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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Unraveling Columbine Part VI
The lives of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold offer a cautionary tale that continues to evoke a mix of empathy and dread. As we unravel the layers of their upbringing, particularly focusing on Dylan’s journey within a family that prized ethics amidst financial comfort, the contrast between his internal battles and Eric’s outward fascinations stands stark. We also shine a light on figures like Reverend Don Marxhausen, who endeavored to provide spiritual comfort in the aftermath of chaos, reflecting a community grappling with responsibility and healing. Through these narratives, we seek to understand the personal struggles that prefaced the unthinkable events at Columbine.
The ripple effect of the tragedy extends beyond the immediate moment, affecting the lives of those like Tom and Sue Kleborg, who are caught in the profound and isolating burden of their son's actions. We look into societal responses through the poignant lens of grief and compassion, mirrored in biblical parallels that highlight the universal struggle with forgiveness and blame. This episode further explores the early friendships and fantasies that shaped Eric and Dylan, painting a haunting picture of their adolescent world through the eyes of peers who saw both light and shadows in their personalities.
Within the crucible of a school under siege, we encounter moments of fear, bravery, and resilience. The desperate attempts to save a life amidst chaos testify to human endurance. As Eric’s evolution from preppy youth to rebellious outcast unfolds, we also investigate the myths and truths surrounding the Trench Coat Mafia. This story weaves through the misunderstandings and the reality of affiliations that complicate the narrative. Join us as we navigate these troubled waters, offering insights into a tragedy that forever altered a community and a nation.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and this is part six of Unraveling the Columbine Tragedy. Let's begin. Detectives assembled portraits of the killers that felt maddeningly similar and vanilla Maddening Knees. Similar and Vanilla.
Speaker 1:They were the youngest sons of comfortable, two-parent, two-child, quiet, small-town families. The Claiborne's had more money than the Harris's. The Harris's were more mobile. Each boy grew up in the shadow of a single older sibling, a bigger, taller, stronger brother. Eric and Dylan would eventually share the same hobbies, classes, job, friends, clothing choices and clubs, but they had remarkably different interior lives. Dylan always saw himself as inferior. The anger and the loathing traveled inward. Anger and the loathing traveled inward, and one of the neighbors who always almost became the neighborhood mom for a lot of those kids mentioned that Dylan was taking it out on himself. Dylan's mother was Jewish. Slue Claiborne had been born to Justinoff. She was part of a prominent Jewish family in Columbus Ohio. Her paternal grandfather had been a philanthropist and a bit of a local tycoon, and this was even a Jewish community center in the city that was established by him, by this grandfather. Classmates said that Dylan never shared Eric's fascination with Hitler and Nazis or Germany, and some suggested it bothered him Germany and some suggested it bother him.
Speaker 1:Tom was, his father was Lutheran and the family practiced some of each religion. They celebrated Easter and Passover with a traditional cedar. Most of the year they remained quietly spiritual, without much organized religion, without much organized religion. In the mid-1990s they took a step at a traditional church. They joined the parish of St Philip Lutheran Church. The boys went to services along with their parents. Their pastor was Reverend Don Maxhausen and he described them as hardworking, very intelligent, 60s kind of people. They don't believe in violence or guns or racism and certainly they're not anti-Semitic. They like Reverend Max Hausen. But formal church service just wasn't a good fit for them. So they attended for a brief time and then they dropped away.
Speaker 1:Suh spent her career in higher education. She began as a tutor, then a lab assistant and finally she worked with disabled students. As a matter of fact, she had a master's degree with an endorsement in reading specialist and in 1997, she left a local community college for a position with the Colorado Community College System. She coordinated a program there to help vocational rehab students get jobs and training there to help vocational rehab students get jobs and training Tom. He did reasonably well in the oil business. He started with an undergrad degree in sculpture, but then he relocated to Columbus, ohio. He got a master's degree in geophysics, so he got into the oil business. He was really good at renovating and renting out apartments. That's what he really liked to do. He was great with repairs and remodeling and the hobby became a business and Tom and Sue formed Fountain Real Estate Management to buy and administer the properties. Tom continued consulting to independent oil companies part-time.
