Dave Cullen - Columbine

Connie worked past it; Carla could not. “We kind of saw her slipping,” Connie said. “I saw her slide downhill.” But Connie never foresaw that deep a plunge. She assumed Carla would pull out of it, especially when Anne Marie moved her legs.

What most people in the community did not know was that Carla was at the end of a long struggle with mental illness.

The Hochhalter family wanted the public to understand that. After her death, they released a statement saying she had been battling clinical depression for three years. She had been suicidal in the past. She had been on medication. A month earlier, Ted had called the authorities at three A.M. to report her missing. She walked into a local emergency room the next day, seeking treatment for depression. She was hospitalized for a month. Eight days before her suicide, she was transferred to an outpatient program.

The family later revealed that Carla had been diagnosed as bipolar. Columbine aggravated Carla’s depression horribly. She may or may not have gone over the edge without it, but the Columbine tragedy was not the underlying cause.

The school suspended the boy who’d made the anniversary threat, pending expulsion. That made eight expulsion proceedings in Jeffco since April, for a variety of gun threats and bomb scares. Everything was zero tolerance now. No one was taking chances.

The boy spent seven weeks in jail, through Thanksgiving. It was during this period that the community learned of his plan. He’d intended to fill his car with gasoline canisters and plow into the school as a suicide bomber. In December, he pleaded down to two minor charges and was sentenced to a one-year juvenile Diversion program, just as Eric and Dylan had been. Other charges were dropped, including theft. He had stolen a hundred dollars from the video store he worked at, to run away to Texas. He had begun seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication. The sentence required both to continue. “This is a troubled young man, and he will be getting the help he needs,” the prosecutor said.

The half-year anniversary also brought a deadline. Colorado law requires that anyone who wants to sue a government agency for negligence must file an intent notice within 180 days. Twenty families filed. Notices came from families of the dead, families of the injured, and the Klebolds.

Tom and Sue Klebold charged Stone’s department with “reckless, willful and wanton” misconduct for failing to alert them about its 1998 investigation into Eric’s behavior, particularly his death threats. That warning “would more likely than not have caused the Klebolds to become aware of dangers of which they were not aware and demand that their son, Dylan, be excluded from all contacts with Eric Harris,” the filing read. The failure “caused the Klebolds to be subject to substantial damage claims, vilification, grief and loss of enjoyment of life.” The notice said the family expected to be sued by victims, and sought damages from Jeffco equal to those eventual settlements.

The Klebolds had cause for concern. The two families still topped most blame lists.

The filing took the community by surprise. No one had heard from the Harrises or Klebolds in months.

The harshest rebuke came from Sheriff Stone. “I think it’s outrageous,” he said. “It’s their parenting thing, not our fault for their kid doing this thing.”

He also lamented the tragedy degenerating to “an ugly stage.”

Brian Rohrbough took the Klebolds’ move in stride. It surprised him at first, he said, but on reflection, “it seems reasonable.” He directed his outrage at Sheriff Stone’s response. “We felt that it was really ugly April 20th,” Brian said.

Wayne and Kathy finally agreed to meet with investigators without immunity, October 25. It was a brief session led by Sheriff Stone. There is no record of it being documented in a police report.

Only two people would be charged with a crime: Mark Manes, who’d sold the TEC 9, and Phil Duran, who’d brokered the deal. Months earlier, Agent Fuselier had predicted that the two would be savaged—with both legitimate and displaced anger.

“Those two guys stepped in front of a freight train,” he said.

He was right. Manes was up first. He copped to a plea agreement and was sentenced on November 11. It was ugly. Nine families spoke at the hearing. Every one of them demanded the maximum.

“I ask you clearly to make a statement,” Tom Mauser, one of the Thirteen, implored.

“If we had our way, the defendant would never be allowed on the streets again,” the Shoels family said.

The testimony lasted for two hours. Manes hung his head. Videos made by two families hit especially hard. The court reporter passed boxes of Kleenex around the gallery.

Manes’s lawyer described a rough childhood: his client had gotten in trouble, then mended his ways. Manes had gotten off drugs, gone to college, and obtained a steady job in the computer field. “His character today is exemplary,” he said.

That infuriated the relatives. “Having that attorney talk about how wonderful Mark Manes is, that was tough,” Dave Sanders’s daughter Coni said. “He wasn’t misunderstood. He was in the wrong.”

Manes spoke last. He faced the judge and assured him that he’d had no idea what Eric and Dylan were planning. “I was horrified,” he said. “I told my parents I never want to see a gun for the rest of my life. There is no way I can adequately explain my sorrow to the families. It is something I will regret for the rest of my life.”

Manes was eligible for eighteen years in prison, but his plea agreement knocked that down to a maximum of nine. Judge Henry Nieto said he had no choice. “The conduct of this defendant was the first step in what became an earthquake. All of us have a moral duty when we see the potential for harm to intervene.” Nine years. But he would assign them concurrently, so Manes would serve only six—with parole, maybe as little as three. Nieto warned the families not to expect comfort from the sentence.

Manes looked calm, but he took it hard. His lawyer put his hand on Manes’s neck and whispered that he loved him. Manes was led away in handcuffs. The families applauded.

Manes’s lawyer described his client as a scapegoat. “There’s no one else to be angry at,” he told NBC. “These people have all this understandable anger. It has to go somewhere.”

Christian martyr Cassie Bernall offered hope. In September, Misty went on a national book tour. She Said Yes leapt onto the New York Times best seller list in its first week. The Rocky Mountain News editors had a dilemma. They knew Cassie had never said yes. They had expected to shatter the myth by now, but they were still waiting for the sheriff’s report. They had to cover the book’s release. The editors decided to run two pieces on publication day, affirming Cassie’s myth.

A few weeks later, another publication broke the news. The Rocky followed up with Emily Wyant’s testimony. With the story out, Emily agreed to allow her name to be used. The Bernalls’ publisher lashed out at Emily. The news made front pages as far away as London. Brad and Misty were caught by surprise. They felt humiliated and betrayed—by Emily, by the cops, and by the secular press.

The evidence against martyrdom was overwhelming, but Cassie’s youth pastor saw stronger forces at play. “You will never change the story of Cassie,” Reverend Dave McPherson said. “The church is going to stick to the martyr story. You can say it didn’t happen that way, but the church won’t accept it.”

He didn’t mean just his church. He meant the vast Evangelical community worldwide. And to a large extent, he was right. Book sales continued briskly. A vast array of Web sites sprang up to defend the story. Others just repeated it, without even mentioning that it had been debunked.