting 27 people. And it's true. It's very evil to kill all those people. And his father is living with his guilt and sadness.

[roguevalley]

99. he is. All of this may be true but what he said is very awful.

even Jeffrey Dahmer's dad stuck with his son. I wouldn't begin to understand his feelings but killing his son again with his words will not help.

[Dorian Gray]

131. What do you

mean by killing his son again with his words?

[roguevalley]

152. it is an old expression. It means sticking the knife in and twisting it after is doesn't

matter. His son is dead. Since he and the mother are the parents, they bear responsibility. He had a lot of documented problems. He's dead. Saying what he said is inexcusable. That was his son. He killed him again with his words.

[Dorian Gray]

188. I had never heard that expression

Perhaps it would have read better if he said his sons actions were evil and he wished he had acted more to prevent it.

I still believe, no matter how troubled our children may be, it would be impossible to imagine them committing acts of this nature. And Peter Lanza will have to live with that for the rest of his life.

[roguevalley]

194. I agree. It seemed such a betrayal for him to say what he said. Like killing the kid

all over again. I have a family whose living memory went back to 1844. They all lived to be at or exceeding 100 so these sayings are part of my language. So are the stories of the Oregon Trail and the Civil War.

I'll be swanned is my favorite. I do believe that family is the last refuge of a person and to have someone be so brutal no matter what the kid did was cruel. Even Jeffrey Dahmer's dad stuck by his son. He didn't gloss it but he didn't deny his boy.

[yodermon]

106. Just pointing out something here. He said Adam was evil *after* Adam had committed the murders.

He DID NOT call Adam evil *before* he had committed the murders. That was the entire point.

Also, FWIW: This doesn't mean Peter Lanza deserves Father of the Year awards.
There is a vast gulf of difference between "Poor, poor Peter Lanza" and "What a horrible father he was". It's not a binary choice.

And did you read the part about how Peter helped home-school Adam, even after they (the parents) were separated?

You might find this excerpt interesting:

Peter was frustrated but felt that he couldn’t show up at the house in Newtown to force an encounter. “It would have been a fight, the last thing I’d want to be doing. Jesus. . . . If I had gone there unannounced and just, ‘I want to see Adam.’ ‘Why are you doing this?’ Adam would be all bent about me.” Later, Peter remarked, “If I said I’m coming, she’d say, ‘No, there’s no reason for that.’ I mean, she controlled the situation.”... He considered hiring a private investigator “to try to figure out where he was going, so I could bump into him.”

it doesn't sound like Peter personally wanted to be away from Adam for 2 years.

[Tumbulu]

107. yep, I am with you nt

[CreekDog]

123. with all due respect, which article did you read?

i read the one where the dad was continually trying to contact the son, but the son wouldn't answer and the mom was telling him the son doesn't even email her -which turned out not to be true.

now you can blame the dad for not forcing his way into the situation but then you have to also blame Adam's brother because he didn't see him for the same length of time.

is he a bad brother?

have you ever had a relative simply not want to see you?

i had family refuse to talk to me and see me and i find it somewhat offensive that when i kept trying to see and talk to them, that i somehow am to blame.

[Tumbulu]

149. I read the long one in the newyorker and this one

and the sad story for all of is (as it affected us all) is that a mentally ill child killed so many people...

Clearly the child was mentally ill. Clearly the mother was drowning trying to save him.

By his late teens the child did not want to see his dad. Yes, it is delicate. But reading through it all, I get the idea that this man walked out a decade before. He divorces the wife and troubled son to continue his life. Her's sinks with the mentally ill child. He gets to call the child evil and wish he had not been born. But he is alive to say this.

But this path, this path of the father being edged out started a lot earlier. This is a high achieving guy, a work-a-holic. Made lots of money and had/has lots of responsibilities. Most likely very impatient with the son, the mother always trying to protect the son from the anger and resentment of the father. The pattern started and then went on towards its so very tragic end.

To answer your question, yes and no. Only for relatively short periods of time.

I am sorry that you are experiencing this. It is very hard to go through.

[CreekDog]

122. he wasn't allowed to see him

did you read the article?

[Tom Ripley]

140. I never saw Adam Lanza and I unapologetically declare that he was evil

His father is right

[Lost_Count]

14. Maybe...

Maybe he was just a shit...

You telling me that every asshole you know in the world had/has terrible parents?

[BainsBane]

17. I'm saying a father who calls his child evil is a bad father

This was not a man in his 40s or 50s. He was a mentally ill young person still living at home. His father hadn't seem him in two years. Neglect and contempt for one's child is not being a good parent.

[11 Bravo]

18. And not even the mother-of-the-year candidate who had custody was able to counteract ...

the awful influence of that bad father.
If only Mom had provided her obviously troubled child with access to a few more guns, everything would probably have been copacetic, right?

[BainsBane]

72. The mother is dead

She isn't giving interviews talking about how her son was evil. She is dead, murdered., ten feet under. Did that little fact escape you? My point was in response to the interview recounted in this OP.

Amazingly, it wasn't about you. But don't let that stop you from staring a poutrage thread complaining about how the awful women on DU blame men and only men for the behavior of their children, or women claim fatherhood is inherently evil or whatever straw that you need to erect to make yourself feel whole.

[Drahthaardogs]

75. No offense, but your argument is pretty over the top.

Those were MOM's guns not locked up, not Dad's. She was the one who let a mentally ill child have access. How you can make this about poor parenting on the Father's fault is beyond me. He may have been the most neglectful man in the history of the world, but Mom let the kid have the guns.

[BainsBane]

78. Good lord

My comment was not an assessment of the parenting Adam received throughout his life. It was a reaction to the man declaring his son evil. Got it? There is nothing over the top about noting that a father who doesn't see his child for two years and then declares him evil after he is dead sucks as a parent. Both parents have a role in the upbringing of their children, and this one did if only in his absence and contempt for his child.

The father had guns too. They were gun nuts. Gun nuts give their kids guns.

This whole poutrage about my not proclaiming the dead mother as entirely responsible for her son's actions is tedious.

[Drahthaardogs]

79. Please.

Spare me. The father has every right to call the child evil. In fact, he SHOULD call his son evil for what he did. It is GOOD parenting (even though the kid is dead). The kid did evil. Pretending it did not happen or it is not his fault is wrong. Holding Adam accountable for his actions is right.

How do I know this? I know this because I have a 21 year old severely bi-polar daughter and we have been in and out of institutions since she was 13. Every psychiatrist and psychologist has driven home the following:

She is mentally ill, but she IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HER OWN BEHAVIOR!

In fact, there is a whole course taught about this called "Stop Walking on Eggshells" which is about living with bi-polar people.

And who fucking cares if the dad had a howitzer in HIS garage? Mom was the one who GAVE the guns to her mentally ill son. Just an FYI, I grew up on a cattle ranch. I have guns too. When my daughter got sick at the age of 13, even though every gun in the house had a trigger lock, I went out and bought a $2,000 safe to put them in to keep both her and us safe.

[BainsBane]

83. Your contention is mentally ill people are evil?

Saying someone is inherently evil is different from saying an ill person is responsible for their own actions, or that the act they perpetrated was evil.

Lanza's father didn't walk on eggshells. He wasn't there. He got remarried and got himself a spanking new family and discarded the old one. It is of course possible that some parents are so bereft of compassion or love that abandoning their children may indeed be better than the child's having to deal with a parent who despises them. Either way, they don't clear the bar for even passable parenting. I do not agree that making children believe they are inherently evil is good parenting. In fact, I would call it abuse.