Speaker 1:The Clebers were rising financially but worried about spoiling their kids. Ethics were centered in their household and the boys needed to learn restraint. Tom and Sue settled on appropriate figures to spend on the boys and stuck to them. They stuck to those figures. One Christmas Dylan wanted an expensive baseball card that would have consumed his entire gift budget and Sue was torn One tiny present in addition to the card for her boy. Maybe she could spend a little extra, but no, they decided against that because austerity was a gift too and Dylan got what he had asked for and no more.
Speaker 1:In 1990, as Metro Denver encroached into Jeffco, the clabbered retreated beyond the hog bag, the first strip of foothills hundreds of feet high, which from the air looked like the bumps along a hog's back. The hogback functions like Denver's coastline. It feels like civilization ends there. Roads are scarce, homes are distant and highly exclusive. Shops and commerce and activity are almost non-existent. The family move into the run-down glass and cedar house on Deer Creek Mesa inside a panoramic rock formation. It's a smaller version of, it's like a smaller version of the Red Rocks Amphitheater which is a few miles away. Tom gradually brought the house back into stunning shape. Dylan officially lived in the backcountry, now part-time country boy, riding over to the populated side every morning for school in suburbia.
Speaker 1:In seventh grade Dylan faced a frightening transition. He had been sheltered among the brainiacs of a gifted school called CHIPS CHIPS stands for Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students and he started there or he has been there since third grade and he was a math prodigy. And now in seventh grade he's going to have to transition and get away from that shelter school, from the Brainess and Chips, and go to Ken Carroll Middle School. That was five times as big and it didn't have a gifted program. That was five times as big and it didn't have a gifted program. So Tom, the dad, described Dylan lurching from crater to reality.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, in reality, in present day, reverend Max Housen, the reverend whose church they attended for a little while. St Philip Lutheran Church led a congregation of several thousand when the tragedy of Columbine was happening and he got all the information about what happened. He went that night to his office and checked the parish rolls. Tom and Sue, clebert and the two boys, dylan and Byron, had registered five years ago. They had not stayed long but he felt that that should not diminish his responsibility. If they had failed to find a spiritual home, he felt that they remained under his care. He found a family close to Tom and Sue and sent word that he was available. And the Cleberts called a few days later and Tom said I need your help and that was obvious because his voice on the phone was shaking. He needed a funeral for his boy. How embarrassing to ask after a five-year absence. But Tom was out of options and he also had a requirement. He said this funeral has to be confidential. And of course Maxhausen said of course you got my help and it will be confidential. He talked to Tom and then to Sue, asked how they were doing and the word that they used was devastated and he didn't dare to ask them any more questions.
Speaker 1:Tom and Sue received the body on Thursday. The service was conducted on Saturday. It was done quietly with just 15 people, including friends, family and clergy. Markshausen but another minister and both their wives, dylan, lay in an open casket. His face restored, no sign of the gaping head wound. He looked peaceful. His face was surrounded by a circle of beanie babies and other stuffed animals.
Speaker 1:When Max Harsin arrived, ton was in denial. Sue was falling apart. She crumbled into Pastor's arms. Max Harsin engulfed her. Her frail body quaked and she sobbed for perhaps a minute and a half, which is a long time. He said. Tom first couldn't see his little boy as that killer. He kept repeating that was not my son and he told the pastor what you see in the news and the papers was not my son.
Speaker 1:The other mourners arrived and the awkwardness only increased. A liturgy wasn't going to help them. Markshausen felt a terrible need to scrap his service and let them speak and he suggested do you mind if we just talk for a while and then we'll worship? So he shut the door. He asked who wanted to begin and he remembered that there was one couple that just poured out their hearts. Their son used to play with Dylan when the boys were little and they loved Dylan and Tom asked where did the guns come from? They have never had more than a BB gun. Where did the violence come from? What was this Nazi stuff and the anti-Semitism? What was this Nazi stuff and the anti-Semitism? Because, of course, sue was Jewish, she's Jewish and Dylan was half Jewish. So what kind of sense did this make? Another friend said they were such good parents. Dylan was a great kid, he was like our son. So they went around and around fewer than a dozen of them. But for 45 minutes they spilled out anguish and confusion and love for the awkward kid who had occasional outbursts. Dylan's brother, byron, mostly listened. He sat quietly between Tom and Sue and finally spoke up near the end and said I want to thank you all for being here today, for my parents and myself. I love my brother.
