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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 the Columbine Tragedy Part VII: Myths and Misconceptions
What if everything you thought you knew about the Columbine tragedy was built on a foundation of myths and misconceptions? Join us as we untangle the complex web of misinformation that shaped public perception of this devastating event. By dissecting the myths of outcast goths, the so-called "Trenchcoat Mafia," and misguided narratives about the attackers targeting specific groups, we reveal how these falsehoods gained traction and provided a misleading sense of understanding during chaotic times. Hear about the role of stereotypes, misunderstood motives, and the heavy burden placed on groups unjustly blamed in the wake of the tragedy.
We navigate the murky waters of media portrayal and societal bias, examining how early reports and rumors were amplified into dominant narratives. Explore the intricate dynamics within Columbine High School, where issues like bullying were oversimplified and sensationalized beyond reality. Through witness testimonies, media analysis, and a critical look at the challenges faced by journalists and researchers, we shed light on the daunting task of piecing together an accurate account of the events and their profound impact on the community. By the end, gain insights into the true nature of Columbine and the lessons learned from a story still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara. I'm a little bit under the weather, but this is part seven of unraveling the Columbine tragedy. Let's begin. We remember Columbine as a pair of outcasts goths from the Trenchcoat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school, hunting down jocks to set a long-running few. Almost none of that happened no goths, no outcasts, nobody snapping, no targets, no few and no trenchcoat mafia. Most of these elements existed at Columbine, which is what gave them such currency. They just have nothing to do with the murders. The lesser myths are equally unsupported no connection to Marilyn Manson, hitler's birthday, minorities or Christians. Media defenders blame the chaos 2,000 witnesses, wildly conflicted reports. Who could get all those facts straight? But facts were not the problem, nor did time sort them out. The first print story arrived in an extra edition of the Rocky Mountain News. It went to press at three o'clock on Tuesday afternoon before the bodies in the library were found. The Rockies' 900-word summary of the massacre was an extraordinary piece of journalism Gripping, empathetic, astonishingly accurate. It nailed the details and the big picture Two ruthless killers picking off students indiscriminately. It was the first story published that spring to get the essence of the attack right and one of the last One hour into the Columbine Horror, news stations were informing the public that two or more gunmen were behind it.
Speaker 1:Two hours in the trench coat mafia were to blame. The TCM were portrayed as a cult of homosexuals, homosexual goths in makeup, orchestrating a bizarre death pact for the year 2000. Ludicrous or not, the TCM myth was the most defensible of the big media blunders. The killers did wear trench coats. A small group had named themselves after the garment a year earlier. A few kids put the two together until it's hard to blame them. It seemed like a tidy fit. It seemed like a tidy fit. But the crucial detail on reported Tuesday afternoon was that most kids in Clement Park were not citing the TCM. Few were even naming Eric and Dylan. In a school of 2,000, most of the student body didn't even know the boys. Nor had many seen gunfire directly.
Speaker 1:Initially most students told reporters they had no idea who attacked them. That changed fast. Most of the 2,000 got themselves to a television or kept a constant cell phone vigil with viewers. It took only a few TV mentions for the trenchcoat connection to take hold. It sounded so obvious. Of course, trenchcoats, trenchcoat Mafia.
Speaker 1:Tv journalists were actually careful. They used attribution and disclaimers like believed to be or described as. Some wondered out loud about the killer's identities and then described the TCM, leaving viewers to draw the link. Repetition was the problem. Only a handful of students mentioned the TCM during the first five hours of CNN coverage, virtually all fed from local news stations. But reporters honed in on the idea they were responsible about how they addressed the rumors, but blind to the impact of how often Kids knew the TCM was involved because witnesses and news anchors had said so On TV. They confirmed it with friends watching similar reports. Word spread fast. Conversation was the only teen activity in South Jeffco Tuesday afternoon. Pretty soon most of the students had multiple independent confirmations. They believed they knew the TCM was behind the attack as a fact. From 1 to 8 pm the number of students in Clement Park citing the group went from almost none to nearly all. They were not making it up, they were just repeating it back. The second problem was a failure to question. In those first five hours not a single person on the CNN feeds asked a student how they knew the killers were part of the Trenchcoat Mafia. Print reporters, talk show hosts and the rest of the media chain repeated those mistakes.