I'll be very clear again. I responded to the OP. If the OP had been about what sort of parenting by his mother and father that Lanza had received and I commented only about the father, you would have a point. That was not the OP I responded to, as anyone who read it can see.

[Drahthaardogs]

86. Yeah, I really said that...

What the heck is wrong with you? You need to stop this blatant manipulation of my words to try to prove the repugnant assertion that somehow Mr. Lanza is to blame for all of this because he got a divorce and remarried.

And this will be my last response to you. Others may join you down the rabbit hole, but I have no time for tilting at windmills.

And yeah, at least in the last few hours of his life, Adam Lanza was one evil SOB and calling him evil is not abusive. Its called being honest.

[11 Bravo]

135. Save your breath. It's what she does. She will quite literally make shit up ...

attribute it to someone else, and go off on a rant. It has become the source of a good bit of amusement lately.

[pintobean]

144. And, thinks everyone

is too stupid to see it.

[joeglow3]

95. Jesus fucking Christ that is amazing

The way you so seamlessly talk out both sides of your mouth.

[Fumesucker]

112. We have some genuinely talented people on DU

[LiberalAndProud]

84. I don't know how I would react if it were my child.

The guilt must be strong. Jeffrey Dahmer's father spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong. He never, ever disavowed his child. I imagine he got some pretty strong reactions to that acceptance as well.

I don't know what I'd do if my child went so far off the rails. I wouldn't trade places for love nor money, though. What a terrible place to live that must be.

[haele]

186. Is it disavowing a child to recognize when they did something terrible?

He makes it clear he wishes he could have helped Adam, that he could have done something that would change the course of the boy's life. In fact, for years he had been disavowed by his son and his ex, who apparently lied consistently and wanted to control their damaged son without the father's input.
He called his son at the end "evil", because of the evil the damaged young man who had been coddled in his rage had done, and there was nothing he could do to change that fact. The rage had taken over. The son he loved was barely there.
Adam, the son he loved, had gotten to the point in his rage and delusions that he would have just as easily killed his father or any siblings in the house if he had the chance at the end when he killed his mother.

Peter Lanza has to live with the nightmarish scenario of constant "if only I could haves" for the rest of his life ... when there was very little more he could have done that was within his rights and responsibilities as a non-custodial parent under the legal system of this country. His ex-wife in her delusions called the shots, as it were.

The question I see running through this thread seems to be - If I do evil, is it wrong for my loved ones to call my actions - and by implication, me - evil?
Or is it even more pitiable for them to try to justify their personal reality and deny what I did was evil and there was something wrong with me in doing so, because they don't want to admit that someone they love - or they themselves - can do something so purposefully terrible in such a casual manner?

My parents were generally good people who were generous, positive, logical, and loving. If I am a sociopath, or have a psychosis, that has nothing to do with the way they raised me. My question to others would be, as good parents, do they have "the responsibility to stand by me" and try and justify their love for me against my actions no matter what?
Or can they say "We love our daughter, but we recognize she has problems and acted in an evil (or selfishly manipulative) manner and did something terribly wrong?"

Sometimes, the best thing a parent can do is try to pick up the pieces and mitigate the damage to others who may be in the path of an emotionally damaged adult child.

Philosophically, I have more pity for someone who cannot face that anyone has the potential to be responsible for doing evil or is afraid that their adult children's actions are always reflection on their "failure to parent properly".

Haele

[arcane1]

54. Murdering 20 children is pretty damned evil. His father is 100% correct.

I suppose you are in 100% full knowledge of the circumstances? If a child doesn't want to see his father, should he be forced to?

As I recall, it's the mother who bought him the guns and taught him how to use them.

[SoCalMusicLover]

65. Incorrect....His Father Had Always Been Into Guns

The mom may have bought him the weapon, but Peter always had guns around when they were married. His father was supposedly also very into guns, and they were also part of his upbringing.

[arcane1]

70. Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't aware of that, since so many stories were about his mom.

[markpkessinger]

96. Many people grow up in households with guns, and manage to do so safely and without ever ...

... killing anyone. I grew up in a small town in central PA, where virtually every male over the age of 12 hunted, as did my father, my brother and me. There were probably, at any given time, half a dozen rifles, maybe four or vie shotguns/, and Dad had a collection of antique handguns. At the same time, however, my Dad -- like the fathers of most of the other kids in town -- was an absolute fanatic about gun safety, to the point that he would yell at us kids if he saw us pointing even so much as a toy gun at another person. And that ethic was instilled in us long before we were ever permitted to handle real guns. Look, I am not some nut who opposes gun regulations by any means, and find the NRA to be as vile an organization as one is likely to find anywhere. But merely having a father who is "into guns" for sport shooting or hunting does not make one into a murderer, let alone a mass murderer, nor does it make someone a 'terrible father.'

[Lost_Count]

56. Blood or not..

Anyone who goes around indiscriminately slaughtering children is evil and deserving of nothing but contempt.

You have no lines?

[CreekDog]

124. blame the dad for the killing of 20 children

sounds fair.

[Logical]

34. Wow, you are now an expert on him. How kind of you! nt

[BainsBane]

74. Actually I recounted what I read in the OP

Shocking. I know.

[bettyellen]

118. I believe he meant the acts couldn't be more evil- from the rest of the article, it seems what

happened has weighed on him quite heavily. I don't think he's referring to Adam in that statement. He seems to know Adam was sick and that they missed opportunities to help him.

I grew up close with a few severely mentally ill people, and I would never blame the family unless I knew there was real abuse. We do not.

Shit, this is one reason families like mine don't talk about it. Ignorant reactionaries blaming Mom and Dad. Everyone used to give my Mom the old stinkeye because her first born offed himself. Everyone wants to blame the Mom, that was boilerplate 35 years ago, enough already! Sad too, because no one took it as hard as she did, and the world gave her guilt on top of that.

[Bonobo]

168. You seem completely incapable of placing blame where it belongs.

You talk an awful lot about NOT being prejudiced against men, but then you make a post like this and the whole fragile disguise just drops away and it becomes clear to ANYONE with eyes that you do indeed have some serious issues with men.

[chrisa]

187. And yet we know nothing about the living situation.

Don't you think he would have done something had he known his son was going to shoot an Elementary school up? How can you possibly know what kind of father he was. What is your evidence? Sensationalist news stories that want to place the blame on someone who is alive? They do it all of the time.

It's so easy to say that we would have done something different.

[KamaAina]

3. Um, Peter, no one is born evil

“How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he’s my son? A lot.”

How much do you beat up on yourself about how you raised him?

[Ed Suspicious]

8. How did he raise him? I didn't catch that in the article.

[KamaAina]

9. Well, I don't know, but it couldn't have been pretty

of course, Mom was the one with all the gunz.

[LisaL]

24. They had two children. As far as I can tell the older one is doing fine.

Raised in the same household.
Sounds like younger one was abnormal from very early age.
As time went one he became more and more abnormal.
There clearly was something wrong with that kid.
How exactly does one fix that?

[KamaAina]

27. Perhaps Mom and/or Dad turned their aggression towards Adam

because he was abnormal, setting up a vicious circle.

[LisaL]

29. Did you read the interview?

If anything mother coddled Adam too much, fulfilling his every wish.
There was no aggression.

[KamaAina]

31. Or, perhaps the coddling rewarded his abnormal behavior

There are no answers. There never will be.

[LisaL]

33. Adam had no empathy.

Nobody figured out how to fix that.