Speaker 1:Then Max Hausen read from scripture and offered some muted encouragement. He read the Old Testament story of Absalom, beloved son of King David. Absalom skillfully ingratiated himself to his father, the court and all the kingdom, but secretly plotted to seize the throne. Eventually he thrust Israel into civil war. He appeared poised to vanquish his father, but David's generals prevailed. The king was informed first of the triumph, then of his son's death. David's grief made the victory like a defeat and the people stole silently into the city. Markhausen read to Samuel. David wept and cried out oh, my son, absalom, my son, my son Absalom. Would God I had died for thee? Oh, absalom, my son.
Speaker 1:The Cleboards were afraid to bury Dylan. His grave would be defaced. It would become an anti-shrine. So they decided to cremate his body and kept the ashes in the house. Maxhausen assumed the media would get wind of the service. He asked one of the service. He asked one of the clever attorneys how to handle the inquiries and the attorney said just tell them what you have seen here tonight. And so he did. He told the New York Times, which featured the account on the front page.
Speaker 1:Tom and Sue were wracked by grief, guilt and utter confusion. He said they lost their son, but their son was also a killer. He told the story lovingly. He described Tom and Sue as the loneliest people on the planet. Don Max Harsin made some of his parish exceptionally proud. That was their pastor, a man who could find compassion in his heart for anyone, a man capable of consoling the people who had unwillingly produced a monster. That's why they have packed the pews to hear him every Sunday.
Speaker 1:Some of his parish and much of the community was appalled, lonely, the Claibors were lonely. Several of the victims were still awaiting burial. Survivors still faced surgery. It would be months before some would walk again or talk again or discover they never would. Some people have trouble rousing sympathy for the Clareboards. Their loneliness was not an especially popular concern. Wayne and Kathy Harris presumably held some ceremony for Eric, but they have never once spoken to the purse about it. Word never leaked. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1:No one remembers for sure how Eric and Dylan met. Eric arrived at Kent Carroll Middle School in seventh grade. Dylan was already attending. The two boys met at some point but didn't connect right away. They both continued on to Columbine High. Brooks Brown re-entered the school district there. His friendship with Dylan had fallen off after his parents moved into private schools years earlier. But he returned to public school his freshman year and met Eric on the bus Pretty soon. All three were tight. They played video games for hours. Sometimes they play in person, but they also stay up late competing online. They went to Columbine Rebel football games together freshman year. Eric was practically a celebrity because his brother was a starter on the varsity team.
Speaker 1:Eric Brooks and Dylan were three aspiring intellectuals. They took an interest in classical philosophers and Renaissance literature. All three boys were shy at that point, but Eric began breaking through his shell Just two months into high school. He asked a classmate to homecoming. She remembered him as nervous and quiet, largely forgettable, until he faked his suicide. A few days after the dance she said later, quote he had his friend take me over to his house. When I went there he was lying with his head on a rock and there was fake blood around him. He was acting like he was dead End quote. It wasn't an original stunt. He probably ripped it off of the 1970 classic movie Harold and Maude, but it weirded her out, so she refused to date him again.
Speaker 1:Eric was always a dreamer, but he liked them ugly, bleak and morose, yet boring as hell. He saw beauty in the void. Eric dreamed of a world where nothing ever happened, a world where the rest of us had been removed. Eric shared his dreams in internet chat rooms. He described them vividly to online chicks. In one he was suspended inside a small dank room like the interior hold of a ship. Futuristic yet decaying old computer screens lined the walls covered with dust and mold and vines. The moon provided the only light, trickling dimly in through the portals, shadows creeping all around A vast sea rose and fell monotonously. Nothing happened and Eric was overjoyed. He rarely encountered humans in his creations, just the occasional combatant to extinguish or disembodied voice, to drop an ironic bon mot. Dreamland. Eric has snuffed us out. He invented a world of precise textures, vivid hues and absolutely no payoff for himself. Happiness for Eric was eliminating the likes of us. Happiness for Eric was eliminating the likes of us. Extinction fantasies cropped up regularly and would obsess Eric in his final years, but in his online chats there was never a sense of him intending to do the deed. He had bold dreams for the world, but mother's ideas about himself. He was pretty convinced that we would all take care of destroying the planet without his help anyway.
