Dave Cullen - Columbine

“Do what?”

Kathy believes it was a precursor to the event two days later. Patrick was walking through London and collapsed in the middle of a street. He shook violently, made it almost to the curb, and called out to a friend for help.

A London doctor prescribed antiseizure medication. The family confirmed the treatment back home, and Patrick will be on it for life.

Architecture school wasn’t going to work. John and Kathy understood that from the start, but they waited for Patrick to accept the situation. He opted for Colorado State, just over an hour away. He would try business school for a year. CSU had an architecture program, too. If, a year later, he felt he could handle it, he could transfer.

Despite the cloud over his future, Patrick regained his bearing through the year. Socially, he was having the time of his life. Patrick had always been a catch. He’d been bright, charming, handsome, and athletic. He had been a little short on confidence, from time to time. Laura would have given anything to go to the prom with Patrick. She might have become his girlfriend if he had asked. The shotgun blasts had robbed him of some of his best assets, but he was a star. He was the most celebrated figure to live through the tragedy. And he had put up an incredible fight. Girls flirted unabashedly.

But Patrick wanted Laura. That first summer, he told her how much he wanted her—how deeply and how long.

God, me too, she said.

What a relief. Finally, after all this time, it was out in the open.

Laura confessed everything: all those nights flirting on the phone, hinting her heart out for him to ask. If only he had asked her to the prom.

OK, Patrick said: I like you, you like me, let’s do something about it. Too late. She was dating the prom dude.

That didn’t seem like an obstacle. Do you want to be with me? Yes. Then break up with him. She said she would do it.

He gave her time. He asked again. When are you going to do it? She said it would be soon. But nothing happened.

Girls were fighting for the chance to date him, so he got tired of waiting and asked one out. Then he asked another one. And another—this was fun!

Things grew strained with Laura. They never went out. They began avoiding each other. It was fourth grade all over again.

Eric named his shotgun Arlene. He acquired her on November 22, 1998, and declared it an important date in the history of Reb. “we……. have…….. GUNS!” he wrote. “We fucking got em you sons of bitches! HA!!”

Eric and Dylan had driven into Denver for the Tanner Gun Show the day before. They’d found some sweet-ass weapons. A 9mm carbine rifle and a pair of 12-gauge shotguns: one double-barreled and one pump-action single. They’d tried to buy them, and that was a great big no go. Eric’s charm was not getting them over this hurdle. No ID, no guns. They drove back to the suburbs.

Eric would be eighteen shortly before their attack date in April. They could have just waited, but Eric wanted real firepower to keep the plan on track. There was one more day in the gun show. Who did they know who was eighteen? Plenty of people. Who would do it for them, who could they trust? Robyn! Sweet little church girl Robyn. She was nuts about Dylan; she would do anything for him. Wouldn’t she?

The following day, it was done.

In his journal, Eric labeled this “the point of no return.” Then he waxed nostalgic about his dad. He’d had a lot of fun at the gun show, he wrote: “I would have loved it if you were there, dad. we would have done some major bonding. would have been great. Oh wait. But, alas, I fucked up and told [my friend] about the flask.” That had been the end of good relations with Wayne for a while. Now his parents were on his ass more than ever about his future. What do you want to do with your life? That was easy. NBK. “THIS is what I am motivated for,” he wrote. “THIS is my goal. THIS ‘is what I want to do with my life.’”

Eric and Dylan sawed the barrels off their new shotguns—cut them way below the legal limit. The first week in December, they took the rifle out and fired it. A bullet erupted in the chamber, and the butt slammed into Eric’s bony shoulder. Wow! That thing packed a lot of power. This wasn’t a pipe bomb in his hands. This could kill somebody.

Psychopaths generally turn to murder only when their callousness combines with a powerful sadistic streak. Psychologist Theodore Millon identified ten basic subtypes of the psychopath. Only two are characterized by brutality or murder: the malevolent psychopath and the tyrannical. In these rare subtypes, the psychopath is driven less by a greed for material gain than by desire for his own aggrandizement and the brutal punishment of inferiors.

Eric fit both categories. His sadistic streak permeated the journal, but a late autumn entry suggests the life Eric might have led had Columbine not ended it. He described tricking girls to come to his room, raping them, and then proceeding to the real fun.

“I want to tear a throat out with my own teeth like a pop can,” he wrote. “I want to grab some weak little freshman and just tear them apart like a fucking wolf. strangle them, squish their head, rip off their jaw, break their arms in half, show them who is god.”

Eric had not given up on the twenty-three-year-old. For months, he kept calling Brenda. She told him she had a new boyfriend, but he persisted. Late in the year, she met him at a Macaroni Grill. “He was really bummed out,” she said. She thought he was bummed because she’d dumped him. He denied it, but offered no explanation. She never saw him again.

Just before Christmas, Eric celebrated his last final, ever. He laughed at his classmates, who assumed they had another batch ahead.

The next day, Eric ordered several ten-round magazines for his carbine rifle. Those would do some damage. He could peel off 130 rounds in rapid succession.

There was a problem. Eric gave Green Mountain Guns his home number. They called just before New Year’s, and his dad answered.

“Your clips are in,” the clerk told him.

Clips? He didn’t order any gun clips.

Eric overheard the conversation. Oh God. He described the incident in his journal: “jesus Christ that was fucking close. fucking shitheads at the gunshop almost dropped the whole project.” Luckily, Wayne never stopped to ask the guy if he had the right number. And the guy never asked any questions either. That could have been the end of it right there. If either one of them had handled that phone call a little differently, the entire plan might have come crashing down, Eric said. But they didn’t.

But Wayne was suspicious.

“thank god I can BS so fucking well,” Eric wrote.

Once they got the guns, Eric lost interest in “The Book of God.” It was on to implementation. After New Year’s, he would leave just one final installment, a few weeks before they did the deed.

Eric was raring to go; Dylan continued to waver. “Existences” had been silent for five months, since he said good-bye. But on January 20, Bob Kriegshauser called Dylan in for an important meeting. Dylan resumed his journal the same day.

“This shit again,” he began. He didn’t want to be writing this again, he wanted to be “free,” meaning dead. “I thought it would have been time by now,” he wrote. “The pain multiplies infinitely. never stops.” Eric’s plan offered the solace of suicide: “maybe Going ‘NBK’ (gawd) w. eric is the best way to be free. i hate this.” Then more hearts and love. He hardly seemed committed to the plan. But he appeared to be putting up a good front to Eric. Neither boy ever recorded a suggestion of Dylan’s resistance, but Eric seemed to be doing most of the work.