Columbine Basement Tapes FULL Transcripts.

Today I found the full transcripts.


BASEMENT TAPES 010374-010383 contain 3 hours 1 minute 55 seconds of footage





Item #265 8mm Tape



March 15th … Over an hour long



Eric & Dylan are in the basement family room at Eric’s residence at 8276 South Reed Street



Eric is sitting on a couch & Dylan is sitting on an adjacent chair



Most of the tape is taken from this position while they discuss a number of different topics



They say “Thanks to Mark John Doe & Phil John Doe” [Mark Edward Manes 3-25-77 & Philip Joseph Duran 11-28-76] “We used them, they had no clue. If it hadn’t been them it would have been someone else over 21"



They mention Green Mountain Guns’ message on Eric’s answering machine “Your clips are in"

They laugh about it & discuss it as almost having ruined their plan.



They talk about Brandon Larson [Brandon E Larson Grade 10] stating "You will find his body"



They discuss bombs & reference "two bags” of “propane and napalm” sitting quietly



They discuss the shotgun & “Mr Stevens” [Mark C Stevens 11-11-58 Tanner Gun Show]



They say “We’re proving ourselves” They go on to discuss philosophies



Eric states that he is not spending time with his family so there won’t be any “bonding” & “this won’t be harder to do"

Eric states "I’m sorry I have so much rage but you put it on me"

Eric goes on to complain about his father & the fact that they had to move five times & that he was always the new kid in school & always at the bottom of the "food chain” & had no chance to earn any respect



Eric is wearing a black t-shirt with “Wilder Wein” [Rammstein song means Wild Wine] on the front. Eric references his shirt several times but does not explain what it means



Dylan says “Fuck you Walsh” They reference “Walsh” patrolling in Deer Creek

[Deputy Tim S Walsh JCSO]



At one point they make some comments about there being a “month and a half left"



They again reference Green Mountain Guns & the message on the machine "your clips are in"



Eric talks about one of the times they went shooting in the mountains

He says his shotgun was in his "terrorist bag sticking out"

He said he walked by his mother but she only thought it was his pellet gun



They go on to discuss several individuals

They refer to "Dustin Harrison” [Dustin Luke Harrison 5-2-80] that “everything you say is pointless"

They refer to "Nick” [Nicholas Justin Foss 5-5-80 or Nicholas J Baumgart 5-14-81] that “he laughs too much"

Eric refers to "Rachel & Jen” [Rachel Katherine Baker 11-11-80 & Jennifer Kristen Grant 3-23-81” as “Christianic bitches” & “shooting them in the head"



Eric discusses “Arlene” & about it being a 12 gauge Savage shotgun



They say “Thank’s to the gun show & to Robyn” “Robyn is very cool” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80]



They then decide to video tape a tour of “Reb’s room” & all the “illegal shit"



During the time that they have been sitting on the couch & the chair they were drinking from a Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle. Eric mentions that he has the whiskey bottle



They stand up from where they had been sitting & take the camera & begin video taping Enc’s lower level bedroom



They began video taping a desk with a hutch in Eric’s bedroom

Eric points out a pair of gloves he took from a doctor’s office which he uses for "making bombs"

He points to numerous packages of fireworks on top of a speaker on top of the hutch

He points to a pop can with several shots through it & numerous shotgun shells which were sitting on the hutch

He points to a small "black treasure chest” & says it is a “good hiding place"

He points to a small bullet & references it to being his "first bullet"

He points to solar igniters, engines, batteries, clocks & pipes in a drawer

They describe clocks in the desk drawer as two "future bombs”‘

He describes “completed pipe bombs” & pulls them out from a Home Base bag in one of the desk drawers

He describes “BETA batch” pipe bombs & pulls them out from another Home Base bag in one of the desk drawers



Dylan mentions a “bunker” & attempts to video tape out the west window of Eric’s room but it is dark outside & you cannot see anything other than the glare on the window. Dylan states there is a patch of ground where it is buried under the dirt. Eric states [in the bunker] there are “four mortar grenades, ten crickets, and three ALPHA’s"



Eric then points to a blue spiral notebook which he describes as his "journal"



They show a box of "crickets” which appear to be small CO2 cartridges



They began video taping a dresser on the west wall of Eric’s room.

He opens up a dresser door/drawer & points out a “Hell dog drawing” which is taped to the inside of that door/drawer & mentions it was given to him years ago. Next to it is a piece of paper “Anarchist substitute ingredient list"

Eric describes a "25 pound bag of #8 buckshot” which is inside that dresser but doesn’t show the bag on the video



Eric then pulls out a BB rifle box from a “hall closet” & states this is where he keeps his shotgun



Eric then pulls out a box from within his room closet & states this is his knife. He pulls it out & says he paid $15 for it. The knife is in a black sheath. He states there is a “swastika” on it. The camera zooms in where you can see what appears to be a swastika carved into the sheath



On the east wall of Eric’s room, adjacent to a bedroom door, they point out a coil of green wire hanging on a wall which they describe as “50 feet of cannon fuse"



They then go to a book case also on the east wall of Eric’s bedroom.

From there they talk about a "Demon Knight” CD & open the case, revealing a Green Mountain Guns receipt for a purchase of “nine magazines” for $15 each

Eric removes a rack of CD’s to reveal three pipe bombs which he says are the “biggest"

Eric pulls out a small black card file type box containing "29 crickets” CO2 cartridge bombs



Eric points to an unseen area that has a “coffee can in the corner which is full of gun powder"



On the north wall floor of Eric’s bedroom is a black plastic box with "EXPLOSIVES” etched into the side of it

Dylan mentions how Eric’s parents took it away but Eric then clarifies that they only took the bomb out of it & left him with the box

Inside the box are clock parts, fuses, tools & CO2 cartridges



They also show a white plastic file case containing “nails for pipe bombs, caps to be filled with gun powder” two boxes 50 each of 9mm bullets, 12 shotgun shells in a box, another box of shotgun shells, clips for a gun & webbing.



Eric says “What you will find on my body in April"



The tape is shut off … @ 1:28am March 15th





The tape is started … March 18th



Eric & Dylan are in the lower level family room of Eric’s house



They state it is now "March 18th in the middle of the night"



They talk about "ECHO & DELTA” pipe bombs & whether or not to put nails on them or not



They state that “religions are gay” & for “people who are weak and can’t deal with life"



They state that they need to discuss secondary objectives to place the bombs, places that are "out of the way"

Dylan discusses a trail by Wadsworth "by your [Eric’s] old house” [7844 South Teller Court]

They mention that they should “rig something up with a trip bomb between two trees, so when someone goes down the path it will go off"

They then discuss the possibility of placing "time bombs down there"

They then discuss it would be "harder and take more resources"

They state "this will add a few frags to the list” & that the “fucking fire department is going to be busy for a month"



They mention an individual by the name of ”?“ They say the name ”?“

Eric describes how he is going to "shoot ? in the groin area” [? Cale Martin Kennedy 8-3-81]



They mention “Jesse Gordon” [Jesse Bruce Gordon 12-31-80] & the “Goof Troop"



They mention that "n***** stopped us that day” & how black people talk in “ebonics"

They discuss "spics"



They discuss bowling & how each individual in the bowling class has a designated culture group to use as a target on the bowling pins to kill & that this assists them in bowling better



They mention that "world peace is an impossible thing"



They discuss that you can look on the internet & learn how to make, "bombs, poison, napalm, & how to buy guns if you’re underage"



They state that "Mrs X-Y-Z bought our guns” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80]



They mention that there is “only two weeks left & one more weekend” & that “it is coming up fucking quick"



They state that the "napalm better not freeze at that certain person’s house"



They discuss "Chris pizza’s house” [? Chris Lau 9-11-65 took ownership of BlackJack Pizza March 8] as if they’re trying to disguise a name



They go on to discuss “Yoshi” [Yoshi S Carroll 6-21-80] in a negative fashion



They say that they need a “lot more napalm” & may just use “gas & oil"

They discuss that it will be tough & opening the zipper may make it go off & needing some "back ups"

They state that the sprinkler system may "put out a fire"

Eric mentions that he should possibly keep the battery out of the device, set the bag, put it in & leave so it doesn’t "blow up in the commons"



They discuss "credit card fraud” & Eric raises his hand as if he had done it



They talk about “tests” stating “We wouldn’t be where we are without them"



They discuss gas & oil and it being "one hell of a mental picture"

They mention the possibility of people catching on fire



They state that graduation will be a "graduation memorial service with lots of people crying"

They also mention that there will probably be a candle light memorial



Eric says that he’s got "100 bullets and 10 loaded clips” & that he needs lasers for his carbine



They then address the camera & say “You guys are lucky it doesn’t hold more ammo"



Dylan states that he has a "50 round clip, two 36’s & a 24"



They mention that "there is a lot of shit to do"

They state they need to set up more "propane bombs” & get more containers

Dylan says he needs to get his pants, fill his clip & get his pouches to load his shells in

They say they need “devices” for the “propane tanks"

They state they need more "bomb holders"

Eric mentions that they need to go to Radio Shack because he heard there is a "thing to increase the voltage” it some how increases through a clock & speaker & ignites a solar ignitor

Eric says he will tell the people he is doing special effects for a movie and “that will be a good excuse"



They state "We are but we aren’t psycho"



Dylan asked Eric if he thinks the cops will listen to the whole video

They say they believe that the video will be cut up into little pieces & the police will just show the public what they want it to look like



They mention that they want to distribute the videos to four news stations & that Eric is going to scan his journal & then send copies by e-mail & distribute blue prints and maps



Eric then mentions "TIER” [DOOM mod/wad] & describes it as “my life’s work” & wanting to get it “published"







Item #200 Sony 8mm video camera serial #74415

On side of camera is engraved "Columbine High School"

Battery engraved "CHS LMC"



Item #333 8mm Tape "Top Secret Rampart"



Late March …



Eric is video taping Dylan.



On the floor are laid out numerous pipe bombs:

Three are the "CHARLIE Batch” & they are two inches in diameter & six inches in length

Six appear to be about one inch in diameter & about six inches in length

Twelve appear to be about one & one half inches in diameter & about six inches in length.

All of these pipe bombs are wrapped in duct tape



Also on the floor is a sawed off shotgun which Eric refers to as “Arlene"

While Eric is video taping the shotgun, it appears that "Arlene” is etched into the side of the gun.