Speaker 1:Zach Heckler had one class with Dylan freshman year. That was all it took. Finally somebody understood him. Brooks and Eric were fun to hang with, but they never really got Dylan, not the way Kibbe did. Zach did not care for that nickname, but it stuck. He was an insatiable snacker, so the kids had branded him Kibble and Kibby and lord kibbs. Second, dylan's teacher gave them a lot of brief study time eric would wander from the adjoining room. At first he came around to chat with dylan, but pretty soon all three were cutting up. They played doom bold.
Speaker 1:These sleepovers went to ballgames and drag races and Bundy Mears Speedway. They made fun of dumb kids and ignorant adults. Computer illiterates were the worst, especially when some fool put them in front of a class. The boys watched a ton of movies, lots of action and horror and science fantasy. They cruised the mall to pick up chicks. Eric did all the talking. Zach and Dylan hung back and followed his lead.
Speaker 1:Dylan joined the theater group. He was too shy for the stage but he worked lights and sound. Eric had no interest in that. They got close with Nate Dykeman and Chris Morris too. Mostly they hung at Dylan's. Dylan also looked after his house guests, worried about whether they were having a good time At Eric's. It was totally strict when the mayor got home, but until then Eric had free reign down in the basement where he had set up his bedroom. They had girls over show off how they nail garden crickets with the BB gun.
Speaker 1:Friendships came and went, but the bond between Zack and Dylan grew stronger. They were snarky, clever and seething with teenage anger, but way too timid to show it. Dylan and Zack needed Eric. Someone had to do the talking. Eric needed an audience. He also craved excitement. He was cool and detached, tough to rattle. Nothing seemed to face him. Dylan was a non-lit fuse. Eric led the parade Perfect fit. They were a threesome now.
Speaker 1:Eric kept improving his Doom skills. When he got bored with the images that the software provided, eric invented his own, sketching a menagerie of heroes and villains on his notepads. He hacked into the software and created new characters. Sketching a menagerie of heroes and villains on his notepads. He hacked into the software and created new characters, unique obstacles, higher levels and increasingly elaborate adventures. Many of his warriors were decked out in medieval armor and submachine guns. One was blessed with flamethrowers for forearms. Victims were frequently on fire or freshly decapitated. Eric's creations were unparalleled. In his view, eric enjoyed the act of creation.
Speaker 1:In the meantime, let's go back to present day. We have the teacher Dave Sanders. Dave Sanders' daughters were angry. Before they got confirmation that their dad was dead, they heard disturbing stories about his final hours. The impression her family was getting was that 12 victims had been goners once the bullets left the chambers, but Dave Sanders had held on for well over three hours. From what Andy understood, her father could have been saved. Dave's daughters began looking into the reports but kept their mouths shut around their mother. They had to keep the TV off. When she was awake they snatched newspapers off the doorstep and magazines out of the mailbox because they have to protect Linda. She was already a wreck.
Speaker 1:Dave Sanders was just a few feet from safety when the first shot hit him. Just a few feet from safety when the first shot hit him. He saw the killers spun around, ran for the corner trying to save a few more students on the way there. One bullet got him in the back and he tore through his ribcage and exited through his chest. The other bullet entered through the side of his neck and came out of his mouth, lacerating his tongue and chattering several teeth. The neck wound opened up one of his cavitid arteries the major blood routes to the brain. The shot to his back clipped his subclavian vein, which is a major vessel back to the heart. There was a lot of blood. Major vessel back to the heart. There was a lot of blood.
Speaker 1:Everyone had been guessing which way was the safest to run. Rich Long, who was the head of the technology department and a good friend of Dave's had chosen an opposite route. He first heard the shooting from the library, told students to get out and directed a group down the main stairway right into the cafeteria, unaware the hundreds had just fled from that location. Through the bottom of the stairs they saw bullets flying outside the windows and reversed course. At the top of the stairs they turned left away from the library and into the science wing, which also included the music rooms. They arrived just in time to see David get shot.