[kcr]

159. He was failed on so many levels. That article revealed quite a bit.

His father said his psychiatrist recommended homeschooling and I think that ended up being disastrous. His mother ended up isolated with him, and I think the serious mental illness he developed during that time especially during those last couple of years and the isolation hid it. Just an awful tragedy. The deep regret his father feels just eminated from that article. Up until that time I felt a lot of outrage and judgment about the guns. I still think the guns were a bad idea, of course. But now I just feel a tremendous amount of sadness and empathy for what his parents went through.

[LisaL]

201. I don't think anything would have worked on Adam.

I am pretty sure there was something seriously wrong wired in his brain from conception.
Was he born evil? Yes, I think so.
I don't think it was possible to fix.

[kcr]

202. Well, which is it?

If it was something wired in his brain, then it isn't true that nothing can be done. That's what science and medicine is for. If you think he was "born evil", well, that's the opposite of science. I'm not religious at all. Things like evil sound down right medieval to me. I think of things like drilling holes in skulls to let the evil spirits out and exorcism. I don't ascribe to that. Sorry.

[LisaL]

208. Science and medicine right now don't amount to all that much when it comes to

"fixing" the brain. We don't know how to cure mental illness.
And it's not even clear as to what exactly would be Lanza's correct diagnosis.

[laundry_queen]

87. 'the other one is fine' is NEVER a good response

because in dysfunctional families, there is almost always a favorite and a scapegoat. And let me tell you how much damage can be done to the scapegoat while the parents shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't know what went wrong with Timmy...Johnny is fine" And then they scapegoat Timmy yet again by blaming him instead of looking at themselves. Something is always 'wrong' with Timmy, dontcha know.

[smokey nj]

93. Here's a link to the New Yorker article. You should read it. He's not scapegoating Adam.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all

[laundry_queen]

97. I read it.

It just cements my position. The article has so many contradictions I don't even know where to start. And while maybe the mom didn't scapegoat the child, the father did. Instead, the mother made Adam the golden child. And the more I read, the more I'm convinced both of them are narcissists, more worried about appearances than about actually getting their son help. I mean c'mon...even totally unrelated stuff like not eating and doing dance dance whatever for 10 fucking hours? NOT FUCKING NORMAL. Get him help for an eating disorder or something. Jesus. You can even tell THAT by the pictures.

It's hard to understand unless you've had narcissistic parents and understand some of the dysfunctional dynamic. To me, it's very, very clear what was going on in that house and that this was preventable. The entire article is denialdenialdenial and rationalizerationalizerationalize. And way too much 'poor me' by the dad. More concerned about himself and a possible argument or 'scene' than getting his son help. That says it all, to me.

[yodermon]

109. ... all of which is still a FAR FAR FUCKING CRY from accidentally raising a mass murderer.

I agree about the denial and the rationalizations, and they certainly don't deserve Parent of the Year award, but they were at least *trying* various ways to attempt to help him.

There are much, much worse parents out there whose kids DON'T end up going on shooting rampages.

[laundry_queen]

115. I don't think it is a 'far' cry.

I think it's extremely causal. Generally being raised like that nearly guarantees one of 2 things....a child who grows up and is used to being a victim and thus unconsciously chooses people who victimize them, or a child who grows up and can't empathize and is only concerned with him or herself.

Just because ALL kids raised that way don't turn into mass murderers does not absolve the parents of Adam Lanza of their responsibility that they played a hand in this. The type of dynamic described in the article always hurts kids...and it's more than just your typical dysfunctional family. Narcissistic family dynamics specifically lends itself to producing kids with no empathy...

Besides, these parents committed the ultimate fuck up by providing guns to a kid who was KNOWN to have violent fantasies. I don't agree they were 'trying' in good faith...they doctor shopped until they got that answers THEY were looking for. They were told their kid needed more help and they didn't provide it, they let the kid go off his meds because he didn't like how they made him feel...and on and on. This was MORE than your usual 'my dad was gone a lot and my mom drank' dysfunction...far more.

Not every kid who is raised like this will go on shooting rampages but every kid who goes on shooting rampages will have had a similar upbringing.

[smokey nj]

129. Sorry, I don't agree and I know what a dysfunctional family looks like. I grew up in a big one.

[KittyWampus]

136. I grew up with 2 narcissistic parents. That doesn't strike me as the main issue even if true-

You say "get help" for all Adam's problems as if that's just a matter of going to the local drugstore and buying a bottle of pills.

It isn't.

I know because I have two mentally ill siblings one of whom took years before accepting his illness and the need to be medicated and the other who STILL doesn't accept his illness or the need to take medication.

"Getting help" would have included Adam ACCEPTING help.

[reformist2]

10. I thought that was odd, too. It's a way of denying responsibility, really.

I think it's way more accurate to say that Adam was very, very mentally ill. And the whole family knew it. And nobody did anything to help him.

[LisaL]

22. How would you "help him?"

He refused to take any medications.

[Bonx]

38. Actually, they did a hell of a lot trying to help him -nt

[reformist2]

41. Not in the last few years. The father didn't even visit him anymore.

And the mother took him to gun clubs. Gun clubs!

[LisaL]

43. Father didn't visit him because Adam didn't want to see him.

Mother apparently was in big denial when it came to Adam.
And didn't believe he was violent.

[Bonx]

49. His son refused to see him

And the mother was doing the best she could - she devoted her fricking life to him. I'm sure you would have done better.

[Crunchy Frog]

73. I wouldn't have given him access to an arsenal of weapons.

[HockeyMom]

77. He refused to see his brother too

It seems he only lived with his mother for support, and she was an enabler. Look where that got her. You cannot force an adult child to see any member of their family, and visa versa.

[Tumbulu]

110. yes, that would have been a far better response nt

[Shrike47]

15. You know, I have to disagree. I think a few people are born evil.

Some people seem to be born with no conscience, no empathy. Look at families with several children, one of whom stands out as anti-social. Maybe it's prenatal chemistry, but some people would be bad, IMO, no matter how great their parents.

[calimary]

37. Well, the example of dick cheney comes to mind.

I doubt his parents were Satan-worshippers but look how he turned out.

Seems to me the problem was more with the mother. What IN THE WORLD was that woman thinking - stockpiling all those guns in her home - with a mentally unbalanced son living full-time on the premises? WHAT ON EARTH WAS SHE THINKING???? What business did she have - owning all those damn guns? A Bushmaster assault rifle? Seriously????? With her disturbed kid living at home? WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING???????

It was HER Bushmaster and ammo he used to mow all those children down. To SLAUGHTER those kids. And, sadly ironic that she, his mother, wound up being his first victim. He used that death-instrument on her first, before he headed off to the elementary school.

I will NEVER understand that. Unless she was just so deeply in denial or something… and I sure have seen my share of that cross my path. Hell, I wouldn't want that kind of murderous Devil-weapon in my house under ANY circumstances! And the young people who come through here - either for band practice or just socializing with our son - all have their heads screwed on straight, and I know this because I spend a considerable amount of time with them AND I know their parents.

[catrose]

60. The article I remember (though not its source)

is the one with a quote from a former Lanza babysitter (male), who said that Nancy told her never to turn his back on Adam for a minute, this being when Adam was a preteen. Something was wrong, very wrong.

[LisaL]

20. And how do you know that nobody is born evil?

His son was abnormal from the start.
Fascinated by violence from a very young age.

[chrisa]

189. I'm sure he beats himself up every day, much to the delight of the pitchfork-and-torch crowd.

They're only happy when they can pile on, rather than letting this man grieve.

[treestar]

4. Wonder why he had not seen his son in two years

that is a long time for that young a son.

[LisaL]

19. His son as an adult and didn't want to see him.

[treestar]

23. Wasn't he 19?

2 years would go back into his minority.