Also on the floor is a black long gun which Eric refers to as a carbine

Thirteen clips are observed on the floor

Eric says that they [9] were from Green Mountain Guns & “Yes they did have the right number"



Also on the floor are two boxes of what appear to be 9mm bullets



Eric points out "my bandolier of stuff, & states it will be filled with "napalm"



Also on the floor is a black plastic box which is filled with duct taped items Eric describes as twenty nine "crickets” & states they are his grenades



Eric then gives the camera to Dylan who films Eric holding some of the guns



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started …



Eric is wearing black BDU’s, no shirt & a web type harness, carrying the 9mm carbine attached to a sling, holding the shotgun



At one point Eric places the shotgun into one of the cargo pockets, & then with a web strap secures it so that it is at his side



Dylan comments about Eric as a “soon to be eighteen year old” [Eric’s bday is April 9]



At one point Dylan refers to “my Tec” & states he wants to do something with it “this weekend, maybe tomorrow"



At the same time Dylan says, "my parents are going to fucking Passover” [Passover is April 1]



Dylan moves from filming Eric in the lower level family room to the inside of Eric’s bedroom

Dylan films the west window inside Eric’s room, & calls it a “bunker” & says “you can’t see it, it’s buried there” “That’s why it’s called a bunker"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 6th



Eric is driving alone with the camera recording him from the dashboard



It is dark outside & there are raindrops on the window of the car.



At one point you see a street sign that says "Federal"



There is music playing in the car which is fairly loud



Eric mentions "the BlackJack crew” “Jason” [Jason Secore 9-29-72] & “Chris” [Christopher Richard Morris 6-9-81] Eric says “you guys are very cool ” “Sorry dudes I had to do what I had to do"



Eric also mentions "Angel” [Angel Pytlinski] “Phil” [Philip Joseph Duran 11-28-76] & “Bob” [Robert “Bob” Hossein Kirgis 5-24-70] “Bob is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met in my life, except for being an alcoholic.” Eric says he’s going to miss Bob



Eric states “It is a weird feeling knowing you’re going to be dead in 2 weeks"



Eric mentions not being able to decide "if we should do it before or after prom"



Eric says he wishied he could have revisited Michigan & "old friends"

At this point he becomes silent & starts crying & wipes a tear from the left side of his face



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 17th



Eric is filming Dylan in Dylan’s bedroom at 9351 Cougar Road



Dylan is wearing black BDU’s, a black t-shirt with "Wrath” in red print across the front



He attaches black suspenders to his pants & also attaches a tan ammo type pouch to his belt or suspenders & a green canvas pouch to his right shin



He then removes some items from an open small suitcase/hard sided briefcase on the floor



He takes a sawed off shotgun & places it into a cargo pocket on his pants & then attaches it with webbing so that it stays in place



He has the Tec 9 on a sling over his shoulder



He comments about his “50 round clip"



He mentions "Brandon Larson” [Brandon E Larson Grade 10] & his head being on his knife



He mentions “Robyn” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80] & going to prom with her

He says he didn’t want to go & that his parents are paying for it



Eric comments about having three bags to use



They talk about wanting to “practice” the next couple of nights



Eric mentions that they got “lasers and more propane today"



Eric also mentions four big black containers & two of some sort of other fuel [inaudible]



They begin talking about writing poems in "Kelly’s class today” [Teacher Judy/Judith Kelly 5-6-48 Creative Writing] & how ridiculous it was



They then begin talking about the double barrel shotgun

Dylan says “thanks Mr Stevens” [Mark C Stevens 11-11-58 Tanner Gun Show] & tells Eric “he knew I was fucking buying it"



Dylan puts on his long black trench coat & says "I’m fat on this side” & talks about how he looks “fat with all the stuff on"



Dylan tries to toss the Tec 9 into his hand from the position where it was hanging on the sling. The coat prohibited him from doing that

Dylan then says "I’ll have to take the coat off"

He begins complaining about how he doesn’t want to take his coat off & states he likes his coat



They state that the "fucking snow is gay” relating to the weather outside

They “hope the shit clears out by Tuesday, actually Sunday"

Eric says he "needs dry weather for my fires"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 20th 1 minute & 20 seconds long



Dylan is wearing a black hat backwards with a "B” outlined in white on the back of the hat.

He is wearing a plaid shirt untucked, which is either black or dark blue with white

He is wearing black BDU type pants tucked into military style lace-up boots



Eric is wearing a plaid shirt which appears to be black or dark blue with white

There is a white t-shirt under the plaid shirt

The lower portion of Harris body is not visible



On the floor are several bags

One appears to be a large maroon bag



Eric is filming Dylan in the family room on the main level of Eric’s house



Eric says “Say it now"



Dylan says "Hey mom. Gotta go. It’s about half an hour before our little judgement day. I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any crap this might instigate as far as [inaudible] or something. Just know I’m going to a better place than here. I didn’t like life too much & I know I’ll be happier wherever the fuck I go. So I’m gone. Good-bye” “Reb …"



Dylan takes the camera & starts filming Eric



Eric says "Yeah … Everyone I love I’m really sorry about all this. I know my mom & dad will be just like just fucking shocked beyond belief. I’m sorry alright. I can’t help it"



Dylan interjects "We did what we had to do"



Eric then says "Morris, Nate, if you guys live I want you guys to have whatever you want from my room & the computer room"



Dylan states they can also have his possessions



Eric then says ”Susan sorry. Under different circumstances it would’ve been a lot different.

I want you to have that fly cd"



Both then say “Good bye"







Item #298 Two 8mm Tapes [Tape 1 is "Reb’s Tape”] [Tape 2 is Radioactive Cothing]



April 11th …



During daylight hours, Eric is driving & Dylan is in the passenger seat



They state “We are on our way to get the rest of our gear"



They mention that it is now "Monday, April 11th"



Dylan says he has ”$200 dollars on him"



Eric says that he is going to “cash a check for $50"



Dylan mentions that they have been "planning this for over eight months"

Eric says "At least"



They pass the intersection of "Sante Fe & Mineral"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started …



During daylight hours, Eric is driving & Dylan is in the passenger seat



They are stopped at a stop light or stop sign on the east side of Broadway north of Hampden



Eric is smoking a large cigar & states it is his "birthday cigar"



They say they have just purchased two rather large fuel containers & three propane bottles & Dylan also got his pants/BDU’s [Army Navy - Coleman Fuel/Propane/CO2/BDU’s]



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 12th 17 minutes long



Eric is alone with the video camera resting either on his knee or something else & filming directly at his face



Behind him is a headboard & behind the headboard is a bulletin board



Eric talks about his mother & father & the cops who may want to have his "parents pay"



He describes his parents as the "best parents” & states that anything they would have tried to do this past year he would have gotten around it



Eric states “there is no one else to blame but me and Vodka"



Eric then states it’s been "hard” on him recently



He mentions that his parents have been on his “back for putting things off such as "insurance & the Marine Corp"



He says "this is my last week on earth"



He says "to you Culios out there still alive, sorry I hurt you or your friends"



He mentions that this is total "KMFDM"



Eric states "there are 7 and 1/3 days left"



Eric then gets an odd look on his face and says "Fucking bitches"

He mentions five names: ”? full name” [female 4-25-81 Aurora]

“?” [Megan] [Megan Steckly Grade 9 - Jeffco not 100% sure of this Lead]

“?” [Karen] [Karen Ann Schott 10-13-80]

“?” [Tanya] [Tanya Worlock 9-29-82]

“?” [Unknown]



He says he’s going to be “one tired mother fucker come Monday then Boom! I’ll get shot & die"



Eric then goes on to film his planning book/notebook & describes it as the “writings of God"



He says that his beliefs have changed somewhat during the year, over the course of time he has been writing



He turns to the page [026022] of figurines drawn with ammo, bombs & guns

He states that it is the "drawing of gear, back when we thought we could get calico’s"

He points to a picture with a backpack labeled "napalm” He says this is the “suicide plan"



He turns to the page [026023] of the inventories of the bombs

He points to the top of the page & states that these are how many bullets they’re going to have



He points to [026026-026027] some drawings in the back stating they are "DOOM drawings"



He points to page [026028] of different types of weapons & states that these are "plans for rocket launchers & such. Most will not see the new world"



He points to page [026029] of more"DOOM drawings” with a “KMFDM twist to them”







(More info)







`I Really Am Sorry … but War’s War'

Columbine killers’ videotapes record raging anger amid remorse for parents



By Karen Abbott and Dan Luzadder

News Staff Writers



They are all awkward adolescence, with too-big feet and the chortling satisfaction boys find in cracking their knuckles.



They sit side by side in basement recliners, late into the night, munching Slim Jims and candy and occasionally swigging from a big bottle of Jack Daniel’s.



They have put a video camera on a tripod to record this farewell to the world, one of several taped messages they will leave, starting weeks before their killing spree at Columbine High School.



They make their young mouths tough with dirty words. They smile over shared schoolboy memories, curse humankind, speak fondly of their parents and joke about the fun they might have as ghosts, making scary noises.



And they explain over and over why they want to kill as many people as they can.



It’s exactly what the whole world already has heard.



Kids taunted them in day care, in elementary school, in middle school, in high school. Adults wouldn’t let them strike back, to fight their tormenters, the way such disputes once were settled in schoolyards. So they gritted their teeth. And their rage grew.



“It’s humanity,” Dylan Klebold says, flipping an obscene gesture toward the camera. “Look at what you made,” he tells the world.



“You’re fucking shit, you humans, and you need to die,” he says.



“Even us,” Eric Harris adds. We need to die too. Of course, we’ll fucking die killing you fucking shitheads.“



They lean back in their recliners, Harris cradling a shotgun and Klebold playing with a toothpick. When they knock over a pop can they worry, good children, that they have made a mess.



Later they model the black suits they will wear on "Judgment Day.” They talk about books they’ve liked and describe how they will kill classmates who have annoyed them most.



“When you find a body of one,” Klebold says, looking straight into the camera, “he’s a sophomore … Look for his jaw. It won’t be on his body."



Harris plans to scalp another boy.



They say they hope the afterlife - if there is one - is like spending eternity in Doom, the video game they love most. Harris says it would be neat if the afterlife included getting to look at the world’s mysteries. Like the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean.



They sneer at life in the suburbs, rant obscenely at blacks and feminists and born-again Christians and jocks and people who wear Tommy Hilfiger clothes. They mimic people they think are stupid, using squeaky, funny voices and funny faces.



"I just know I want to kill the fuckers who fucked with me,” Klebold says.



They talk about the bombs they will plant at their school.



“Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,” Harris says.



They laugh.



They expect to be famous, to have a cult of followers after they die. They have advice for whoever those kids might be.



“If you’re going to go fucking psycho and kill a bunch of people like us … do it right,” Klebold says.



They expect tougher gun laws to be discussed because of them. Don’t do it, they say; it will only create a black market in guns. “Putting more laws on won’t change that,” Klebold says.



Then Harris says, “Let’s talk about our parents for a minute."