Speaker 1:Dave crashed into the lockers, then collapsed on the carpet. Rich and most of the students dove for the floor. Now Dave was really desperate. One senior said quote he was on his elbows trying to direct kids. Eric and Dylan were both firing. They were lobbing pipe bombs down the length of the hall. Rich yelled Dave, you gotta get up. We got to get out of here. Dave pulled himself up, staggered a few feet around the corner. Rich hurried over. As soon as he was out of the line of fire he ducked his shoulder under Dave's arm. Another teacher got Dave from the other side and they dragged him to the science wing just a dozen feet away. And Dave said Rich, they shot me in the teeth.
Speaker 1:They moved past the first and second classrooms and then entered room three. The door opened and Mr Sanders comes in and starts coughing up blood. According to sophomore Marjorie Lingham and she said it looked like part of his jaw was missing. He just poured blood. The room was full of students. The teacher had gone out to the hallway to investigate. When he came back he told them to forget the test and order everyone up against the wall. The classroom door had a glass pane, two shooters who might be stalking through the halls. The room would appear empty if anyone huddled along the interior perimeter.
Speaker 1:That's when Dave stumbled in with two teachers assisting. He collapsed again face first in the front of the room and one freshman girl said later that he left a couple of teeth where he landed. They got Dave into a chair and he said to Rich Rich, I'm not doing so well. And Rich told him you'll be okay, I'm going to go phone for help. Several teachers had arrived so Rich had ran back out into the melee searching for a phone.
Speaker 1:He learned that somebody was already calling for help so he went back and Rich said I need to go get you some help. So he went back into the smoky corridor and try another lab. But the killers were getting closer, apparently right outside the lab's door this time. So Rich finally took cover. Dave had several adults with him. Plenty of calls had been made about the shooting, so Rich had no doubt that help was on the way.
Speaker 1:Kent Friesen, another teacher with Dave, went for immediate assistance. He ran into a nearby lab where more students were huddled and he asked who knows first aid. Where more students were huddled and he asked who knows first aid and Aaron Hansi, a junior in Eagle Scout, stepped up and Friesen told him well, you need to come with me. And then all hell seemed to break loose out in the hallway and Aaron said I could feel it through the walls. With each blast I could feel the walls move. So he was scared to go out there. But freezing checked for shooters, bolted down the corridor and Aaron followed. Aaron ran through a rapid inspection of Day's condition breathing, steady airway, clear skin, warm shoulder broken, gaping wounds, heavy blood loss. Aaron stripped off his own white Adidas t-shirt to stanch the flow. Other boys volunteered their shirts. He tore several into bandage strips and improvised a few tourniquets. He bundled others together into a pillow. Dave said I got to go. I got to go and he tried to stand but failed. Teachers attended to the students. They flipped over tables to barricade the door. They opened a partition in the back to an adjoining science lab and several kids rushed to the center furthest from the door.
Speaker 1:The gunfire and explosions continued. A fire erupted in a nearby room and a teacher grabbed a fire extinguisher to put it out. Screams filtered down the hall from the library. It was nothing like screams Marjorie Lindholm had heard before. She described it as it sounded like people being tortured. Another boy in a room described it as it was like they were carrying out executions, because you would hear a shot, then there would be quiet, then another shot and then bam, bam, bam, the screaming and gunfire. Both stopped Silence. Then more explosions, on and off and on. Again the fire alarm began blaring. It was a ear-splitting pitch designed to force people out of the building through sheer pain. The teachers and students could barely hear anything over the alarm's shriek, but could just make out the steady flap of helicopters outside. Someone turned on the giant TV suspended from the ceiling. They kept the volume off, but the subtitles on it was their school.
Speaker 1:From the outside, much of the class was transfixed at first, but their attention went quickly. Nobody seemed to know anything. Aaron called his father, who used another line to call 911, so that paramedics could ask questions and relay instructions. Several other students and teachers called the cops. The science room remained linked to authorities via multiple channels throughout the afternoon. Sophomore, kevin Starkey, also an Eagle Scout, assistant Aaron. The boys whispered to Dave, you're doing all right, they're coming, just hold on, you can do it. And they took turns applying pressure, digging their palms into his wounds. And Dave said I need help, I gotta get out of here. And Aaron kept assuring him help is on its way. Aaron believed it was.