[LisaL]

28. He was 20.

[Bonx]

32. If only there was an article detailing that...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all

[treestar]

44. Very long, but read enough to see

that kid should never have been near any guns.

[LisaL]

51. Of course he should have never been near any guns.

But that is neither here nor there.

[Ed Suspicious]

6. Off topic but I thought that was precisely the reason people keep guns in the house.

She slept with her bedroom door unlocked, and she kept guns in the house, which she would not have done if she were frightened.

[Bazinga]

132. I see and understand your point, and my idea is this,

You don't keep guns for threats you know about, you keep guns for threats you can't foresee.

If I knew when and where I was going to be attacked, I wouldn't arm myself to confront that threat, I would go some place else!

If Lanza thought that the threat was coming from inside her own home, then having guns would be unwise. Perhaps that's what was meant.

[JI7]

11. i blame him Adam LAnza and both of his parents, they knew he had problems and didn't seem

to do anything . this guy says he didn't see his son for 2 years. and the mother stocked up the house knowing her son had problems.

[Logical]

36. How easy for you to say.....

Many kids have issues and don't do that. I love the DU experts and Monday morning QBs that seem to know everything!

[JI7]

45. one has to be a fucked up gun nut to keep arms stocked , and this is after there have already

been a bunch of mass shootings.

so it's not like it happened out of nowhere.

[LisaL]

48. She devoted her life to taking care of him and doing whatever he wanted.

Apparently he liked guns so she kept buying them for him.

[reformist2]

128. LOL!

[Logical]

55. There are 300 million guns, how often does this happen? nt

[Paladin]

69. Once is too Goddamned often. (nt)

[Ecumenist]

100. AMEN Paladin

[Tumbulu]

111. correct answer!

I join with the applause

[aikoaiko]

127. Oh really? Have you destroyed your guns?

I know you've said you don't own an AR but still revolvers can kill a lot of people.

Couldn't a killer steal them and use them? No safe is totally secure.

[Paladin]

139. Not even a good try on your part, AA.

Are you suggesting that I need to destroy my firearms in order to call down a crass, insensitive comment regarding the murders of school children by a gun-wielding lunatic? Yeah, lots of luck with that.

[Liberal Veteran]

82. I think it was more of a "I'm sure that my child will never have a normal life".

Which is a very different thing from "I think my child may decide to go on a mass murdering spree."

If the article can be believed, their were clues, but what parent really thinks their own child will do something so awful?

[stopbush]

12. Why are there two version of the OP? Shouldn't they be combined into one?

[Logical]

39. What magic do you have to merge them? nt

[stopbush]

80. I believe the mods have that power.

[Jamastiene]

176. Not any more.

I don't think. Hosts don't have the same powers mods did. I'm not sure if GD is different than the other groups on DU, but I don't think hosts have that power, unfortunately.

[B2G]

13. Link to the actual interviews

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all

[stevenleser]

21. This is one of those things you wonder about if you are a parent.

If your child is a good kid and happy and well liked, you like to think you had something to do with it but you wonder.

the same with the opposite I imagine. I feel lucky that I have a good kid.

[calimary]

59. I think about that all the time. And I'm a mother of two.

They're both grown - 21 and over. Our son, the younger of the two, still lives at home. I also feel lucky that we have two really good, intelligent, compassionate, stable, well-informed, and very emotionally balanced kids. I thank God for that every day.

[MFM008]

35. we just dont know

as a parent Im afraid I would have looked the facts in the painful eye and had him committed if possible. easy to say i know.

[Logical]

40. Good post.....

No one knows, but many here are so judgmental and act like it was easy to see this coming.

[treestar]

46. It's easy to see he should never have been near any guns.

The mother was grossly negligent on that issue.

[Logical]

52. Well everything is easy to see after it happened. nt

[LisaL]

42. It's not easy to have anyone committed these days.

Unless Adam told someone he plans to kill people it would be pretty much impossible to committ him.

[JI7]

50. we should know not to keep arms stocked up in the home if your kid has problems like this

i wouldn't keep guns in any case.

but this especially fucked up.

[pacalo]

94. This is the best reply here, imo.

Even in this time of severe cuts to mental health facilities, commitment would not have been difficult in Adam's case. It takes parents who are seeking help, a doctor's opinion, & a judge's order. There may be a long waiting list for the patient to be placed in the state facility, but in the interim the patient could be hospitalized in another facility.

Unfortunately, the father seemed to have given up on his son. Knowing now that his thoughts about his son were detached from unconditional love for a more pragmatic view, he would have been the stronger one of the parents to have taken the steps to have Adam committed.

My guess would be that Adam's mother was in denial; her way of coping with the heartbreak of her son's illness must have been to hide her head in the sand. Her spirit could have been mired under severe depression, paralyzing her ability to deal with her son. I'm completely stumped, though, as to how she couldn't have recognized that guns in her home was asking for trouble.

[jbnow]

126. Having him committed was probably not possible

Though it turns out he sure was a danger there wasn't evidence of that before that day.
You can't get someone committed for being bizarre or isolated or rude. Even when acutely mentally ill and refusing medication there's not a good chance someone will be committed against their will

I doubt many people who work with the mentally ill or have ill family members would blame the parents for not doing more
How little you can do is deeply frustrating

But... the guns in the house??? That doesn't make sense

[RobinA]

153. I Don't Know

the law in Conn., but in most states Adam wasn't even close to being committable.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

47. Hello, Mr. Lanza? Why did you and your wife keep so many GUNS within his reach? Hmm????

Last edited Mon Mar 10, 2014, 10:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Stop feeling sorry for yourself or trying to gain sympathy. There's nothing sympathetic about a couple of gun lovers who left a SLEW of guns all over the place, TAUGHT an autistic kid to shoot (wtf????) and are now the cause of so many dead children. What an out of touch individual he is a totally narcissistic man in my opinion! Sheesh.

[SoCalMusicLover]

67. THIS!!!

I agree. Funny how he fails to mention that he himself was brought up with guns, and there were guns around when he was there raising Adam, prior to the divorce.

Certainly he would not blame "guns" for the violence inflicted. It is NEVER the guns fault, nor the influence of guns during Adam's upbringing.

Peter does do a pretty good job distancing himself from "guns" in his interview. You might think that it was just the mom who introduced Adam to the gun culture, when it really was Peter.

[laundry_queen]

88. Agreed.

So narcissistic. No ability to self reflect.

[jsr]

105. No kidding.

[Tumbulu]

114. Yes, great points! nt

[Bonx]

141. You should print this & mail it to Mr. Lanza

and sign it "Thoughtless Ideologue".

[Packerowner740]

220. I thought he had been away from the family for years and the guns were Nancy's.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

234. Both parents were "into" guns, so Adam Lanza was raised with guns being a part of his life nt

[Packerowner740]

235. I googled it and couldn't find anything

Could you point me at what you have seen so I can do some reading on it?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

237. I don't recall where I read it, but his lady didn't turn overnight into a gun nut after divorce -

Both her ex-hubby and she were gun nuts when they were still married.

[Packerowner740]

238. Thanks

[quinnox]

53. A very good man, to take responsiblity for this

He isn't responsible of course, but I understand why he feels this way. His son was a really evil and twisted person, and this father isn't going to whitewash or sugar coat it. Good for him.

[Hoyt]

57. The photos show daddy Lanza indoctrinating his son into the gun culture, like so many dads nowadays.

Daddy need to face up to his own responsibility in this tragedy. Other dads ought to think twice about indoctrinating junior into this cesspool of gunz.