Klebold begins coldly. "It’s my life,” he says. “They gave it to me, I can do with it what I want. … If they don’t like it, I’m sorry, but that’s too bad."



Harris is gentler. "They might have made some mistakes that they weren’t really aware of in their life with me, but they couldn’t have helped it."



Both boys say again and again that their parents are great.



The Klebolds saw this tape last fall. They cried. The Harris parents know the tape exists but haven’t seen it.



"It sucks to do this to them,” Harris says. “They’re going to go through hell once we’re finished. They’re never going to see the end of it."



Klebold promises his parents there was nothing they could have done to stop what will happen.



"You can’t understand what we feel; you can’t understand no matter how much you think you can,” he says.



Harris plays with a pair of scissors, rapidly snapping the blades together and apart, together and apart. They laugh at the noise.



He explains why he didn’t spend more time with his family.



“I didn’t want to do any more bonding with them. It will be a lot easier on them if I haven’t been around as much."



Klebold addresses all his relatives. "I’m sorry I have so much rage,” he says.



He samples a mouthful of candy with a mouthful of whiskey.



Harris speaks lovingly of his mother then adds, “I really am sorry about all of this.



"But war’s war."



Klebold is playing with the candy pieces. He holds up one shape.



"Hey, guys,” he says, “it’s a house.”







(More info cont.)







The Denver Post - Tuesday, December 14, 1999



Killers’ hatred shows in vitriolic “film festival'



By Peggy Lowe

Denver Post Staff Writer



They were teenage Hitlers, spewing their own profane and violent theories on evolution and revolution from their suburban bunkers.



Lying back in plush-velvet pastel recliners, candy and Jack Daniel’s nearby, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold videotaped a suicidal manifesto in their final days before the April 20 attack on their own high school.



They wanted to "kick-start the revolution,” they said, leaving behind all the intimate details on “our little judgment day” in “this little film festival."



"To all the f—heads out there: get busy. The apocalypse is coming and it’s starting in eight days,” Harris says during a close-up. “Oh yeah,” Harris says, licking his lips, “It’s comin’, all right."



The two Columbine High seniors who orchestrated the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history come off as smug, cocky kids armed to the teeth in the videotapes released Monday by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. The tapes were found in the Harris home.



The hours of tape, shot in March and April, are filled with racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets. The two teens appear to hate everyone but themselves, hoping to kill 250 people, "the most deaths in U.S. history,” Klebold said.



“We’re hoping. We’re hoping,” Harris responds to his buddy.



Quoting sources as diverse as Shakespeare and the popular ‘80s teen movie “The Breakfast Club,” the boys punctuate every almost phrase with profanity. Sitting in the Harris family’s basement, a coffee table between them and a handmade blue afghan visible in the corner, the two reveal their virulent hatred of other students, races and women - leaving themselves as the superior dictators of who should live or die.



“It’s humans that I hate,” Klebold says.



“It’s f—ing plain and simple,” Harris affirms.



“Whatever happened to natural selection?” Klebold says, already using the term that would be found on the white T-shirt Harris wore during the rampage.



Contrary to popular opinion in the Columbine community, Harris comes off in the videos as the more sympathetic character of the two. Portrayed in the days after the attack as angry and weird, he is apologetic and somewhat remorseful in the tapes. He’s careful to absolve his parents of any blame and shows sympathy to his mother, Kathy, for what he is about to do, trying not to “bond” with her because he will soon die.



“It’s not their fault. They had no f—ing clue,” Harris says. “It would not solve anything to arrest them."



But Harris shows some anger toward his father, Wayne, a military man who moved his family across the country several times. Harris talks of always being the new, "white, scrawny” kid.



“I had to go through all that s— so many times,” Harris says.



Klebold is monstrous on the videotapes, openly raging about his lifelong hidden anger and all the slights he suffered at the hands of students, teachers and his family. He smiles ghoulishly into the camera, lovingly handles weapons and constantly combs his fingers through his shoulder-length red hair. He shows no contrition, only deadly aggression.



“This goes to all my family: I’m sorry I have so much rage,” Klebold says. “You made me what I am. Actually, you just added to what I am."



While bragging and proudly displaying their amassed arsenal, hidden in Harris’ bedroom, the two are typical teenagers, burping into the camera at one point, washing down Sweet-Tart-like candies with whiskey at another interval. Virtually bleeding testosterone, they both do a long dress rehearsal in their respective bedrooms, preening before the camera in their combat clothes like skinny Rambos.



During a tour of Harris’ bedroom, where outside they have buried some of their ammunition in what they call "the whiskey bunker,” the two point out semi-automatic weapons and Harris’ beloved G.I. Joe action figures.



“I’ve always loved them,” Harris says, with Klebold complaining that the manufacturer should make “at least one moveable part” in G.I. Joes.



Along with ammunition clips, a coffee can full of gunpowder, hand grenades and duct tape-covered pipe bombs, Harris shows the closet corner where he stashed “Arlene,” his gun named after a favorite character in the “Doom” series of books. The gun sits next to a foot-long knife with a swastika carved into its black leather handle, which Klebold said cost just “one easy payment of $15."



"That’ll take out whoever can f—ing get close to it,” Klebold says as he shows off a stash of three pipe bombs.



“Thank God my parents don’t search my room,” Harris responds with a laugh.



In another tape, shot just prior to the April 3 weekend, the two have laid out their arsenal, including their guns and “Arlene,” whose name is scratched into one of the guns.



“Gosh, she’s f—ing beautiful,” Harris says of his gun with a girl’s name. “This is what you f—ers are up against."



During Klebold ’s dress rehearsal on April 17, in the only piece of the tapes made at the Klebold residence, he worries that his gun is making his black trench coat bulky. As he looks for the backpack he will use during the rampage, Klebold goes to his closet where he finds his prom tuxedo hanging.



"Robyn,” Klebold says, addressing his prom date and gun buyer Robyn Anderson, “I didn’t really want to go to prom. But since I’m going to be dying, I thought I might do something cool."



In the last of their video farewells, the two appear anxious, telling their future audience that it’s about a half-hour before "our little judgment day.” They will everything in their bedrooms to their friends Chris Morris and Nate Dykeman and quickly say goodbye as they strap on their weapons.



“Just know I’m going to a better place,” Klebold says. “I didn’t like life too much."



"That’s it. Sorry. Goodbye,” Harris says.



“Goodbye,” Klebold says up close, and the tape ends.



EXCERPTS



Here are excerpts from the videotapes made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold , made available to the media and victims’ families by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Monday:



“There was nothing anyone could have done to prevent this, and no one is to blame but me and voDKa. No one else.” - From Harris during a rambling suicidal monologue made eight days before the massacre.



“It’s kinda hard on me, these last few days. This is my last week on Earth and they don’t know.” - From Harris, same monologue, referring to his rejection by the Marines and struggles with his parents.



“I declared war on the human race and war is what it is.” - Harris.



“If you get p—–, well, go kill some people. Take out some aggression.” - Harris to anyone angry about the Columbine attack.



“You know who you are. Thanks. You made me feel good. Think about that for a while, f—ing bitches.” - Harris, after listing five girls “who never even called me back."



"This came up so quick. It’s pretty weird knowing you’re going to die.” - Harris.



“This is just a two-man war against everything else.” - Harris about the stress from last-minute preparations.



“This is the book of God” - Harris, upon opening a journal outlining the Columbine attack.



“Somehow, I’ll publish these. This is the thought process, the evolution I’ve gone through for the past year.” - Harris on his journal.



“This is the suicide plan.” - Harris, explaining a hand-drawn armed warrior drawn in his journal.



“Have. Need.” Two headings above a list of items Harris and Klebold would need for the attack, from Harris’ journal.



“Should have died first.” - From Harris’ journal, under a hit list of a dozen students’ names.



“We’re going to die doing it, you f—ing s—-” - Klebold , after saying he wanted to kill 250 people.



“It’s long. It keeps the elements off.” - Klebold on the black trench coats he and Harris planned to wear during their attack.



“We didn’t f—ing plan it, that’s why.” - Klebold , on why he and Harris got caught breaking into a van in Jefferson County in 1998.



“He doesn’t deserve the jaw evolution gave him .” - Klebold , on wanting to kill a sophomore boy, after telling investigators to “look for his jaw. It won’t be on his body."



"Whatever happened to natural selection?” - Klebold , ranting that he hates humans.



“Yes, moms stay home. That’s what women are supposed to f—ing do.” - Harris, on the role of women.



“F—ing make me dinner, bitch.” - Harris, on what he would say to a woman.



“They’re not f—ing as smart as white people. They’re all spear-chuckers while we’re shooting guns.” - Klebold , on blacks.



“I just know I want to kill the little f—ers who f—ed with me. It’s going to be like Doom, man.” - Klebold , referring to his favorite video game.



“I wish I was a f—ing psychopath so I wouldn’t have any remorse for this.” - Harris



“You can’t understand what we feel, no matter how much you think you can.” - Klebold , to his parents.



“I’ve always loved you guys for that.” - Klebold , saying his parents gave him “self-awareness, self-reliance."



"Hopefully, death is like being in a dream state.” - Harris.



“What would Jesus do? What would I do? Ka-pow!” - Klebold , mocking the WWJD bracelets Christians wear, then aiming his finger gun-like at the camera.



“I really am sorry about this, but war’s war.” - Harris to this mother.



“Gotta love the Nazis.” “Nazis are so efficient.” - Harris, then Klebold , during a video tour of Harris’ bedroom to see the ammunition. “Holy s—, that’s scary.” - Harris, as Klebold points a gun at the camera and smiles.



“That is cool, dude. Every ******’s last sight.” - Klebold , as Harris sights a gun’s laser light on him.



“This is for Robyn: You are very f—ing cool. Thank you very much.” - Klebold , to Robyn Anderson, the Columbine senior who bought three of the guns used in the attack.



“That’s it. Sorry. Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” Harris, then Klebold on the final tape.







(More info cont.)



The Associated Press - Tuesday, December 14, 1999



Videos give more glimpses of upside down world of teen gunmen



By Robert Weller

Associated Press Writer



LITTLETON, Colo. - Teen killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had run out of people to hate by the time they entered Columbine High School armed for carnage, homemade videos reveal.



After insulting blacks, Christians, women, Jews, athletes, police, and others, Harris is heard to exclaim on one tape, “I hate the (expletive) humans."



Klebold concurs. "It’s humans that I hate."



A more detailed picture of Harris and Klebold emerged Monday, a day after Time magazine published a story on the videotapes, prompting authorities to allow other journalists to view them.



Their release angered parents of the victims, who said they had been promised they would be shown the tapes before they were publicly released. Several families viewed them Monday evening.