Speaker 1:Law enforcement was first alerted to Dave's predicament around 1145. Dispatchers began responding that help was on the way and would arrive in about 10 minutes. The assurances were repeated for more than three hours, along with orders that no one leave the room under any circumstances. The 911 operator instructed the group to open the door briefly. They were to tie a red shirt around the doorknob in the hallway. The SWAT team would look for it to identify the room. There was a lot of dissent about the directive in science room three. Wouldn't a red flag also attract the killers? Who was going to step out into the hallway. They decided to obey. Someone volunteered to tie the shirt to the knob.
Speaker 1:Around noon, teacher Doug Johnson wrote one bleeding to death on the whiteboard and move it to the window, just to be sure. Occasionally, the TV coverage grabbed attention in the room. At one point student Marjorie Lingholm thought she spotted a huge mass of blood seeping out a door pictured on screen, but she was mistaken. Fear had taken control. Each time Aaron and Kevin switched positions, they felt Dave's skin grow a little colder. He was losing color, taking on a bluish cast, and they wondered where are the paramedics? When will the 10 minutes be up?
Speaker 1:Dave's breathing began to slow. He drifted in and out. Evan and Kevin rolled him gently on the tile floor to keep him conscious and to keep his airway clear. He couldn't remain on his back for very long or he would choke on his own blood. They pulled out wool safety blankets from a first aid closet and wrapped him to keep him warm. They asked him about coaching, teaching anything to keep him engaged and safe of shock. They slipped his wallet out and began showing him pictures. Is this your wife? Yes, what's your wife's name? Linda. He had lots of pictures and they used them all. He had lots of pictures and they used them all. They talk about his daughters and his grandchildren. And the boy said these people love you. This is why you need to live.
Speaker 1:Aaron and Kevin grew desperate. The treatment had exceeded scouting instructions. You are trained to deal with broken arms and broken limbs, cuts and scrapes stuff that you get on a camping trip. You never train for gunshot wounds. This is Aaron saying this when he was interviewed. Eventually, aaron and Kevin lost the struggle to keep Dave conscious. Dave said I'm not going to make it. Tell my girls I love them.
Speaker 1:It was relatively calm for a while. The alarm kept blaring. The choppers kept thumping and gunfire explosions were periodically rumbled through the hallways. Some were off in the distance. Nothing had sounded particularly close for a while. Nothing seemed imminent. Dave's chest rose and fell. Blood oozed out, but the boys could not rouse him. Evan and Kevin kept trying. Some of the kids gave up on the police. Around 2 pm they informed the 911 operator they were going to hurl a chair through the window and get Dave out of themselves. She insisted they abandon the plan, which, she warned them, might draw the attention of the killers.
Speaker 1:At 2.38, the TV suddenly caught the room's attention again. Patrick Ireland was stumbling out of the library window and some of the kids yelled oh my God. They have hidden quietly for hours, but this was too much. Coach Sanders was not an isolated case. A kid was just as bloody just down the hall and they have assumed it was bad out there. Now they had proof. Some kids closed their eyes, picked your loved ones and silently said goodbye.
Speaker 1:Just a few minutes later, the danger suddenly grew too close. Again. Screams erupted from the next room and then everything went silent for a minute. All at once the door burst open and men in black rushed in. The killers were dressed in black. The invaders towed the submachine guns. They waved them at the students shouting fiercely, trying to out-scream the fire alarm, and Marjorie even wrote later. I thought they were the gunmen. I thought that now I was going to die.
Speaker 1:Some of the men turned and pointed to the huge black letters on their backs SWAT. And the officer yelled be quiet, put your hands on your heads and follow us out. And someone said someone's got to stay with Mr Sanders, and Aaron volunteered. He said I will. And an officer said no, everyone out. And then how about holding Dave out with them, suggested Kevin. They were folded tables. They could improvise one as a stretcher. But again the officer said no. It seemed heartless, but the SWAT team was trained to make practical choices. Hundreds of students were trapped. The gunman could reappear any moment. Students were trapped. The gunmen could reappear any moment. The team had to assume a battlefield mentality and evacuate the maximum number in the minimum time. They could send a medic back for the injured.