Speaker 1:Most of the myths were in place by nightfall. By then it was given that the killers had been targeting jocks. The target myth was the most insidious because it went straight to motive. The public believes Columbine was an act of retribution, a desperate reprisal for unspeakable jock abuse. Like the other myths, it began with a kernel of truth.
Speaker 1:In the first few hours a shattered junior named Bree Pasquale became the marquee witness of the tragedy. She had escaped unharmed but splattered in blood. Bree described the library horror in convincing detail. Radio and television stations replayed her testimony relentlessly. She said quote they were shooting anyone of color wearing a white hat or playing a sport, she said, and they didn't care who it was and it was all at close range. Everyone around me got shot and I begged him for 10 minutes not to shoot me. End quote. The problem with Represquale's account is the contradiction between facts and conclusion that's typical of witnesses under extreme duress. If the killers were shooting everyone, didn't that include jocks, minorities and hat wearers? Four times in that brief statement she described random killing. Yet reporters gloamed on to the anomaly in her statement Bullying and racism. Those were known threats. Explaining it away was reassuring way was reassuring.
Speaker 1:By evening the target theory was dominating most broadcasts. Nearly all the major papers featuring the Rocky and the Washington Post refused to embrace the targeting theory all week, but they were the only dissenters. Initially, most witnesses refuted the emerging consensus. Nearly all described the killing as random. Most of the papers advanced the theory with just one student who had actually seen it and some had zero. Reuters attributed the theory to many witnesses and USA Today attributed it to students.
Speaker 1:Student equals witness Witness to everything that happened that day and anything about the killers. It was a curious leap. Reporters would not make that mistake at a car wreck. Witness to everything that happened that day and anything about the killers. It was a curious leap. Reporters would not make that mistake at a car wreck. Did you see it? If not, they move on. But journalists felt like foreigners stepping into teen culture. They knew kids can hide anything from adults, but not from each other. That was the mentality.
Speaker 1:Police detectives rejected the universal witness concept and they relied on traumatized witnesses for observations, not conclusions. They never saw targeting as plausible. They were baffled by the media consensus. Journalists were not relying exclusively on students. The entire industry was depending on the Denver Post. The paper sent 54 reporters, 8 photographers, 5 artists into the field. They have the most resources and the best contacts. Day one they were four hours ahead of the National Park. The first week they were a day ahead of most developments. The Rocky Mountain News had a presence as well, but they had a smaller staff and the national press trusted the post. It did not single-handedly create any of the myths.
Speaker 1:In the meantime the Jeffco Parks and Recreation District began hauling truckloads of bales into Clement Park Because it was a mess. Thousands of people gathered at the northeast corner of the park on Wednesday. Tens of thousands appeared on Thursday and Friday. The snow had begun fluttering down Wednesday and the food traffic tore the field. To shreds. County workers scattered thick layers of hay in winding paths all along the makesh to shreds County. Workers scattered thick layers of hay and winding paths all along the makeshift memorials. They didn't know it yet, but they had no idea that there was a name for it.
Speaker 1:But many of the survivors had entered the early stages of post-traumatic stress disorder. Many had not. It wasn't a matter of how close they have been to witnessing or experiencing violence. Lens and severity of exposure increased their odds of mental health trouble down the road. But long-term responses were highly varied depending on each individual. Dr Frank Oxberg, a professor in psychiatry at Michigan State University and a leading expert on PTSD, would be brought in by the FBI a few months later and would spend years advising mental health workers on the case.
Speaker 1:A far milder and more common response was also underway survivor's guilt. It began playing out almost immediately in the hallways of the six local hospitals where the injured were recovering. At St Anthony's the first week, the waiting rooms were packed with students coming to see Patrick Eisland. Every seat in every room was taken. Dozens of students waited in the hallways. They just needed to be there All day. Some of them stay well into the evening. The staff started bringing food in once they realized that some of the kids had not been eating.