"This is just going to serve to re-illuminate all the feelings and pain that (parents) have already experienced,” said Brad Bernall, whose daughter Cassie Bernall was killed in the April 20 attack.



“I’m really upset that someone didn’t have the courtesy (to warn us),” said Connie Michalik, mother of Richard Castaldo, who was left paralyzed in the attack. “If anyone was going to see them, we had the right."



Jefferson County sheriff’s spokesman Wayne Holverson apologized for causing any heartache to the families. "We sincerely regret the untimely release of the story,” he said.



In the videos, Harris, 18, and Klebold, 17, detailed their plan which would eventually leave 12 students and a teacher dead. Both gunmen then committed suicide.



The pair filmed a dress rehearsal on one tape recorded at Klebold’s home. He practiced drawing a shotgun from inside a black trench coat. Harris told him he had to do it faster.



They laughed about haunting those left behind after their deaths. “I don’t give a (expletive) about anybody. Otherwise I’d be more remorseful,” said Harris.



“God doesn’t exist,” said Klebold at one point.



In two hours of telling their own story, the teens quote Shakespeare, make apparent references to the video game Doom, predict Hollywood directors would fight over their story and apologize to their loved ones.



“My parents couldn’t have helped it … My parents have been some of the best parents I’ve known,” said Harris. “Don’t arrest any of our friends or family. They didn’t have a clue."



The teens bragged that previous school assaults were bush league and they weren’t copy cats. "We’re the real McCoy,” said Harris, with Klebold adding, “I know we are going to have a following."



Both talked of being treated as nerds by athletes and others. Harris, an Air Force brat, said "the (expletive) government closed the bases down.” Each time he had to move, he said, “I am at the bottom of the ladder again."



Klebold said the pair would have sorted out their problems with their fists, as students had done for generations, "but if you touch anyone you are suspended."



Each spoke of their anger. "I’m sorry I have so much rage but you put it in me,” said Klebold. Harris said he planned to blow one youth’s face off and expected to receive the same treatment. “I imagine I will be shot in the head by a (expletive) cop."



For Dale Todd, whose son Evan was wounded in the assault on Columbine, watching the tapes only triggered more questions: "It makes me realize that we need to look deeper into society’s ills that we’re creating kids like this."



Amid reports of the tapes’ contents, the parents of the only black student killed in the rampage said they will leave Colorado and move next month to Houston.



Michael and Vonda Shoels, who believe their son Isaiah was targeted because of his race, were criticized after they filed a $250 million wrongful death lawsuit against the killers’ parents.



"We had to get out of Colorado because people are using us as scapegoats,” Michael Shoels said. “They want us to be quiet and to shut up and stop speaking out against the hate and racism that cut down Isaiah far too soon.”



(TIME Mag’s)

And, of course, there is the Time magazine cover story:



The natural born killers waited until the parents were asleep upstairs before heading down to the basement to put on their show. The first videotape is almost unbearable to watch.



Dylan Klebold sits in the tan La-Z-Boy, chewing on a toothpick. Eric Harris adjusts his video camera a few feet away, then settles into his chair with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a sawed-off shotgun in his lap. He calls it Arlene, after a favorite character in the gory Doom video games and books that he likes so much. He takes a small swig. The whiskey stings, but he tries to hide it, like a small child playing grownup. These videos, they predict, will be shown all around the world one day–once they have produced their masterpiece and everyone wants to know how, and why.



Above all, they want to be seen as originals. “Do not think we’re trying to copy anyone,” Harris warns, recalling the school shootings in Oregon and Kentucky. They had the idea long ago, “before the first one ever happened."



And their plan is better, "not like those f____s in Kentucky with camouflage and .22s. Those kids were only trying to be accepted by others."



Harris and Klebold have an inventory of their ecumenical hatred: all "******s, spics, Jews, gays, f___ing whites,” the enemies who abused them and the friends who didn’t do enough to defend them. But it will all be over soon. “I hope we kill 250 of you,” Klebold says. He thinks it will be the most “nerve-racking 15 minutes of my life, after the bombs are set and we’re waiting to charge through the school. Seconds will be like hours. I can’t wait. I’ll be shaking like a leaf."



"It’s going to be like f___ing Doom,” Harris says. “Tick, tick, tick, tick… Haa! That f___ing shotgun is straight out of Doom!"



How easy it has been to fool everyone, as they staged their dress rehearsals, gathered their props–the shotguns in their gym bags, the pipe bombs in the closet. Klebold recounts for the camera the time his parents walked in on him when he was trying on his black leather trench coat, with his sawed-off shotgun hidden underneath: "They didn’t even know it was there.” Once, Harris recalls, his mother saw him carrying a gym bags with a gun handle sticking out of the zipper. She assumed it was his BB gun. Every day Klebold and Harris went to school, sat in class, had lunch with their schoolmates, worked with their teachers and plotted their slaughter. People fell for every lie. “I could convince them that I’m going to climb Mount Everest, or I have a twin brother growing out of my back,” says Harris. “I can make you believe anything."



Even when it is over, they promise, it will not be over. In memory and nightmares, they hope to live forever. "We’re going to kick-start a revolution,” Harris says–a revolution of the dispossessed. They talk about being ghosts who will haunt the survivors–“create flashbacks from what we do,” Harris promises, “and drive them insane."



It is getting late now. Harris looks at his watch. He says the time is 1:28 a.m. March 15. Klebold says people will note the date and time when watching it. And he knows what his parents will be thinking. "If only we could have reached them sooner or found this tape,” he predicts they will say. “If only we would have searched their room,” says Harris. “If only we would have asked the right questions."



Since then, we’ve never stopped asking, of course, in our aching effort to get back on our feet, slowly, carefully, only to be pushed back down again. And what if the answers turn out to be different from what we’ve heard all along? A six-week TIME investigation of the Columbine case tracked the efforts of the police and FBI, who are still sorting through some 10,000 pieces of evidence, 5,000 leads, the boys’ journals and websites and the five secret home videos they made in the weeks before the massacre. Within the next few weeks, the investigators are expected to issue their report, and their findings are bound to surprise a town, and a country, that has heard all about the culture of cruelty, the bullying jocks, and has concluded that two ugly, angry boys just snapped, and fired back.



It turns out there is much more to the story than that.



Why, if their motive was rage at the athletes who taunted them, didn’t they take their guns and bombs to the locker room? Because retaliation against specific people was not the point. Because this may have been about celebrity as much as cruelty. "They wanted to be famous,” concludes FBI agent Mark Holstlaw. “And they are. They’re infamous.” It used to be said that living well is the best revenge; for these two, it was to kill and die in spectacular fashion.



This is not to say the humiliation Harris and Klebold felt was not a cause. Because they were steeped in violence and drained of mercy, they could accomplish everything at once: payback to those who hurt them, and glory, the creation of a cult, for all those who have suffered and been cast out. They wanted movies made of their story, which they had carefully laced with “a lot of foreshadowing and dramatic irony,” as Harris put it. There was that poem he wrote, imagining himself as a bullet. “Directors will be fighting over this story,” Klebold said–and the boys chewed over which could be trusted with the script: Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino. “You have two individuals who wanted to immortalize themselves,” says Holstlaw. “They wanted to be martyrs and to document everything they were doing."



These boys had read their Shakespeare: "Good wombs hath borne bad sons,” Harris quoted from The Tempest, as he reflected on how his rampage would ruin his parents’ lives. The boys knew that once they staged their final act, the audience would be desperate for meaning. And so they provided their own poisonous chorus, about why they hated so many people so much. In the weeks before what they called their Judgment Day, they sat in their basement and made their haunting videos–detailing their plans, their motives, even their regrets–which Harris left in his bedroom for the police and his parents to find when it was all over.



The dilemma for many families at Columbine is ours as well. For months they have searched for answers. “It’s not going to bring anything or anybody back,” says Mike Kirklin, whose son survived a shot in the face. “But we do need to know. Why did they do this?” Still, the last thing the survivors want is to see these boys on the cover of another magazine, back in the headlines, on the evening news. We need to understand them, but we don’t want to look at them. And yet there is no escaping this story. Last week another child shot up another school, this time an Oklahoma junior high where four were injured, and all the questions came gushing out one more time.



At Columbine, some wounds are slow to heal. The old library is walled off, while the victims’ families try to raise the money to replace it by building a new one. The students still have trouble with fire drills. Some report that kids are drinking more heavily now, saying more prayers, seeing more counselors–550 visits so far this year. Two dozen students are homebound, unable, whether physically or emotionally, to come back to class yet. Tour-bus groups have changed their routes to stop at the high school, and stare.



Some people have found a way to forgive: even parents who lost their beloved children; even kids who won’t ever walk again, or speak clearly, or grow old together with a sister who died on the school lawn. But other survivors are still on a journey, through dark places of anger and suspicion, aimed at a government they fear wants to cover up the misjudgments of police; at a school that wants to shift blame; at the killers’ parents, who have stated their regrets in written statements issued through their lawyers but who still aren’t saying much and who surely, surely had to know something.



It’s easy now to see the signs: how a video-game joystick turned Harris into a better marksman, like a golfer who watches Tiger Woods videos; how he decided to stop taking his Luvox, to let his anger flare, undiluted by medication. How Klebold’s violent essays for English class were like skywriting his intent. If only the parents had looked in the middle drawer of Harris’ desk, they would have found the four windup clocks that he later used as timing devices. Check the duffel bag in the closet; the pipe bombs are inside. In his CD collection, they would have found a recording that meant so much to him that he willed it to a girl in his last videotaped suicide message. The name of the album? Bombthreat Before She Blows.



The problem is that until April 20, nobody was looking. And Harris and Klebold knew it.



THE BASEMENT TAPES



The tapes were meant to be their final word, to all those who had picked on them over the years, and to everyone who would come up with a theory about their inner demons. It is clear listening to them that Harris and Klebold were not just having trouble with what their counselors called “anger management.” They fed the anger, fueled it, so the fury could take hold, because they knew they would need it to do what they had set out to do. “More rage. More rage,” Harris says. “Keep building it on,” he says, motioning with his hands for emphasis.



Harris recalls how he moved around so much with his military family and always had to start over, “at the bottom of the ladder.” People continually made fun of him–“my face, my hair, my shirts.” As for Klebold, “If you could see all the anger I’ve stored over the past four f___ing years…” he says. His brother Byron was popular and athletic and constantly “ripped” on him, as did the brother’s friends. Except for his parents, Klebold says, his extended family treated him like the runt of the litter. “You made me what I am,” he said. “You added to the rage.” As far back as the Foothills Day Care center, he hated the “stuck-up” kids he felt hated him. “Being shy didn’t help,” he admits. “I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us s___ for years."