[The Straight Story]

61. If that is the cause why aren't there 45 million shootings a year? (nt)

[JI7]

66. same reason not every drunk driver will get in an accident, doesn't mean when there are accidents

involving a drunk driver that drinking had nothing to do with it.

[Tumbulu]

113. great reply! nt

[Hoyt]

226. The gun crowd just doesn't get it. Why we keep coddling them is a mystery.

[Packerowner740]

222. What photos?

[Hoyt]

224. Oh come on, don't play like you don't know about gun loving daddy/momma Lanza.

Lots of gun loving dads just like him, introducing their kids to gunz very early. So proud.

[Packerowner740]

230. I know about mom, I had just never read or seen anything about dad

I read the interview and didn't see anything about him owning guns. Google provided no pictures or stories about him owning guns. I believed the mom had purchased them to bond with the boys after he was moved out. I have a BIL that did something similar after separating from his wife but later got rid of them because his two kids were unstable which I was thankful for. So if you have anything that shows Peter Lanza owned guns and would share it I thank you.

[HereSince1628]

64. I admit to aching at the a despair based on "it must be something I did or didn't do"

It's a trip into self-injurying guilt of someone who feels there must be something that he might have/could have/should have done that would have changed the course of events, but who had not traction to move things, and who had no real capacity to comprehend the world view of a son with increasingly dysfunctional interface with reality.

An overwhelming majority of Americans don't want a mentally ill person living next door, or working on their shift/team. For families endowed with a mentally ill member there is little compassion from society at large, and a staggering amount of personal doubt.

Hindsight of those intimate with psychological illness isn't 20-20. It's something of the 20-400 of a carnival mirror, the motion of events is true, but what is seen is twisted no matter how true the reflection.

[SoCalMusicLover]

68. Perhaps His Upbringing Amongst Gun Lovers?

NAAAAH!!! Couldn't possibly be that.

Perhaps not exposing Adam to guns would have changed the outcome. But I doubt he would place blame on the guns. Easier to blame the mental illness. Take away the guns though, and 27 people would still probably be alive.

You gave birth to a psychopath, and surrounded him with instruments of death. You are to blame, deal with it.

[HereSince1628]

71. In hindsight it all looks that way...

It's pretty clear his father failed to use a condom and his mother didn't take advantage of available abortion.

[Jamastiene]

177. I agree about the guns being a bad idea, but

What mental illness was Adam diagnosed with? Other than being OCD, I haven't seen any diagnoses of any mental illnesses with Adam Lanza.

Why MUST someone be mentally ill to commit these horrible crimes? That is bullshit. Most mentally ill people are more likely to become victims of violent crime instead of perpetrators of it.

When will the non mentally ill take responsibility for the mass murderers who had no mental illnesses? Why can't people just accept that some people in this world are mass murdering fuckheads, intent on carnage.

Adam's problem was an absent father who didn't seem to really participate much in his son's life even before that last two years and an overly indulgent mother who let him get away with too much bullshit. There is no way in hell I would let a child dictate that I not lean on things or touch metal or that I walk past him again repeatedly. She DID play a large part in making him the way he was by not disciplining him and letting him control her to that extent. That kid would be in school and not home schooled either, especially with his inability to even so much as cope with having to bother going to a school setting. He was too spoiled. That was one of the other things they should not have allowed him to do. It isolated him and gave him even more control over his codependent mother. It also spoiled him rotten to the point where he got out of doing anything he didn't want to do. They indulged him entirely too much.

The father is to blame too, for being so passive in his son's upbringing and discipline. He left the mother in a situation where all of the responsibility was on her. He seemed to drift off into his new life with his new wife, not having to put up with his weird ass kid and claims now that he didn't interact because the kid didn't want him to. Where I am from, you don't get away with that. Parents discipline you and you don't have the right to tell your parents what to do.

Most at fault, though? Adam Lanza is most at fault. He was a spoiled rotten brat and a self centered fuckhead who loved right wing ideologies, mass murder, and guns. He had access to guns and used them in the most heinous way possible. I'm sick of people blaming mental illness, when these mass murderers are clearly assholes hellbent on carnage and NOT mentally ill.

[Sgent]

192. He was diagnosed

with OCD and asperger's. And if your read the psychiatrist's notes (in the article), the Yale psychiatrist was very, very concerned about Adam. Psychiatric illness doesn't always conform to labels, and looking back it also reads like Adam was a psychopath (in a medical sense) as well.

[LisaL]

120. Adam was not taking any drugs. Read the article. He refused to take any medication.

And his father is entitled to his own opinion. It's up to him what to wish for.

[LisaL]

125. Incorrect? Read the freaking article.

He had a bad reaction to some meds he took for several days, many years ago. And refused to take anymore after that.

[LisaL]

154. Somebody here is ill-informed, but it's neither me nor the author of the article.

Autopsy showed Lanza was completely free of any drugs. And he was tested for many.

"The state has released the full toxicology report on Sandy Hook school shooter Adam Lanza, confirming that he had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he shot and killed 20 first-graders and six women on Dec. 14."

http://articles.courant.com/2013-10-29/news/hc-sandy-hook-lanza-toxicology-20131029_1_peter-lanza-adam-lanza-toxicology-report

[kcr]

157. He wasn't on any meds

The autopsy showed that he wasn't. You are entitled to opinions but you aren't entitled to your own facts.

[kcr]

160. Show me your sources then

Show me the ones that say "these drugs" have a halflife of years. That withdrawal lasts years. I'll wait.

[kcr]

164. Well, no, that's not how it works

You're the one making the claim. You'd know the sources better than I. I think I'll stick to it's better to treat sick people.

[kcr]

169. I'm sorry. I'll have to see backup for that

What is your source that SSRIs are dangerous and have no scientific evidence to support them? I'm not buying it. I also think he was also beyond anything an SSRI could help him with. I think he needed more than that.

[kcr]

161. I do want to clarify though

That I'm with you on the whole he was sick thing. That is obvious to me, too. But I think that he should have been on some meds because of that. The problem wasn't that he was on meds. It was more like he wasn't on them. That is one of the ways he was failed IMO. He clearly wasn't being treated properly.

[kcr]

165. Agreed on the guns

You're talking about SSRI withdrawal. That lasts weeks at the most, rarely more than that.

[kcr]

170. I have. Nothing says it takes years.

Other than wiki. That's why I asked for your source in another post

[kcr]

172. I don't see it.

I don't even know where to go. All sources I've ever seen have said the same thing, and none have said what you claim.

[LisaL]

198. Lanza was not on any drugs.

Per the article, the only thing he took is lexapro for several days when he was 13-14. He had a bad reaction to it and refused to take any more.
I don't need to read what people say on website since it has absolutely nothing to do with Adam Lanza.
It's ludicrous to blame drugs Lanza was not on.

[kcr]

205. I think you're misunderstanding my point

I'm not saying there's no withdrawal symptoms from SSRIs. I'm saying it doesn't last for years. I don't think Adam Lanza's issue is he took an SSRI at some point in his life.

[LisaL]

213. His biochemistry is not going to allow him to keep the drug in his system for years.

He had no drugs in his system when he died. None.
He refused to take any drugs.
Yet you keep making these claims without any evidence to support them. People making claims on the internet is not evidence.

[LisaL]

231. There is not enough tin foil in the world.

[MicaelS]

145. Adam Lanza WAS evil.

He was very ill, but he was evil, too. If nothing else he was the very definition of evil. Being ill does not excuse one from the consequences of one's actions.

And if I had a child who did something that monstrous, I would have said the same things, too. He was evil, and it would have been better for the whole world if he had never been born.

Are the parents at fault? Yes. For not having him forcibly committed a long, long time ago.