Speaker 1:Later the SWAT team let the students single file down the stairs to the commons. They waded through three inches of water they had rained down from the sprinklers, backpacks and pizza slices floated by and the officers warned them don't touch anything. A SWAT member held the door. He stopped each student, held them for two seconds, then tapped them on the shoulder and told them to run. That was a standard infantry maneuver. A single pipe bomb could take out an entire pack of children. A well-aimed gun machine burst could do the same safer to space them Outside. The kids ran past two dead bodies, danny Vorbor and Rachel Scott. Marjorie Lindhorn remembered that there was a weird look on their faces, a weird color to their skin. The girl just ahead of her stopped suddenly when she saw their bodies and Marjorie caught up, but a SWAT officer screamed at them to keep moving. Marjorie saw the guns trained right on her. She gaveie saw the gun's train ride on her. She gave the girl a push and they both took off. Two SWAT officers stayed with Dave.
Speaker 1:In another call for help it fell to a Denver SWAT member outside the building to recruit a paramedic. He spotted Troy Lehman, an EMT who had driven out from the city and was manning a triage station, and said Troy, I need you to go in, let's go. Lehman followed the officer through the flooded commons, up the stairway, past the rubble, into the science room, room number three. By that time Dave had stopped breathing. According to emergency triage protocol that qualified him as dead, and Lehman said that he knew that there was nothing they could do for this guy. He didn't even have equipment with him, he said because I was stuck in a room with him by myself for 15 minutes. I wanted to help him, but the SWAT officer eventually cleared Lehman to keep moving. He said there's nothing you can do. So Lehman went on to the library and he was one of the first medics to go in.
Speaker 1:Dave Sanders' story got off fast. Both local papers, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post described his ordeal on Wednesday. On Thursday the Rocky, as it's often called, ran a piece called Police Dispute Charges. They were too slow. One student said a lot of people are angry, but the bulk of the story focused on the police response. The sheriff's spokesman, steve Davis from DEFCO, said we have 1,800 kids rushing from the school. The officers had no idea which were victims, which were potential suspects. The Rocky offered the summary of the SWAT response based on the department's claims.
Speaker 1:Within 20 minutes of the first panic call for help, a makeshift six-man SWAT team rushed into the sprawling school and within an hour dozens of heavily armed officers and body armor launched a methodical room-by-room search of the building. End quote. The department would eventually admit that it took more than twice that long. It took them 47 minutes for the first five-man team to enter. The other half of that team attended to wounded students on the lawn but never proceeded in. A second team entered after nearly two hours until the killer's bodies were found. That was it.
Speaker 1:The situation grew harder on Friday when a Red River Suburban cop laid down 13 roses in Clement Park and then described the SWAT response as pathetic, and this Red-Event Suburban cop told the press it pissed me off. I would have someone in there. We are trained to do that. We are trained to go in there. The officer's statement was widely reported. He became an inkstand symbol and his department foolishly extended the story by placing him on non-disciplinary leave and ordering a fitness for duty evaluation. They backpedaled. A few days later Members of the SWAT teams began responding in the press Quote it was just a nightmare. What parents need to understand is we wanted teams in there as quickly as we could. We were going into the situation blind. We had multiple explosions going off. We thought they could have been a band of terrorists in there. End quote.
Speaker 1:Officers were nearly as confused as TV viewers. Outside they could hear the blasts, but once they enter they couldn't even hear one another. The fire alarm drowned out everything. Communication was limited to hand signals. The barrage of noise and strobe lights beat down their psyches like psychological warfare. Officers could not locate anyone with the alarm code to shut it down. They found an assistant principal, but she was so frazzled she couldn't remember the digits. In desperation, officers tried to beat the alarm speakers off the walls. One tried to disable the control panel by smashing the glass cover with his rifle butt.