Speaker 1:In the hospital there was Patrick Ireland and Patrick's situation looked grim. His doctors were just hoping to keep him alive and they advised his parents, john and Kathy, to keep expectations low. Whatever condition they observed, the first day or two would be the prognosis for the rest of his life. John and Kathy accepted this and they saw a paralyzed boy struggling mightily to speak gibberish. Patrick's friend Makai was released from St Anthony's Friday and he had been shot in the knee alongside Patrick. Reporters were invited into the hospital library for a press conference broadcast on CNN. Makai was in a wheelchair. It turned out that he had known Dylan and he said that they have taken the same French class and work together on school projects. And MacKay said you know, he was a nice guy, never treated me bad. He wasn't the kind of person he's being portrayed as.
Speaker 1:Patrick Garland made improvement with his speech for the first week and his vitals began returning to normal. On Friday he was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room. Once he had settled in, his parents decided it was time to ask him the burning question had he gone out the library window window? They knew. They just have to know. If he did, did he know why he was there? Was the trauma of the truth still ahead? And he stammered? He said yeah, well, yeah, were they just figuring that out? And Cassie later said he was incredulous. He looked at us like how could he be? How can you be so ignorant? But Kathy was okay with that because all she felt was relief.
Speaker 1:That same week, dr Alan Weintraub, who is a neurologist from Craig Hospital, came to see Patrick. Craig is one of the leading rehab centers in the world, according to many sources, and they specialize in brain and spinal cord injuries. It's located in Jeffco, not far from the Ireland's home. Dr Weintraub examined Patrick, reviewed his charts and gave John and Kathy his assessment. The first thing I can say to you, he said, is there's hope. So when they hear this, of course they were astounded, they were relieved, they were perplexed and later the discrepancy made sense to them. The staffs had different expertise and different perspectives. St Anthony's specialized in trauma. The goal is to save lives. At Craig's, the goal is to rebuild them. The goal is to rebuild them. They began making arrangements to transfer Patrick to Craig by Thursday.
Speaker 1:Students in Clement Park were angry. The killers were dead. So much of the anger was deflected onto Goths, marilyn Manson, the TCM, anyone who looked, dressed or acted like the killers, or the media's portrayal of them. The killers were quickly cast as outcasts and fags. They used that word. Remember, this is 1999. A sophomore from a soccer team called them freaks and said nobody really liked them just because they. And then he paused and he couldn't say something for a while. Then he said well, the majority of them were gay, so everyone would make fun of them, them.
Speaker 1:Several jocks reported having seen the killers and friends touching in the hallways or groping each other or holding hands. A football player captivated reporters with tales of groups showering. But this gay rumor was almost invisible in the media. Rumor was almost invisible in the media but rampant in Clement Park. The stories were vague, everything was third-hand. None of the storytellers even knew the killers.
Speaker 1:Everyone in Clement Park heard the rumors. Most of the students saw through them. They were disgusted at the jocks for defaming the killers the same way as they had in life. Clearly gay was one of the worst epithets one kid could hurl against against another person. You know in the town in Defco, eric and Dylan's friends. Generally they shrug off the stories. One of them was outraged and said, quote the media's taken my friends and made them to be gay and neo-Nazis and all these hater stuff. They're portraying my friends as idiots". The Angry Boy was a brawny six-foot senior who rented for hours dressed in camouflage and he was soon all over the national press. Sometimes he looked a little ridiculous. He stopped talking and his father then began screening media calls. The father put a stop to it. A few papers mentioned the gay rumors and passing Reverend Jerry Falwell described the killers as gay on Geraldo Rivera Live, a talk show that he used to have or a news show that he used to have. Most significantly, the Drudge Report quoted internet postings claiming that the Trenchcoat Mafia was a gay conspiracy to kill jocks, but most major media carefully sidestep the gay rumor.