Klebold and Harris were completely soaked in violence: in movies like Reservoir Dogs; in gory video games that they tailored to their imaginations. Harris liked to call himself "Reb,” short for rebel. Klebold’s nickname was VoDKa (his favorite liquor, with the capital DK for his initials). On pipe bombs used in the massacre he wrote “VoDKa Vengeance."



That they were aiming for 250 dead shows that their motives went far beyond targeting the people who teased them. They planned it very carefully: when they would strike, where they would put the bombs, whether the fire sprinklers would snuff out their fuses. They could hardly wait. Harris picks up the shotgun and makes shooting noises. "Isn’t it fun to get the respect that we’re going to deserve?” he asks.



The tapes are a cloudy window on their moral order. They defend the friends who bought the guns for them, who Harris and Klebold say knew nothing of their intentions–as though they are concerned that innocent people not be blamed for their massacre of innocent people. If they hadn’t got the guns where they did, Harris says, “we would have found something else."



They had many chances to turn back–and many chances to get caught. They "came close” one day, when an employee of Green Mountain Guns called Harris’ house and his father answered the phone. “Hey, your clips are in,” the clerk said. His father replied that he hadn’t ordered any clips and, as Harris retells it, didn’t ask whether the clerk had dialed the right number. If either one had asked just one question, says Harris, “we would’ve been f___ed."



"We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re going to do,” Klebold adds.



THE WARNING SIGNS



You could fill a good-size room with the people whose lives have been twisted into ropes of guilt by the events leading up to that awful day, and by the day itself. The teachers who read the essays but didn’t hear the warnings, the cops who were tipped to Harris’ poisonous website but didn’t act on it, the judge and youth-services counselor who put the boys through a year of community service after they broke into a van and then concluded that they had been rehabilitated. Because so many people are being blamed and threatened with lawsuits, there are all kinds of public explanations designed to diffuse and defend. But there are private conversations going on as well, within the families, among the cops, in the teachers’ lounge, where people are asking themselves what they could have done differently. Neil Gardner, the deputy assigned to the school who traded gunfire with Harris, says he wishes he could have done more. But with the criticism, he has learned, “you’re not a hero unless you die."



Nearly everyone who ever knew Harris or Klebold has asked himself the same question: How could we have been duped? Yet the boys were not loners; they had a circle of friends. Harris played soccer (until the fall of 1998), and Klebold was in the drama club. Just the week before the rampage, the boys had to write a poem for an English class. Harris wrote about stopping the hate and loving the world. Klebold went to the prom the weekend before the slaughter; Harris couldn’t get a date but joined him at the postprom parties, to celebrate with students they were planning to kill.



To adults, Klebold had always come across as the bashful, nervous type who could not lie very well. Yet he managed to keep his dark side a secret. "People have no clue,” Klebold says on one videotape. But they should have had. And this is one of the most painful parts of the puzzle, to look back and see the flashing red lights–especially regarding Harris–that no one paid attention to. No one except, perhaps, the Brown family.



Brooks Brown became notorious after the massacre because certain police officers let slip rumors that he might have somehow been involved. And indeed he was–but not in the way the police were suggesting. Brown and Harris had had an argument back in 1998, and Harris had threatened Brown; Klebold also told him that he should read Harris’ website on AOL, and he gave Brooks the Web address.



And there it all was: the dimensions and nicknames of his pipe bombs. The targets of his wrath. The meaning of his life. “I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the f___ing teeth and I WILL shoot to kill.” He rails against the people of Denver, “with their rich snobby attitude thinkin they are all high and mighty… God, I can’t wait til I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame. I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people. Like Brooks Brown."



The Browns didn’t know what to do. "We were talking about our son’s life,” says Judy Brown. She and her husband argued heatedly. Randy Brown wanted to call Harris’ father. But Judy didn’t think the father would do anything; he hadn’t disciplined his son for throwing an ice ball at the Browns’ car. Randy considered anonymously faxing printouts from the website to Harris’ father at work, but Judy thought it might only provoke Harris to violence.



Though she had been friends with Susan Klebold for years, Judy hesitated to call and tell her what was said on the website, which included details of Eric and Dylan’s making bombs together. In the end, the Browns decided to call the sheriff’s office. On the night of March 18, a deputy came to their house. They gave him printouts of the website, and he wrote a report for what he labeled a “suspicious incident.” The Browns provided names and addresses for both Harris and Klebold, but they say they told the deputy that they did not want Harris to know their son had reported him.



A week or so later, Judy called the sheriff’s office to find out what had become of their complaint. The detective she spoke with seemed uninterested; he even apologized for being so callous because he had seen so much crime. Mrs. Brown persisted, and she and her husband met with detectives on March 31. Members of the bomb squad helpfully showed them what a pipe bomb looked like–in case one turned up in their mailbox.



The police already had a file on the boys, it turns out: they had been caught breaking into a van and were about to be sentenced. But somehow the new complaint never intersected the first; the Harrises and Klebolds were never told that a new complaint had been leveled at Eric Harris. And as weeks passed, the Browns found it harder to get their calls returned as detectives focused on an unrelated triple homicide. Meanwhile, at the school, Deputy Gardner told the two deans that the police were investigating a boy who was looking up how to make pipe bombs on the Web. But the deans weren’t shown the Web page, nor were they given Eric’s name.



As more time passed and nothing happened, the Browns’ fears eased–though they were troubled when their son started hanging out with Harris again. Then came April 20. As the gunmen entered the school, Harris saw Brown and told him to run away. But when all the smoke had cleared and the bodies counted, the Browns went public with their charge that the police had failed to heed their warnings. And even some cops agree.



“It should have been followed up,” says Sheriff Stone, who did not take office until January 1999. “It fell through the cracks,” admits John Kiekbusch, the sheriff’s division chief in charge of investigations and patrol.



Some people still think Brooks Brown must have been involved. When he goes to the Dairy Queen, the kid at the drive-through recognizes him and locks all the doors and windows. Brown knows it is almost impossible to convince people that the rumors were never true. Like many kids, his life now has its markers: before Columbine and after.



THE INVESTIGATORS



Detective Kate Battan still sees it in her sleep–still sees what she saw that first day in April, when she was chosen to lead the task force that would investigate the massacre. Bullet holes in the banks of blue lockers. Ceiling tiles ajar where kids had scampered to hide in the crawl space. Shoes left behind by kids who literally ran out of them. Dead bodies in the library, where students cowered beneath tables. One boy died clenching his eyeglasses, and another gripped a pencil as he drew his last breath. Was he writing a goodbye note? Or was he so scared that he forgot he held it? “It was like you walked in and time stopped,” says Battan. “These are kids. You can’t help but think about what their last few minutes were like."



Long after the bodies had been identified, Battan kept the Polaroids of them in her briefcase. Every morning when starting work, she’d look at them to remind herself whom she was working for.



On the Columbine task force, Battan was known as the Whip. As the lead investigator, she kept 80-plus detectives on track. The task force broke into teams: the pre-bomb team, which took the outside of the school; the library team; the cafeteria team; and the associates team, which investigated Harris’ and Klebold’s friends, including the so-called Trench Coat Mafia, as possible accomplices.



Rich Price is an FBI special agent assigned to the domestic terrorism squad in Denver, a veteran of Oklahoma City and the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. He was in the North Carolina mountains searching for suspected bomber Eric Rudolph on April 20 when he heard about the rampage at Columbine. In TV news footage that afternoon, he saw his Denver-based colleagues on the scene and called his office. He was told to return to Denver ASAP–suddenly two teenage boys had become the target of a domestic-terrorism probe.



Price became head of the cafeteria team, re-creating the morning that hell broke loose. The investigators have talked to the survivors, the teachers, the school authorities; they have reviewed the videotapes from four security cameras placed in the cafeteria, as well as the videos the killers made. And they have walked the school, step by step, trying to re-create 46 minutes that left behind 15 dead bodies and a thousand questions.



Battan is very clear about her responsibilities. "I work for the victims. When they don’t have any more questions, then I feel I’ve done my job."



It quickly became obvious to the investigators that the assault did not go as the killers had planned. They had wanted to bomb first, then shoot. So they planted three sets of bombs: one set a few miles away, timed to go off first and lure police away from the school; a second set in the cafeteria, to flush terrified students out into the parking lot, where Harris and Klebold would be waiting with their guns to mow them down; and then a third set in their cars, timed to go off once the ambulances and rescue workers descended, to kill them as well. What actually happened instead was mainly an improvisation.



Just before 11 a.m. they hauled two duffel bags containing propane-tank bombs into the cafeteria. Then they returned to their cars, strapped on their weapons and ammunition, pulled on their black trench coats and settled in to wait.



Judgment Day, as they called it, was to begin at 11:17 a.m. But the bombs didn’t go off. After two minutes, they walked toward the school and opened fire, shooting randomly and killing the first two of their 13 victims. And then they headed into the building.



Deputy Gardner was eating his lunch in his patrol car when a janitor called on the radio, saying a girl was down in the parking lot. Gardner drove toward her, heard gunshots and dived behind a Chevy Blazer, trading shots with Harris. "I’ve got to kill this kid,” he kept telling himself. But he was terrified of shooting someone else by accident–and his training instructions directed that he concentrate on guarding the perimeter, so no one could escape.



Patti Nielson, a teacher, had seen Harris and Klebold coming and ran a few steps ahead of them into the library. One kid was doing his math homework on a calculator; another was filling out a college application; another was reading an article in PEOPLE about Brooke Shields’ breakup with Andre Agassi. “Get down!” Nielson screamed. She dialed 911 and dropped the phone when the two gunmen came in. And so the police have a tape of everything that happened next.



The 911 dispatcher listening on the open phone line could hear Harris and Klebold laughing as their victims screamed. When Harris found Cassie Bernall, he leaned down. “Peekaboo,” he said, and killed her. His shotgun kicked, stunning him and breaking his nose. Blood streamed down his face as he turned to see Brea Pasquale sitting on the floor because she couldn’t fit under a table. “Do you want to die today?” he asked her. “No,” she quivered. Just then Klebold called to him, which spared her life.



Why hadn’t anyone stopped them yet? It was now 11:29; because of the open line, the 911 dispatcher knew for certain–for seven long minutes–that the gunmen were there in the library and were shooting fellow students. At that early stage, though, only about a dozen cops had arrived on the scene, and none of them had protective gear or heavy weapons. They could have charged in with their handguns, but their training, and orders from their commanders, told them to “secure the perimeter” so the shooters couldn’t escape and couldn’t pursue the students who had fled. And by the time the trained SWAT units were pulling in, the killers were on the move again.