Speaker 1:The alarms and sprinklers continued until 4.04 pm. The strobe lights that flashed with the alarm continued for weeks. Those were legitimate obstacles, desantis' family acknowledged. But more than three hours after he was shot Linda's sister, melody, was designated family spokesman or spokesperson. And she said spokesman or spokesperson. And she said some of his daughters are angry. They feel like had they gone in and gotten Dave out sooner he would have left. Melody said the Sanders family didn't hold the SWAT members responsible but the system was a disaster because it was utter chaos. The family expressed gratitude for the efforts that had been made. As a gesture of goodwill they invited the full SWAT teams to Dave's funeral. All the officers attended.
Speaker 1:We'll be right back. We have talked a little bit about Dylan. Let's talk a little bit about Eric. Eric was evolving.
Speaker 1:Inside Sophomore year the changes began to show. For his 15 years Eric had concentrated on assimilation. Dylan had sought the same goal with less success. Eric always made friends. Social status was important. Eric's neighbor described him as nice, polite, preppy and a dork. High school was full of dorks. Eric could live with that for a while. Sophomore year he tried an eight-year look Combat boots, all black outfits and grunge. He started shopping at a trendy shop called Hot Topic and the Army Surplus Store. He liked the look, he liked the feeling. The buddy, chris Morris, began sporting a beret. That was a little much, eric thought. He wanted to look different, but not retarded. Those are his words.
Speaker 1:By the way, eric was breaking out of his shell. He grew boisterous, moody and aggressive. Sometimes he was playful, speaking in funny voices and flirting with girls. He had a lot of ideas and he began expressing them with confidence. Dylan never did. Most of the girls who knew Eric described him as cute. He was aware of the consensus but didn't quite accept it.
Speaker 1:Eric took some flack for the new get-up. Older kids and bigger guys harassed him sometimes, but nothing exceptional, and he was talking back now and provoking confrontations. He had shaken off his silence along with the preppy uniform. Dylan remained quiet right up until the end. He wasn't much for mouthing off, except in very southern bursts that freak everyone out a little. He followed eric's fashion led but uh, lead, but a less intense version. So he took a lot less ribbing. Eric could have silenced the tons anytime by conforming again, but by this time he got a kick out of standing out.
Speaker 1:One classmate said, quote the impression I always got from them was they kind of wanted to be outcasts. It wasn't that they were labeled that way, it's what they chose to be. End quote Outcast was a matter of perception. Kids who slapped that label on Eric and Dylan meant that the boys rejected the preppy model, but so did hundreds of other kids at the school. Eric and Dylan had very active social calendars and far more friends than the average adolescent. They fit in with the whole thriving subculture. Other lesson they fit in with a whole thriving subculture. Their friends respected one another and ridiculed the conformity of the vanilla wafers looking down on them. They had no desire to emulate the jocks. Could there be a faster route to boredom? For Dylan, different was difficult, but for Eric, different was good.
Speaker 1:For Halloween that year Eric Dutro, who was a junior, wanted to go as Dracula, so he needed a cool coat, something dramatic. So his parents picked up a long black duster at Santa Club. The kids referred to this as a trench coat. The costume didn't work out, but the trench coat was cool. Eric Dutro hung on to it and he started wearing it to school. It made quite an impression.
Speaker 1:The trench coat turned a lot of heads and Dutro loved turning heads. He had a hard time at school because kids at Columbine's picked on him. Kids would ridicule him relentlessly, calling him a freak. Worse, they would use the word faggot, and eventually he fought back the only way he knew how, fought back the only way he knew how, by upping the ante. If they were going to call him a freak, he was going to give them one hell of a freak show. The trench coat made a nice little addition to his freak joke.
Speaker 1:Not surprisingly, deutro hung with a bunch of kids who liked turning heads too, and after a while several of them were sporting trench coats. They would dress all in black, wear the long coats, even in the summer. Somewhere along the line someone referred to them as the Trench Coat Mafia TCM for short, tcm for short, and it stuck. Eric, dutro, chris Morris and a handful of other boys were pretty much the core of the TCM, but a dozen more were often associated with TCM as well, whether they sported trench coats or not. Eric and Dylan were not among them. Each of them knew some of the TCM kids, and Eric especially would become buddies with Chris. That was as close as they came. Eventually, after the TCM heyday was over. Eric got himself a trench coat and Dylan followed. They wore them to the massacre. For both fashion and functional considerations, the choice would cause tremendous confusion. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week.