Speaker 1:The press failed to show similar deference to Goths. Some of the most withering attacks were reserved for that group, a morose acting subculture best known for powder white face paint and black clothes, black lips and black fingernails, assented by heavy dripping mascara. They were mistakenly associated with the killers on Tuesday by students unfamiliar with the goth concept. Equally clueless reporters amplified the rumor. One of the most egregious reports was an extended 2020 segment ABC aired just one night after the attack. Diane Sawyer introduced it by noting that unnamed police said quote the boys may have been part of a dark underground national phenomena known as the Gothic movement and that some of these Goths may have killed before. It was true, goths had killed before, as had members of every conceivable background and subculture. Most of the reporting was first rate was first rate. The Rocky passed on most of the myths and the polls, and the Times ran excellent bios on the killers.
Speaker 1:On TV, several correspondents helped survivors convey their stories with empathy, dignity and insight. Katie Curry, she, was a particular standout in doing that. Several papers tried to rein in the goth scare and one of the statements that USA Today said in one of its stories was, quote Whatever the two young men in Colorado might have imagined themselves to be, they were not gods. End quote. The morose community, much too diffuse to be called a movement, it's, it's um, as is. Hard, quiet, introverted, pacifistic gods tend to be outcasts, not because they're violent or aggressive, but the opposite. All the talk of bullying and alienation provided an easy motive. 48 hours after the massacre, usaa today pulled the threads together in a stunning cover story that fused the myths of junk hunting, bully, revenge and the TNC, the Trenchcoat Mafia. It says, quote Students are beginning to describe how a long, simmering rivalry between the solid members of their clique, the TCM and the school's athletes, escalated and ultimately exploded in this week's deadly violence End quote.
Speaker 1:Deadly violence End quote. It described tension the previous spring, including daily fistfights, and the details were accurate. The conclusion, however, was wrong. Most of the media followed and it was acceptable as fact. There is no evidence that bullying led to murder, but considerable evidence. It was a problem at Columbine High.
Speaker 1:After the tragedy, dr D or Mr D, I should say took a look a lot of. He took a lot of flack for bullying, particularly since he insisted he was unaware it had it was going on. It was going on. He said quote. As long as I have been an administrator here if I'm aware of a situation then I deal with that situation and I believe our teachers and I believe our coaches. I turned my own son in. I believe that strongly in rules End quote. That might have been part of the downfall Mr D did believe that strongly in the rules. He held his staff to the same standard and seemed to believe they would meet it.
Speaker 1:His unusual rapport with the kids also created a blind spot. He was all smiles when Mr D strolled down the corridor. They sincerely warmed at the sight of him and sought to please him as well. Sometimes he mistook that joy for pervasive bliss in his high school. Personal affinities also obscured the problem, mr D. He was drawn to sports and he worked hard to offset that by attending debate, tournaments, drama tryouts, art shows. He conferred regularly with the student senate. But those were all success stories. Mr D balanced athletics and academics better than overachievers and unders. And he said quote, I don't think you know it is said. I don't think that he had a preference on purpose. This is somebody that it was interviewed. He says he's got a lot of school spirit and I think he aims at that direction. He's more comfortable with like school sports student congress. Comfortable with like school sports student congress.
Speaker 1:Now the Kraus and Clement Park are growing and kept growing, but the students among them dwindled. Wednesday afternoon they they pour their house out to reporters. Wednesday evening they watch a grotesque portrait of their school on television. It was a charitable picture at first but it grew steadily more sinister as the week wore by a toxic, abominable place. It was terrorized by abandoned job lords ruled by an Irish, trump and the latest Abercrombie and Fitch line. Some of that was true, which is to say it was high school.
Speaker 1:But Columbine came to embody everything noxious about adolescence in America. A few students were happy to see some ugly truths about their high school expose, but most were appalled. The media version was a gross caricature of how they saw it and of what they thought they have described. It makes it difficult for social scientists or journalists to come to Littleton Colorado later to study the community in depth and see what was really going on. How bad were the Columbine bullies? How horribly were the killers treated? Every scrap of testimony after day two is tainted. During the third week of April, littleton was observed beyond all recognition. Hundreds of journalists were in the field and nearly as many detectives were documenting their findings and police reports. Those reports would remain sealed for 19 months. Virtually all the early news stories were infested with erroneous assumptions, comically wrong conclusions. But the data is there. We'll be right back.