Leaving the library, Harris and Klebold walked down a flight of stairs to the cafeteria. It was empty, except for 450 book bags and the four students who hid beneath tables. All the killing and the yelling upstairs had made the shooters thirsty. Surveillance cameras recorded them as they drank from cups that fleeing kids had left on tables. Then they went back to work. They were frustrated that the bombs they had left, inside and outside, had not exploded, and they watched out the windows as the police and ambulances and SWAT teams descended on the school.



Most people watching the live television coverage that day saw them too, the nearly 800 police officers who would eventually mass outside the high school. The TV audience saw SWAT-team members who stood for hours outside, while, as far as everyone knew at the time, the gunmen were holding kids hostage inside. For the parents whose children were still trapped, there was no excuse for the wait. “When 500 officers go to a battle zone and not one comes away with a scratch, then something’s wrong,” charges Dale Todd, whose son Evan was wounded inside the school. “I expected dead officers, crippled officers, disfigured officers–not just children and teachers."



This criticism is "like a punch in the gut,” says sheriff’s captain Terry Manwaring, who was the SWAT commander that day. “We were prepared to die for those kids."



So why the delay in attacking the gunmen? Chaos played a big part. From the moment of the first report of gunshots at Columbine, SWAT-team members raced in from every direction, some without their equipment, some in jeans and T shirts, just trying to get there quickly. They had only two Plexiglas ballistic shields among them. As Manwaring dressed in his bulletproof gear, he says, he asked several kids to draw on notebook paper whatever they could remember of the layout of the sprawling, 250,000-sq.-ft. school. But the kids were so upset that they were not even sure which way was north.



Through most of the 46 minutes that Harris and Klebold were shooting up the school, police say they couldn’t tell where the gunmen were, or how many of them there were. Students and teachers trapped in various parts of the school were flooding 911 dispatchers with calls reporting that the shooters were, simultaneously, inside the cafeteria, the library and the front office. They might have simply followed the sounds of gunfire–except, police say, fire alarms were ringing so loudly that they couldn’t hear a gunshot 20 feet away.



So the officers treated the problem as a hostage situation, moving into the school through entrances far from the one where Harris and Klebold entered. The units painstakingly searched each hallway and closet and classroom and crawl space for gunmen, bombs and booby traps. "Every time we came around a corner,” says Sergeant Allen Simmons, who led the first four SWAT officers inside, “we didn’t know what was waiting for us.” They created safe corridors to evacuate the students they found hiding in classrooms. And they moved very slowly and cautiously.



Evan Todd, 16, tells a different story. Wounded in the library, he waited until the killers moved on, and then he fled outside to safety. Evan, who is familiar with guns, says he immediately briefed a dozen police officers. “I described it all to them–the guns they were using, the ammo. I told them they could save lives [of the wounded still in the library if they moved in right away]. They told me to calm down and take my frustrations elsewhere."



At about noon Harris and Klebold returned to the library. All but two wounded kids and four teachers had managed to get out while they were gone. The gunmen fired a few more rounds out the window at cops and medics below. Then Klebold placed one final Molotov cocktail, made from a Frappuccino bottle, on a table. As it sizzled and smoked, Harris shot himself, falling to the floor. When Klebold fired seconds later, his Boston Red Sox cap landed on Harris’ leg. They were dead by 12:05 p.m., when the sprinkler turned on, extinguishing what was supposed to be their last bomb.



But the police didn’t know any of this. They were still searching, slowly, along corridors and in classrooms. They found two janitors hiding in the meat freezer. Students and teachers had barricaded themselves and refused to open doors, worried that the shooters might be posing as cops.



Upstairs in a science classroom, student Kevin Starkey called 911. Teacher Dave Sanders had been shot running in the upstairs hallway, trying to warn people; he was bleeding badly and needed help fast. But by this time the 911 lines were so flooded with calls that the phone company started disconnecting people–including Starkey. Finally the 911 dispatcher used his personal cell phone and kept a line open to the classroom so he could help guide police there.



Listening to another dispatcher in his earpiece, Sergeant Barry Williams, who was leading a second SWAT team inside, tried to track Sanders down–but he says no one could tell him where the science rooms were. Still, he and his team searched on, looking for a rag that kids said they had tied on the doorknob as a signal.



The team finally found Sanders in a room with 50 or 60 kids. A paramedic went to work, trying to stop the bleeding and get him out to an ambulance. But it had all taken too long. Though Harris and Klebold had killed themselves three hours earlier, the SWAT team hadn’t reached Sanders until close to 3 p.m.



Sanders’ daughter Angela often talks to the students who tried to save her dad. "How many of those kids could have lived if they had moved more quickly?” she asks. “This is what I do every day. I sit and ponder, 'What if?’"



The SWAT team members wonder too. By the time they got to the library, they found that the assault on the school was all over. Scattered around the library was "a sea of bombs” that had not exploded. Trying not to kick anything, the SWAT team members looked for survivors. And then they found the killers, already dead. “We’ll never know why they stopped when they did,” says Battan.



Given how long the cops took and how much ammunition the killers had, the death toll could have been far worse. But some parents still think it didn’t need to have been as high as it was. They pressed Colorado Governor Bill Owens, who has appointed a commission to review Columbine and possibly update SWAT tactics for assailants who are moving and shooting. “There may be times when you just walk through until you find the killers,” Owens says. “This is the first time this has happened.” The local lawmen “didn’t know what they were dealing with."



THE PARENTS



Before the SWAT teams ever found the gunmen’s bodies, investigators had already left to search the boys’ homes: the kids who had managed to flee had told them whom they should be hunting.



When they knocked on each family’s door, it was Mr. Harris and Mr. Klebold who answered. By then, news of the assault at Columbine was playing out live on TV. Mr. Harris’ first reflex was to call his wife and tell her to come home. And he called his lawyer.



The Klebolds had not been told that their son was definitely involved. They knew his car had been found in the parking lot. They knew witnesses had identified him as a gunman. They knew he was friends with Harris. And they knew he still had not come home, though it was getting late. Mr. Klebold said they had to face the facts. But neither he nor his wife was ready to accept the ugly truth, and they couldn’t believe it was happening. "This is real,” Mr. Klebold kept saying, as if he had to convince himself. “He’s involved."



Within 10 days, the Klebolds sat down with investigators and began to answer their questions. It would be months before the same interviews would take place with the Harrises, who were seeking immunity from prosecution. District Attorney David Thomas says he has not ruled out charges. But at this point, he lacks sufficient evidence of any wrongdoing. And he is not sure whether charging the parents would do any good. "Could I really do anything to punish them anymore?"



Sheriff Stone questioned the Harrises himself. "You want to go after them. How could they not know?” says Stone. “Then you realize they are no different from the rest of us."



Still, of all the unresolved issues about who knew what, the most serious involves Mr. Harris. Investigators have heard from former Columbine student Nathan Dykeman that Mr. Harris may once have found a pipe bomb. Nathan claims Eric Harris told him that his dad took him out and they detonated it together. Nathan is a problematic witness, partly because he accepted money from tabloids after the massacre. His story also amounts to hearsay because it is based on something Harris supposedly said. Investigators have not been able to ask Mr. Harris about it either; the Harrises’ lawyer put that kind of question off limits as a condition for their sitting down with investigators at all.



As for the Klebolds, Kate Battan and her sergeant, Randy West, were convinced after their interviews that the parents were fooled liked everyone else. "They were not absentee parents. They’re normal people who seem to care for their children and were involved in their life,” says Battan. They too have suffered a terrible loss, both of a child and of their trust in their instincts. On what would have been Klebold’s 18th birthday recently, Susan Klebold baked him a cake. “They don’t have victims’ advocates to help them through this,” Battan says. They do, however, have a band of devoted friends, and see one or more of them almost every day. In private, the Klebolds try to recall every interaction they had with the son they now realize they never knew: the talks, the car rides, the times they grounded him for something minor. “She wants to know all of it,” a friend says of Mrs. Klebold.



Many of the victims’ parents wish they could talk to the Klebolds and Harrises, parent to parent. Donna Taylor is caring for her son Mark, 16, who took six 9-mm rounds and spent 39 days in the hospital. She has tried to make contact. “We just want to know,” she explains. “From Day One, I wanted to meet and talk with them. I mean, maybe they did watch their boys, and we’re not hearing their story."



Throughout the videotapes, it seems as though the only people about whom the killers felt remorse were their parents. "It f___ing sucks to do this to them,” Harris says of his parents. “They’re going to be put through hell once we do this.” And then he speaks directly to them. “There’s nothing you guys could’ve done to prevent this,” he says.



Klebold tells his mom and dad they have been “great parents” who taught him “self-awareness, self-reliance…I always appreciated that.” He adds, “I’m sorry I have so much rage."



At one point Harris gets very quiet. His parents have probably noticed that he’s become distant, withdrawn lately–but it’s been for their own good. "I don’t want to spend any more time with them,” he says. “I wish they were out of town so I didn’t have to look at them and bond more."



Over the months, the police have kept the school apprised of the progress of their investigation: principal Frank DeAngelis has not seen the videotapes, but the evidence that the boys were motivated by many things has prompted some at the school to quietly claim vindication. The charge was that Columbine’s social climate was somehow so rancid, the abuse by the school’s athletes so relentless, that it drove these boys to murder. The police investigation provides the school with its best defense. "There is nowhere in any of the sheriff’s or school’s investigation of what happened that shows this was caused by jock culture,” says county school spokesman Rick Kaufman. “Both Harris and Klebold dished out as much ribbing as they received. They wanted to become cult heroes. They wanted to make a statement."



That’s an overstatement, and it begs the question of why the boys wanted to make such an obscene statement. But many students and faculty were horrified by the way their school was portrayed after the massacre and have tried for the past eight months to correct the record. "I have asked students on occasion,” says DeAngelis, “'The things you’ve read in the paper–is that happening? Am I just naive?’ And they’ve said, 'Mr. DeAngelis, we don’t see it.’"



Maybe they saw the kids who flicked the ketchup packets or tossed the bottles at the trench-coat kids in the cafeteria. But things never got out of hand, they say. Evan Todd, the 255-lb. defensive lineman who was wounded in the library, describes the climate this way: "Columbine is a clean, good place except for those rejects,” Todd says of Klebold and Harris and their friends. “Most kids didn’t want them there. They were into witchcraft. They were into voodoo dolls. Sure, we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It’s not just jocks; the whole school’s disgusted with them. They’re a bunch of homos, grabbing each other’s private parts. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease 'em. So the whole school would call them homos, and when they did something sick, we’d tell them, 'You’re sick and that’s wrong.’"