[Ms. Toad]

180. As a sibling to two very troubled men,

one of whom raped and murdered two women, and the other of which has been in and out of jails and rehab clinics since he was 12, when your child does so much damage to people you love (or even people you don't love), believe me that thought comes to mind very frequently. That is not the same as wishing them dead, which is a termination of a life that is - my parents (alongside the victims' families) fought the death penalty for my brother until his sentence was reversed following a stay issued 36 hours before his scheduled execution. But wishing they had not been born feels like a willingness to erase both the positive and negative of their existence - and there is a point at the positive which is so outweighed by the harm they did to others that it is easier to think of them never having lived (even when it means releasing your hold on the good) than to live with the guilt and pain associated with the harm they have brought with them.

My parents never said that out loud to a reporter, but I heard it privately at least from my mother.

It is not an easy place to be - so unless you have walked a mile (or a thousand) in Mr. Lanza's shoes, as I have, it would be kinder for you not to judge him.

[riderinthestorm]

182. +10000. I'm aghast at the "experts" on this thread proclaiming guilt and assigning shame

I hope more people read your post and dial their grotesque assumptions way back.



I hope you and your family have found some peace....

[Ms. Toad]

185. 30+ years later,

It still haunts us.

One of the women was a distant relative, and a member of the same church. Our families have been bound tightly together in grief since then. We are blessed that they instantly recognized that both families lost their children that day - and the closest relatives of the second woman (who we never knew) feel the same way although we did not connect with them until 2 decades later when they returned to the state to work to stop my brother's execution.

But even with that unimaginable gift, which the family members of most murderers never receive, the guilt never goes away. My father did some work for the first family within the last few months. I doubt he expressed it to them - but he described that work to me as still repaying the tremendous debt they feel they owe them.

[riderinthestorm]

190. I'm deeply uncomfortable with the blanket critiques about the Lanza family

Just as I would be about yours.

Its so easy to rush to judgement about family members and what they did/didn't do/should've done etc etc. So easy at this stage to point fingers like some upthread are doing and proclaim certain knowledge.

Nothing is ever that black and white.

If you don't mind answering, feel free to ignore, do your brothers suffer from mental illness? If so how do you, as a family member of a murdere, answer some of the ignorant upthread who believe Peter Lanza or Adam Lanzas brother might have had any influence on changing Adam's path?

[Ms. Toad]

193. Our situation is more complex,

Two of my 3 brothers (and my sister) were adopted so there are lots of additional dynamics going on.

One brother has all the characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome (although it was unknown at the time my parents were looking for answers). He was diagnosed as a sociopath, and is an alcoholic (since around age 12). As a child, his IQ (and whatever they tested back then) was just above the level for which special assistance would have been available. My parents tried everything they could - with him (multiple voluntary and involuntary medical and penal interventions in pretty much every institution in the state). They completely cut him out of their lives (and I ran away as far as I could to college to escape the emotional states he was able to provoke my parents into). He is a mean drunk, and we fully expected him to die (or kill someone) in a drunken bar brawl - so far, he hasn't. Although he has been severely injured and has injured others.

The brother who murdered two women showed absolutely no signs of violence prior to that night. No one who knows him recognizes the person they love in the violence of that night. He is an alcoholic, but was always a happy drunk. He had combined alcohol and peyote that night, which seems to have made the difference - there were (at the time) some reports which associated the combination with an altered state similar to being on PCP. That doesn't excuse what he did - he chose to drink and take peyote and is responsible for his actions. But it offers the only explanation that makes any sense to those who know him. It is telling that in a capital case, where tendency to (or absence of) violence plays a role in punishment as an aggravating or mitigating factor, the prosecution could not find anyone to testify as to a history of violence. Because it was so unexpected to everyone, we wouldn't have thought to intervene (other than kicking him in the pants because he was not - as they say - living up to his potential).

So, although it is a different question, and different dynamics, I know that my parents did absolutely everything they could imagine with the brother we all believed to be the most troubled - and then some. The only brief period of anything close to normalcy was about a decade when he managed to stay sober and was living with a woman he somehow managed to see as a human, rather than a means to an end. Unfortunately, she died a few years ago and he is back to his old self.

The mind is such a powerful force, for good or evil, it is a hard thing to to direct - especially when there is no willingness or internal drive to change, and the right help is very hard to identify. Much of mental health is more art than science. They might have been able to luck into the right therapist, the right drug, or the right external force (like my brother's girlfriend was for a short time) that clicks. But a lot of it is luck - and when you are living in the midst of mental chaos, nothing is working, and there is resistance from the person who needs help, it is very hard for the mentally healthy members of the family to keep searching for the next new thing that might help.

[riderinthestorm]

195. Thank you so much for this. I hope it sheds some light on family dynamics

of those who have troubled family members. The cruelty of some of the posters here on this thread, the assumptions and the ignorance really bothers me. Maybe your story can begin to see some of the family members with some compassion.

[tblue37]

228. Cruelty--AND self righteousness! nt

[tblue37]

196. Is your brother still alive? In one article I read about one victim's family's visit to

him after his penalty was commuted to double life sentences, the victim's family found him to be thoughtful and remorseful. If he still is alive, do you get to visit him?

I often find myself thinking about the parents of Harris and Klebold. They lost their children at Columbine, too, but it is as though people think they should be forbidden to grieve at all over their loss.

[riderinthestorm]

197. I was friends with the minister for the Klebold family, Rev Don Marxhausen

Its pretty sad how we treat these families after their children go haywire. Don Marxhausen lost his job because he did his job which was to minister to a devastated family - the Klebolds - amongst all the other families in his congregation.

Here's a link to a Newsweek story about the emotional devastation caused by the community to the families of those two boys and the ministers who tried to help them.

http://www.newsweek.com/two-pastors-haunted-columbine-77389

[Ms. Toad]

207. In case you haven't seen it yet

I've started a thread with a blog I wrote right after Sandy Hook.

[Ms. Toad]

204. He is still alive.

He came within 36 hours of execution. We had made arrangements for his body to be retrieved, he had been moved to the death-watch row (were they hold prisoners so they don't commit suicide and deprive the state of the ability to execute them), and had written a combined note to friends who had supported us during the ~20 years on death row and press release.

I was on the way to the airport to pick up my spouse when he was granted a stay. (I had flown out earlier for the parole hearing and to support my parents.)

The appeals had been exhausted, and the state picked it up sua sponte (on its own) and determined there was a constitutional flaw in the original trial. Although the prosecution considered (for around a year) putting on another trial, they ultimately commuted the sentence to life with no possibility of parole. I think the fact that all of the family members of one victim, and the husband and daughter of the other, had been very publicly and actively working against the execution tipped the balance in favor of the commutation.

And - the husband of the woman my family didn't know got to meet my brother right after the execution was called off. The husband asked for it, and my brother would have preferred not to (out of guilt and shame), but felt he owed that much to him. None of us were present, but it was - by the husband's account - both remarkable and terribly ordinary. He found my brother someone he would have enjoyed spending time with, under any other circumstances.

I live 1000 miles from my brother at this point, and my parents no longer live in the state. I will likely see him this summer, but since I don't have other reasons to go back home, any more, I don't see him very often. But - other things people don't think of - my daughter visited her uncle in prison about once a year from a very young age - and was stripped (as an infant) and patted down at every visit since then. I understand it - but being suspected every time I visit of using my daughter to smuggle in contraband - is an experience I never expected to have. She was aware that her uncle was about to be executed - but my brother and his wife made a different decision for their same age children about what to tell them - they would be led to believe that their uncle got sick and died until they were older. That made it challenging for my daughter because we chose not to lie to her, but she had to lie to her cousins (or at least was unable to talk to them about it).