Others agree that the whole social-cruelty angle was overblown–just like the notion that the Trench Coat Mafia was some kind of gang, which it never was. Steven Meier, an English teacher and adviser to the school newspaper, says, "I think these kids wanted to do something that they could be famous for. Other people tend to wait until they graduate and try to make their mark in the working world and try to be famous in a positive way. I think these kids had a dismal view of life and of their own mortality. To just focus on the bullying aspect is just to focus on one small piece of the entire picture.” Meier points out that Harris’ brother, from all accounts, is a great kid. “Why would a family have one good son and one bad son?” asks Meier. “Why is it that some people turn out to be rotten?"



The killers made their last videotape on the morning of the massacre. This is the only tape the Klebolds have seen; the Harrises have seen none of them. First Harris holds the camera while Klebold speaks. As the camera zooms in tight, Klebold is wearing a Boston Red Sox cap, turned backward. "It’s a half-hour before our Judgment Day,” Klebold says into the camera. He wants to tell his parents goodbye. “I didn’t like life very much,” he says. “Just know I’m going to a better place than here,” he says.



He takes the camera from Harris, who begins his quick goodbye. “I know my mom and dad will be in shock and disbelief,” he says. “I can’t help it."



Klebold interrupts. "It’s what we had to do,” he says. Then they list some favorite CDs and other belongings that they want to will to certain friends. Klebold snaps his fingers for Harris to hurry up. Time’s running out.



“That’s it,” concludes Harris, very succinctly. “Sorry. Goodbye."



–With reporting by Andrew Goldstein, Maureen Harrington and Richard Woodbury/Littleton



[BOX]



WHAT THE INVESTIGATORS HAVE LEARNED



–WARNINGS WERE IGNORED Police received complaints about Harris’ violent website, which contained threats against another student, but failed to investigate.



–THEY PLOTTED FOR A FULL YEAR Harris and Klebold had planned their attack on Columbine for more than a year. They had wanted to strike on April 19, but later let it slip by a day.



–THERE WAS NO BACKUP PLAN The duo had planned to gun down students as they fled bombs in the cafeteria. But the bombs fizzled, and the gunmen began firing aimlessly.



–SWAT TEAMS WERE TOO LATE The best chance to get the killers was during their first 7 min. in the library. But by the time the teams deployed, the killers were moving.



–GUNMEN WERE EQUAL PARTNERS Though Harris has been called the dominant personality, ballistics show Klebold fired about as many rounds and killed about as many victims.



-QUOT-



"Tick, tick, tick, tick… Haa! That f__ing shotgun is straight out of Doom.” –ERIC HARRIS



“People constantly make fun of my face, my hair, my shirts.” –ERIC HARRIS



“Directors will be fighting over this story.” –DYLAN KLEBOLD



“Tarantino… Spielberg.” –ERIC HARRIS



“I’m sorry. Like Shakespeare says, Good wombs hath borne bad sons.” –ERIC HARRIS



“I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us s___ for years.” –DYLAN KLEBOLD



(More Transcripts)



March 15th … Over an hour long



Eric & Dylan are in the basement family room at Eric’s residence at 8276 South Reed Street



Eric is sitting on a couch & Dylan is sitting on an adjacent chair



Most of the tape is taken from this position while they discuss a number of different topics



They say “Thanks to Mark John Doe & Phil John Doe” [Mark Edward Manes 3-25-77 & Philip Joseph Duran 11-28-76] “We used them, they had no clue. If it hadn’t been them it would have been someone else over 21"



They mention Green Mountain Guns’ message on Eric’s answering machine "Your clips are in"

They laugh about it & discuss it as almost having ruined their plan.



They talk about Brandon Larson [Brandon E Larson Grade 10] stating "You will find his body"



They discuss bombs & reference "two bags” of “propane and napalm” sitting quietly



They discuss the shotgun & “Mr Stevens” [Mark C Stevens 11-11-58 Tanner Gun Show]



They say “We’re proving ourselves” They go on to discuss philosophies



Eric states that he is not spending time with his family so there won’t be any “bonding” & “this won’t be harder to do"

Eric states "I’m sorry I have so much rage but you put it on me"

Eric goes on to complain about his father & the fact that they had to move five times & that he was always the new kid in school & always at the bottom of the "food chain” & had no chance to earn any respect



Eric is wearing a black t-shirt with “Wilder Wein” [Rammstein song means Wild Wine] on the front. Eric references his shirt several times but does not explain what it means



Dylan says “Fuck you Walsh” They reference “Walsh” patrolling in Deer Creek

[Deputy Tim S Walsh JCSO]



At one point they make some comments about there being a “month and a half left"



They again reference Green Mountain Guns & the message on the machine "your clips are in"



Eric talks about one of the times they went shooting in the mountains

He says his shotgun was in his "terrorist bag sticking out"

He said he walked by his mother but she only thought it was his pellet gun



They go on to discuss several individuals

They refer to "Dustin Harrison” [Dustin Luke Harrison 5-2-80] that “everything you say is pointless"

They refer to "Nick” [Nicholas Justin Foss 5-5-80 or Nicholas J Baumgart 5-14-81] that “he laughs too much"

Eric refers to "Rachel & Jen” [Rachel Katherine Baker 11-11-80 & Jennifer Kristen Grant 3-23-81” as “Christianic bitches” & “shooting them in the head"



Eric discusses “Arlene” & about it being a 12 gauge Savage shotgun



They say “Thank’s to the gun show & to Robyn” “Robyn is very cool” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80]



They then decide to video tape a tour of “Reb’s room” & all the “illegal shit"



During the time that they have been sitting on the couch & the chair they were drinking from a Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle. Eric mentions that he has the whiskey bottle



They stand up from where they had been sitting & take the camera & begin video taping Enc’s lower level bedroom



They began video taping a desk with a hutch in Eric’s bedroom

Eric points out a pair of gloves he took from a doctor’s office which he uses for "making bombs"

He points to numerous packages of fireworks on top of a speaker on top of the hutch

He points to a pop can with several shots through it & numerous shotgun shells which were sitting on the hutch

He points to a small "black treasure chest” & says it is a “good hiding place"

He points to a small bullet & references it to being his "first bullet"

He points to solar igniters, engines, batteries, clocks & pipes in a drawer

They describe clocks in the desk drawer as two "future bombs”'

He describes “completed pipe bombs” & pulls them out from a Home Base bag in one of the desk drawers

He describes “BETA batch” pipe bombs & pulls them out from another Home Base bag in one of the desk drawers



Dylan mentions a “bunker” & attempts to video tape out the west window of Eric’s room but it is dark outside & you cannot see anything other than the glare on the window. Dylan states there is a patch of ground where it is buried under the dirt. Eric states [in the bunker] there are “four mortar grenades, ten crickets, and three ALPHA’s"



Eric then points to a blue spiral notebook which he describes as his "journal"



They show a box of "crickets” which appear to be small CO2 cartridges



They began video taping a dresser on the west wall of Eric’s room.

He opens up a dresser door/drawer & points out a “Hell dog drawing” which is taped to the inside of that door/drawer & mentions it was given to him years ago. Next to it is a piece of paper “Anarchist substitute ingredient list"

Eric describes a "25 pound bag of #8 buckshot” which is inside that dresser but doesn’t show the bag on the video



Eric then pulls out a BB rifle box from a “hall closet” & states this is where he keeps his shotgun



Eric then pulls out a box from within his room closet & states this is his knife. He pulls it out & says he paid $15 for it. The knife is in a black sheath. He states there is a “swastika” on it. The camera zooms in where you can see what appears to be a swastika carved into the sheath



On the east wall of Eric’s room, adjacent to a bedroom door, they point out a coil of green wire hanging on a wall which they describe as “50 feet of cannon fuse"



They then go to a book case also on the east wall of Eric’s bedroom.

From there they talk about a "Demon Knight” CD & open the case, revealing a Green Mountain Guns receipt for a purchase of “nine magazines” for $15 each

Eric removes a rack of CD’s to reveal three pipe bombs which he says are the “biggest"

Eric pulls out a small black card file type box containing "29 crickets” CO2 cartridge bombs



Eric points to an unseen area that has a “coffee can in the corner which is full of gun powder"



On the north wall floor of Eric’s bedroom is a black plastic box with "EXPLOSIVES” etched into the side of it

Dylan mentions how Eric’s parents took it away but Eric then clarifies that they only took the bomb out of it & left him with the box

Inside the box are clock parts, fuses, tools & CO2 cartridges



They also show a white plastic file case containing “nails for pipe bombs, caps to be filled with gun powder” two boxes 50 each of 9mm bullets, 12 shotgun shells in a box, another box of shotgun shells, clips for a gun & webbing.



Eric says “What you will find on my body in April"



The tape is shut off … @ 1:28am March 15th





The tape is started … March 18th



Eric & Dylan are in the lower level family room of Eric’s house



They state it is now "March 18th in the middle of the night"



They talk about "ECHO & DELTA” pipe bombs & whether or not to put nails on them or not



They state that “religions are gay” & for “people who are weak and can’t deal with life"



They state that they need to discuss secondary objectives to place the bombs, places that are "out of the way"

Dylan discusses a trail by Wadsworth "by your [Eric’s] old house” [7844 South Teller Court]

They mention that they should “rig something up with a trip bomb between two trees, so when someone goes down the path it will go off"

They then discuss the possibility of placing "time bombs down there"

They then discuss it would be "harder and take more resources"

They state "this will add a few frags to the list” & that the “fucking fire department is going to be busy for a month"



They mention an individual by the name of ”?“ They say the name ”?“

Eric describes how he is going to "shoot ? in the groin area” [? Cale Martin Kennedy 8-3-81]



They mention “Jesse Gordon” [Jesse Bruce Gordon 12-31-80] & the “Goof Troop"



They mention that "n***** stopped us that day” & how black people talk in “ebonics"

They discuss "spics"



They discuss bowling & how each individual in the bowling class has a designated culture group to use as a target on the bowling pins to kill & that this assists them in bowling better



They mention that "world peace is an impossible thing"



They discuss that you can look on the internet & learn how to make, "bombs, poison, napalm, & how to buy guns if you’re underage"



They state that "Mrs X-Y-Z bought our guns” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80]



They mention that there is “only two weeks left & one more weekend” & that “it is coming up fucking quick"



They state that the "napalm better not freeze at that certain person’s house"



They discuss "Chris pizza’s house” [? Chris Lau 9-11-65 took ownership of BlackJack Pizza March 8] as if they’re trying to disguise a name



They go on to discuss “Yoshi” [Yoshi S Carroll 6-21-80] in a negative fashion



They say that they need a “lot more napalm” & may just use “gas & oil"

They discuss that it will be tough & opening the zipper may make it go off & needing some "back ups"

They state that the sprinkler system may "put out a fire"