But yes. Mostly people don't think about the fact that even people who do great evil have family members who love them - or that those family members might be good decent people who are grieving for both their own child and the families of the victims.

If you haven't found it, I've posted a blog I wrote on that topic right after Sandy Hook.

[tblue37]

216. As a general attitude our society seems interested only in revenge.

I remembered wrong about the victim's family. It was the visit right after the stay of execution I was thinking of, the one you mentioned. It didn't occur after the commutation of the sentence.

I have a good memory--which is why I recognized which case you were referring to in the OP. But sometimes I conflate a few details. I do remember that one of the Board of Pardon members who voted *against* the victims' families' appeal to refrain from executing him acknowledged that he was not a danger to society--i.e., that the circumstances of his crime were extraordinary and not likely ever to come together like that again. But that person was simply too committed to the idea of punishment to be willing to not see the execution carried out.

I remember that guy's comment because of what the victim's daughter said after she and her father met with your brother. The father, who found him so likable, said he didn't seem like a murderer, and his daughter, who was about 20 at the time, replied that he was a murderer during just one night of his life. That comment was so wise, so humane, that I have never forgotten it.

I realize that some people who commit serious crimes are broken beyond the possibility of ever being anything but a danger to others, but I also believe that the lock 'em up and throw away the key approach that refuses to consider the possibility of rehabilitation and reintegration in some cases is purely about revenge, and ours is a vengeful society.

Furthermore, even those who are too damaged to ever be rehabilitated to the point where they could be safely released and reintegrated didn't get that damaged on their own. Every one of them started out as an infant, a child, an adolescent, and they became damaged because of the way our society neglects the well-being of young people and of the families they are born into.

Everything I have read indicates that yours was a stable, loving family. I won't mention other details, because I don't want to compromise your privacy by "dropping clues." But it does seem to me that considering his family background and the circumstances of his crime, he is precisely the sort of person who could have been eventually released without putting anyone at risk. The idea that he should never have any *hope* of release bothers me.

I am on my way over to your blog now.

ON EDIT: Your description of your *other* (sociopathic) brother is what I mean about how some people are too "broken" to fix. His damage happened before your parents had a chance to take him in and try to help him. But it is the sort of damage that happens because so many of our society's children are born into such awful circumstances in what is so often hailed as "the wealthiest nation on earth."

[Ms. Toad]

219. You definitely have the case identified -

Although there are many surprisingly similar stories.

I am aware that by disclosing specific details nearly everyone active in the death penalty community will likely recognize the case - and that others could find it without significant difficulty (and even more once I decided to share the blog here). But thank you for thinking of my privacy. In real life I am very open about it - But I have not previously shared information that makes linking my DU identity to my off line identity so trivial before.

The question of release is one I wrestle with. Absent alcohol and peyote, he would never have acted violently, and no one I know has ever seen him act violently under the influence of alcohol alone. But if he was released, are there guarantees he will not act violently under the influence of the combination again? I don't think he ever would, but I don't know that I could guarantee it.

We sort of expect that there will come a day when the cost of keeping him confined will be significant enough that they will decide the risks associated with his release are outweighed by the cost of confinement. Procedurally, they would need to commute his life without parole to life with the possibility of parole, and then he would need to apply for parole. At nearly 60, that day may be approaching. But what does someone who has been incarcerated all of his adult life do?

And yes - people like my other brother are why I routinely challenge people who set out to adopt older children. Back then, everyone legitimately thought that enough love could cure any harm that had been done in the first few years. By now, they should know better, but far too many adoption agencies are still sugar coating how difficult the road can be for families adopting older children who have been severely damaged in their birth families. So I push potential adoptive families to spend some time with parents of (grown) children adopted beyond around age 2. Not that these children don't desperately need loving homes, but it is not a kindness to either the family or the child to allow the family to go into it with anything other than eyes wide open.

[DonCoquixote]

102. This is personal

I have asbergers, and the day it was announced Adam was, I expected the shit to come down thick.

Now, let me lay some things down for people:

School can be complete Hell for Aspies, as neither schools nor teachers are often equipped or even allowed to deal with us. We get picked on a LOT. We often get accused of being lazy or dumb, despite high IQs. We are often the people everybody hates.

Now, that being said, few of us go ahead and shoot people, then again, few of us are taken to a gun range to shoot by a mom who has survivalist right wing fantasies. I wish I could feel sorrow for her, but it's hard considering she would have loved to shoot us liberals.

We cannot, will not, think like most people. Some of us are the Mark Zuckerbergs, Bill gates, Robin Williams and Dan Ackroyd and even Daryl Hannah that are able to take this and make it a positove. Some of us, like myself, are on disability, because despite busting our ass working, we get told "sorry you do not fit in here" which is a fine way of saying 'sorry, you kinda creep us out." We get accused of having no empathy, when in many cases, we feel things more intensely than others, because our brain is firing off like an engine that needs a tune up.

But we are NOT evil, and I think that perhaps maybe this evil Adam;'s dad saw was merely the result is his failure to deal with his son.

[pnwmom]

108. Thanks for the post, DonCoquixote! I'm sure you've educated a lot of people with this. n/t

[2naSalit]

116. That's interesting... and

Thanks for sharing a very personal thing like that.

I am certain I have encountered people with Asbergers but was not fully aware of it, and know very little about the condition. I had a sister who was schizophrenic and that was hard to deal with, not sure about asbergers but will look it up in the morning because now I'm curious.

I do know that not everyone diagnosed with the same condition have the same manner of dealing with it or finding acceptance in a general social context. I have known folks with schizophrenia whom I could have a better relationship with than I did with my sister, even though we were very close and I tried very hard to help her while she was alive. She just couldn't handle being part of the family and wanted to be isolated from us after a time because she was angry at some of us and could not rectify or acknowledge the difference between those with whom she was angry and those with whom she wasn't angry. After a time, we were all the same to her. It was hard and it was sad, but she didn't kill anyone but herself by smoking herself to death via chain smoking. I wonder if asbergers has similar complexities and features. My sister was overly empathic and was stifled by the intensity of it.

As for the Lanza family, I'm not willing to pass judgement, it's not my place to. It's sad and horrible and I wouldn't wish what the father and brother have to live with on anyone... nor would I want to further injure the victims' families by opining about such an event. What I can do for them is vote when the opportunity arises for legislation that would make such an event less likely.

Thanks again for your openess.

[Dorian Gray]

133. DonCoquixote...

I want to make it clear that I in no way think his Aspergers has anything to do with his shooting people. It may have played a role in his feeling disassociated from school and friends, but it's obvious that Adam had a deeper psychosis that was never addressed in his formative years. He needed counseling and proper medication, and he didn't get that.

His Aspergers diagnosis was unfortunate because it masked what was really going on with him. His parents could look at that and believe it explained his idiosyncrasies while ignoring the larger, bleaker, darker picture.

[KittyWampus]

137. I'd also like to thank you for your input.

[Blue_Tires]

146. +1

[Jamastiene]

178. I don't get why some people are saying Asperger's had anything to do with

what he did. I have never known Aspies to be the least bit violent. There is no evidence that Asperger's causes any kind of violence. That is another bullshit claim people are making.

Adam Lanza, however, was a right wing, overindulged, spoiled brat who got off on mass murder and carnage. I don't see blaming Asperger's or any kind of mental illness on that. It was him. He was an asshole who wanted to murder as many people as he could and he did it.

[eridani]

229. That "no empathy" crap about Aspies really bothers me

It's one thing to be able to read social signals and still not give a shit about distress in other people. It's a very different thing to not be able to read the social signals in the first place.