Eric mentions that he should possibly keep the battery out of the device, set the bag, put it in & leave so it doesn’t "blow up in the commons"



They discuss "credit card fraud” & Eric raises his hand as if he had done it



They talk about “tests” stating “We wouldn’t be where we are without them"



They discuss gas & oil and it being "one hell of a mental picture"

They mention the possibility of people catching on fire



They state that graduation will be a "graduation memorial service with lots of people crying"

They also mention that there will probably be a candle light memorial



Eric says that he’s got "100 bullets and 10 loaded clips” & that he needs lasers for his carbine



They then address the camera & say “You guys are lucky it doesn’t hold more ammo"



Dylan states that he has a "50 round clip, two 36’s & a 24"



They mention that "there is a lot of shit to do"

They state they need to set up more "propane bombs” & get more containers

Dylan says he needs to get his pants, fill his clip & get his pouches to load his shells in

They say they need “devices” for the “propane tanks"

They state they need more "bomb holders"

Eric mentions that they need to go to Radio Shack because he heard there is a "thing to increase the voltage” it some how increases through a clock & speaker & ignites a solar ignitor

Eric says he will tell the people he is doing special effects for a movie and “that will be a good excuse"



They state "We are but we aren’t psycho"



Dylan asked Eric if he thinks the cops will listen to the whole video

They say they believe that the video will be cut up into little pieces & the police will just show the public what they want it to look like



They mention that they want to distribute the videos to four news stations & that Eric is going to scan his journal & then send copies by e-mail & distribute blue prints and maps



Eric then mentions "TIER” [DOOM mod/wad] & describes it as “my life’s work” & wanting to get it “published"







Item #200 Sony 8mm video camera serial #74415

On side of camera is engraved "Columbine High School"

Battery engraved "CHS LMC"



Item #333 8mm Tape "Top Secret Rampart"



Late March …



Eric is video taping Dylan.



On the floor are laid out numerous pipe bombs:

Three are the "CHARLIE Batch” & they are two inches in diameter & six inches in length

Six appear to be about one inch in diameter & about six inches in length

Twelve appear to be about one & one half inches in diameter & about six inches in length.

All of these pipe bombs are wrapped in duct tape



Also on the floor is a sawed off shotgun which Eric refers to as “Arlene"

While Eric is video taping the shotgun, it appears that "Arlene” is etched into the side of the gun.



Also on the floor is a black long gun which Eric refers to as a carbine

Thirteen clips are observed on the floor

Eric says that they [9] were from Green Mountain Guns & “Yes they did have the right number"



Also on the floor are two boxes of what appear to be 9mm bullets



Eric points out "my bandolier of stuff, & states it will be filled with "napalm"



Also on the floor is a black plastic box which is filled with duct taped items Eric describes as twenty nine "crickets” & states they are his grenades



Eric then gives the camera to Dylan who films Eric holding some of the guns



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started …



Eric is wearing black BDU’s, no shirt & a web type harness, carrying the 9mm carbine attached to a sling, holding the shotgun



At one point Eric places the shotgun into one of the cargo pockets, & then with a web strap secures it so that it is at his side



Dylan comments about Eric as a “soon to be eighteen year old” [Eric’s bday is April 9]



At one point Dylan refers to “my Tec” & states he wants to do something with it “this weekend, maybe tomorrow"



At the same time Dylan says, "my parents are going to fucking Passover” [Passover is April 1]



Dylan moves from filming Eric in the lower level family room to the inside of Eric’s bedroom

Dylan films the west window inside Eric’s room, & calls it a “bunker” & says “you can’t see it, it’s buried there” “That’s why it’s called a bunker"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 6th



Eric is driving alone with the camera recording him from the dashboard



It is dark outside & there are raindrops on the window of the car.



At one point you see a street sign that says "Federal"



There is music playing in the car which is fairly loud



Eric mentions "the BlackJack crew” “Jason” [Jason Secore 9-29-72] & “Chris” [Christopher Richard Morris 6-9-81] Eric says “you guys are very cool ” “Sorry dudes I had to do what I had to do"



Eric also mentions "Angel” [Angel Pytlinski] “Phil” [Philip Joseph Duran 11-28-76] & “Bob” [Robert “Bob” Hossein Kirgis 5-24-70] “Bob is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met in my life, except for being an alcoholic.” Eric says he’s going to miss Bob



Eric states “It is a weird feeling knowing you’re going to be dead in 2 weeks"



Eric mentions not being able to decide "if we should do it before or after prom"



Eric says he wishied he could have revisited Michigan & "old friends"

At this point he becomes silent & starts crying & wipes a tear from the left side of his face



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 17th



Eric is filming Dylan in Dylan’s bedroom at 9351 Cougar Road



Dylan is wearing black BDU’s, a black t-shirt with "Wrath” in red print across the front



He attaches black suspenders to his pants & also attaches a tan ammo type pouch to his belt or suspenders & a green canvas pouch to his right shin



He then removes some items from an open small suitcase/hard sided briefcase on the floor



He takes a sawed off shotgun & places it into a cargo pocket on his pants & then attaches it with webbing so that it stays in place



He has the Tec 9 on a sling over his shoulder



He comments about his “50 round clip"



He mentions "Brandon Larson” [Brandon E Larson Grade 10] & his head being on his knife



He mentions “Robyn” [Robyn Kay Anderson 11-4-80] & going to prom with her

He says he didn’t want to go & that his parents are paying for it



Eric comments about having three bags to use



They talk about wanting to “practice” the next couple of nights



Eric mentions that they got “lasers and more propane today"



Eric also mentions four big black containers & two of some sort of other fuel [inaudible]



They begin talking about writing poems in "Kelly’s class today” [Teacher Judy/Judith Kelly 5-6-48 Creative Writing] & how ridiculous it was



They then begin talking about the double barrel shotgun

Dylan says “thanks Mr Stevens” [Mark C Stevens 11-11-58 Tanner Gun Show] & tells Eric “he knew I was fucking buying it"



Dylan puts on his long black trench coat & says "I’m fat on this side” & talks about how he looks “fat with all the stuff on"



Dylan tries to toss the Tec 9 into his hand from the position where it was hanging on the sling. The coat prohibited him from doing that

Dylan then says "I’ll have to take the coat off"

He begins complaining about how he doesn’t want to take his coat off & states he likes his coat



They state that the "fucking snow is gay” relating to the weather outside

They “hope the shit clears out by Tuesday, actually Sunday"

Eric says he "needs dry weather for my fires"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 20th 1 minute & 20 seconds long



Dylan is wearing a black hat backwards with a "B” outlined in white on the back of the hat.

He is wearing a plaid shirt untucked, which is either black or dark blue with white

He is wearing black BDU type pants tucked into military style lace-up boots



Eric is wearing a plaid shirt which appears to be black or dark blue with white

There is a white t-shirt under the plaid shirt

The lower portion of Harris body is not visible



On the floor are several bags

One appears to be a large maroon bag



Eric is filming Dylan in the family room on the main level of Eric’s house



Eric says “Say it now"



Dylan says "Hey mom. Gotta go. It’s about half an hour before our little judgement day. I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any crap this might instigate as far as [inaudible] or something. Just know I’m going to a better place than here. I didn’t like life too much & I know I’ll be happier wherever the fuck I go. So I’m gone. Good-bye” “Reb …"



Dylan takes the camera & starts filming Eric



Eric says "Yeah … Everyone I love I’m really sorry about all this. I know my mom & dad will be just like just fucking shocked beyond belief. I’m sorry alright. I can’t help it"



Dylan interjects "We did what we had to do"



Eric then says "Morris, Nate, if you guys live I want you guys to have whatever you want from my room & the computer room"



Dylan states they can also have his possessions



Eric then says "Susan sorry. Under different circumstances it would’ve been a lot different.

I want you to have that fly cd"



Both then say "Good bye"







Item #298 Two 8mm Tapes [Tape 1 is "Reb’s Tape”] [Tape 2 is Radioactive Cothing]



April 11th …



During daylight hours, Eric is driving & Dylan is in the passenger seat



They state “We are on our way to get the rest of our gear"



They mention that it is now "Monday, April 11th"



Dylan says he has ”$200 dollars on him"



Eric says that he is going to “cash a check for $50"



Dylan mentions that they have been "planning this for over eight months"

Eric says "At least"



They pass the intersection of "Sante Fe & Mineral"



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started …



During daylight hours, Eric is driving & Dylan is in the passenger seat



They are stopped at a stop light or stop sign on the east side of Broadway north of Hampden



Eric is smoking a large cigar & states it is his "birthday cigar"



They say they have just purchased two rather large fuel containers & three propane bottles & Dylan also got his pants/BDU’s [Army Navy - Coleman Fuel/Propane/CO2/BDU’s]



The tape is shut off …





The tape is started … April 12th 17 minutes long



Eric is alone with the video camera resting either on his knee or something else & filming directly at his face



Behind him is a headboard & behind the headboard is a bulletin board



Eric talks about his mother & father & the cops who may want to have his "parents pay"



He describes his parents as the "best parents” & states that anything they would have tried to do this past year he would have gotten around it



Eric states “there is no one else to blame but me and Vodka"



Eric then states it’s been "hard” on him recently



He mentions that his parents have been on his “back for putting things off such as "insurance & the Marine Corp"



He says "this is my last week on earth"



He says "to you Culios out there still alive, sorry I hurt you or your friends"



He mentions that this is total "KMFDM"



Eric states "there are 7 and 1/3 days left"



Eric then gets an odd look on his face and says "Fucking bitches"

He mentions five names: ”? full name” [female 4-25-81 Aurora]

“?” [Megan] [Megan Steckly Grade 9 - Jeffco not 100% sure of this Lead]

“?” [Karen] [Karen Ann Schott 10-13-80]

“?” [Tanya] [Tanya Worlock 9-29-82]

“?” [Unknown]



He says he’s going to be “one tired mother fucker come Monday then Boom! I’ll get shot & die"



Eric then goes on to film his planning book/notebook & describes it as the “writings of God"



He says that his beliefs have changed somewhat during the year, over the course of time he has been writing



He turns to the page [026022] of figurines drawn with ammo, bombs & guns

He states that it is the "drawing of gear, back when we thought we could get calico’s"

He points to a picture with a backpack labeled "napalm” He says this is the “suicide plan"



He turns to the page [026023] of the inventories of the bombs

He points to the top of the page & states that these are how many bullets they’re going to have



He points to [026026-026027] some drawings in the back stating they are "DOOM drawings"



He points to page [026028] of different types of weapons & states that these are "plans for rocket launchers & such. Most will not see the new world"



He points to page [026029] of more"DOOM drawings” with a “KMFDM twist to them”