[Tumbulu]

117. for this Peter Lanza to wish that his son had never been born

to say it publicly....oh my, what an awful thing to say. It suggests to me that he cares more about himself than anything else.

And he takes no responsibility for being a gun nut himself. Just blame the mom....oh how typical.

A sad read altogether.

[LisaL]

119. Of course Peter Lanza wishes his son had never been born.

His son killed his own mother and a bunch of little kids.
What should he have been born for? His mother pretty much wasted her life taking care of Adam. She stopped working just so she could take care of him. And how did he repay her? He killed her.

[Tumbulu]

155. It seems very telling to me that no where in the interview

did he ever say that he ever loved his son. Perhaps he wanted/expected a normal child (don't we all) but was unable to love a fragile, injured and sick one. My guess is that the dad was always driven and high achieving and did not know how to nurture, only push. Thus he left that to the mom who overcompensated by trying to protect her son from the high expectations of the dad and the world at large. A viscous circle that she died entrapped in.

Other posts tell about how bullied the boy was as a child, quite normal for odd children. But does the dad talk about what he did to protect and help his son? I suspect that this child knew he was not acceptable and thus grew in his self loathing. Perhaps the wishing he had never been born idea started a whole lot earlier than after the massacre.

That is my point. I think that it would be normal to feel such a thing after this happened. but to say it in public suggests to me that he never loved his son in the first place.

[LisaL]

199. But the child he had was clearly abnormal from very early age.

How do you love someone who can not love you back?

[Tumbulu]

221. I find it hard to believe

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 04:12 PM - Edit history (2)

That he was always this way, in fact in the article it claims he made this shift at Junior high age or thereabouts.

But the dad never mentions once loving him.

That is my clue that, like some parents who are super achieving, he only wanted to support excellence and not simply surviving. Thus patience with disability was not a strong card.

I have read a number of Temple Grandin's books and what her mother did for her was extraordinary. What these children need is love and guidance, not shame from a parent.

[LisaL]

232. I think the article makes it clear he was always abnormal.

His abnormailities became more evident as he became older.

[CreekDog]

142. there was nothing in the article that said Peter Lanza had any guns at all

are you confused?

[Tumbulu]

150. there were many other articles

Last edited Wed Mar 12, 2014, 12:15 AM - Edit history (1)

right after the tragedy going over his guns and how they used to go shooting as a family.

[CreekDog]

209. interesting, i didn't know that.

thanks for pointing it out.

[Inkfreak]

134. Lots of experts in this thread.

Me? I can't imagine what it's like being the parent of a mass murderer.

[Ms. Toad]

181. You are lucky.

My sibling was not a mass murderer - but he raped and murdered two women viciously enough that it made national news 30+ years ago. My parents are still paying the debt they feel they owe to the sibling of one of the victims - as they did to the parents of that same victim until the last one died just a couple of years ago.

I've bookmarked the New Yorker article to read later - but the wish that Adam Lanza had never been born resonates deeply.

[Inkfreak]

183. Thanks for sharing something so personal.

It goes to my point. Or my attempt at one. I wouldn't have the foggiest idea of your families pain. So I can only listen. Nor would I ever judge you all because of your sibling. So posts declaring things about Adams father seem odd to me.

[cali]

138. Fuck Adam Lanza. Fuck him to hell. I don't feel sorry for him even a tiny bit

Lots of people have Aspergers or other mental conditions and they don't kill people or even entertain the thought.

[alp227]

143. Deadbeat dad, clueless mom. They failed Adam.

last year the NY Daily News suggested that Lanza's mom considered suing Sandy Hook when Adam attended the school because Adam was bullied there. The Daily Kos has also suggested freezing the estate of Mrs. Lanza after what Adam did.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

148. The father was not a deadbeat dad.

A deadbeat parent doesn't financially support their child. Adam Lanza had refused to see his dad once he reached adulthood.

[geomon666]

147. Everyone keeps bringing up the guns.

But what about the fucking video games? Huh?! We all know what the real cause of the violence here was, movies and video games. Probably that hip hoppity music too.

Guns don't kill people. Nintendo does!

[Jamastiene]

179. Did you forget

the smiley? Video games don't kill people unless they sit there too long playing them and get a blood clot (thrombosis, I think it is called). Guns do kill people, though.

[geomon666]

217. I was hoping I didn't need it. n/t

[chrisa]

191. I see that the pitchfork mob is out again.

Whether it's Marilyn Manson, Cho's parents, or Peter Lanza, the experts in the media and the Internet are out again to tell us what bad people those around the killer are.

What's the point? The killer is dead. The fault lies with the killer, and the killer alone. Leave this man alone and let him grieve. This is just his opinion of his son.

[MrScorpio]

200. I wish that Adam was never born as well nt

[liberalmuse]

203. This makes me sad.

Last edited Thu Mar 13, 2014, 01:39 AM - Edit history (1)

This kid needed sane parents and he obviously didn't have them. Then again, the argument could be made that he was hopelessly lost from the get-go. One parent was a paranoid gun nut, which I could excuse given that it is highly likely she had some sort of mental disorder herself, and ended up being a victim. And it should be mentioned that father was into guns, too, and his idea of trying to bond with his son was to take him shooting. Seeing a parent chew up and spit out their young like this is disturbing. What a pathetic apologist.

Edited to remove comments in reference to the father being an "absent parent".

[HockeyMom]

206. Stay together for the sake of the children?

Do not divorce? That was the view in the 1950s. Trust me from growing up in a household like that, don't do your children that favor. I used to cry myself to sleep as a child WISHING they would get a divorce. At least my life would be peaceful. It was after I was 10 years old. That was when my father in a drunken rage had my mom on the floor and was strangling the life out of her and she was turning purple. I screamed at him to let her go. He didn't. I picked up a knife and put it in his back and told him if he didn't get off her, I would kill him. He got up, looked at me, and left. My Mom did not press charges because that would have meant involving me in the charges. This was in 1958.

They stayed together, but he never again laid a hand on my mother, or talked to her, or talked to me. In fact, I moved out at 17 and did not talk to him until he was on his deathbed when I was in my 40s. FORCE ME as an adult to talk to him? No way. He called me when he was in the hospital on his deathbed and asked me to come see him because he wanted to talk. He apologized to me for making my childhood, and my Mom's entire life, a living hell. He told me he was a very sick man and that he was going to his grave with that. Please forgive me, he asked. I forgave him, but I will never FORGET what he did.

You cannot make blanket statements about fathers and mothers should stay together and everything will be peachy keen. Until you are living in that household, you can never know what goes on behind closed doors. NOBODY in society, or even our family, knew my father almost killed my mother.

DIVORCE of my parents would have been PARADISE for me as a child.

[liberalmuse]

225. That is not what I meant at all.

[riderinthestorm]

215. Adam was an adult when he made the decision to stop contact with his father

His father wasn't the one to cut off contact.

And he wasn't an absent father, the parents divorced when Adam was 16 yrs old with Peter Lanza having regular contact until his son became an adult and refused to see him any more.

[liberalmuse]

227. Okay...

I'll take out the absent father bit. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

[Packerowner740]

218. That certainly is true.

[flvegan]

223. Man, there are a lot of fucking ghouls on DU lately.

When one can make politics out of a father saying what he did...there's something seriously, SERIOUSLY fucking wrong with you.*

*noted that your agenda trumps all. cuz you suck. lol

[Fumesucker]

233. When every single thing has to be twisted to fit a specific agenda it gets really crazy

DU is like the ultimate Rorschach test, what you get is what you see.