EXCLUSIVE - Adam Lanza's father is a 'broken man' wracked by guilt since Sandy Hook massacre: Family reveal what it's like to live with one of the most hated names in America

MailOnline given an insight into Lanza family by sister-in-law of killer's father Peter Lanza, 55

Father, who took son shooting before not seeing him for two years after relationship 'deteriorated', finds it 'impossible' to deal with what his son did

Marsha Lanza reveals the stares she gets at checkouts, gas stations and restaurants when 'knowing' people see her name on debit card

Attorney General's report into shooting turned spotlight on family's failure to deal with Adam Lanza's disturbing behavior

Relatives can't even bring themselves to talk as a family about massacre

The father of the Sandy Hook shooter has been 'broken' by his son's horrific actions and finds it 'impossible' to come to terms with what happened nearly a year ago, MailOnline can reveal today.

Peter Lanza is wracked by guilt, confusion and grief, according to his family, after son Adam shot dead his mother, then 20 children and six schoolteachers before taking his own life.

The Lanza family has been 'shaken to the core' and have not even been able to meet as one to talk about what happened, Peter's sister-in-law Marsha Lanza said.

She added that they, as much as the police and families of the victims still can't understand how or why the massacre happened.

Broken: Tax accountant Peter Lanza, left, is finding it 'impossible' to deal with the mixture of guilt, grief and confusion that has overcome him since his son, Adam, right, shot dead his mother and 26 at Sandy Hook

Shame: Lanza, second left, was unable to return to work for most of the year. His sister-in-law told MailOnline how they are still unable to fathom how Adam could have been capable of such horror

She also revealed how the family have been left 'stigmatized' by the Lanza name with children enduring taunts at school and knowing looks every time they use their debit cards - even though many live hundreds of miles away from where the atrocity took place in Newtown, Connecticut.

With the first anniversary of the shooting just two weeks away, the revelations are the first insight into the torment that the Lanzas have been going through.

Some will feel that they are to blame for creating a monster, but others may feel a pang of sympathy that they too are the victims of something they could never have imagined would happen.

There has been renewed focus on why they did not spot the warning signs, with the publication of the official report into the tragedy by the Danbury Attorney General in Connecticut last Monday,

The report revealed that Adam's mother Nancy, who he shot dead in her bed in her pajamas before embarking on his killing spree on December 14 last year, pandered to his every whim as his Asperger's Sydrome caused him to withdraw from the world.

Nancy allowed him to avoid speaking to her for the three months before he carried out his massacre even though they shared the same house in Sandy Hook.

The 20-year-old would only communicate with her by email meaning there would have been awkward silences around the breakfast table or as they passed each other on the stairs.

Nancy was banned from going in Adam's room yet had she popped her head round the door just once she would have seen a 7ft by 4ft poster on the wall with the top 500 mass killings of all time, ranked by fatalities.

Shaken to the core: A family member told MailOnline the Lanza family has been decimated during the last year. MailOnline visited Adam's brother, Ryan, left, and he looked drawn and exhausted. He would not comment on an official report which seemed to point some blame at Nancy Lanza for failing to spot the warning signs

Disturbed: The official report released last week told how Adam would only speak to his mother by email and refused to let her in his room, above, which featured blacked out windows and a spreadsheet detailing the worst mass murders of all time ranked by fatalities

Gun fans: The Bushmaster rifle, pictured, found in Room 10 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, used to kill children and six women. The report revealed Peter Lanza had taken Adam shooting and his mother was planning to buy him a pistol for Christmas

The windows to his bedroom were covered over with black bags and the computer room where he spent days on the Internet had its windows covered too.

Scattered amongst other violent computer games like Doom and Half Life were newspaper cuttings and Internet articles relating to mass school shootings dating back to 1891, showing that Adam researched his ‘subject’ like an academic.

Nancy allowed him to not take his medication for Asperger’s, bought him violent video games like Call of Duty and introduced him to guns by taking him shooting on local ranges.

She was even planning to give him a check for Christmas to buy his own pistol, even though they already had four guns in the house which he would use in the slaughter.



'Peter is a changed man. He's broken. How can you ever begin to try and deal with that? It's just impossible'

Despite all this Nancy, who was 52 when she died, never saw Adam as a threat, the official report says.

It also reveals that Peter Lanza, 55, a tax accountant, had not seen Adam for two years before the massacre and prior to that and had taken him shooting twice too.

Speaking from her home in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Marsha said that the Lanza family were still deeply traumatised and still asking themselves the same question they did 12 months ago: why?

She said: 'Was there something more we could have done? Did we miss the signs?

'I went over old Facebook messages that Nancy sent me at the time and nothing seemed to indicate this was coming. We're still struggling to understand it ourselves.'

Escape: Over the summer Peter Lanza put the $710,000 detached home in Stamford, Connecticut that he shares with his second wife Shelley Cudiner, 52, on the market in a sign he too wants to move on - or move away.

Second wife: Shelley Cudiner, 52, a librarian at the University of Connecticut, has lived with Peter Lanza for a decade

Marsha said that for the Lanzas, the massacre was an 'open wound' and that there was no sign the healing process had begun.

She said: 'Peter has only spoken about it to a very, very small number of people including my husband Michael, his brother, as they are very close.

'It's still too much even for Michael and sometimes he tells me not to ask about it.

'Peter is a changed man. He's broken. How can you ever begin to try and deal with that? It's just impossible.

'Peter is back working now but he was off for a long time. He wanted to go back sooner but he was told that he needed more time to get himself and his family together.

'The Lanzas are all dealing with it by themselves and they have not had a big family meeting or anything. I tried to speak to Nancy's brother when I was out East in September but he did not want to see me'.

Peter's role in Adam's life is outlined in the official report which recounts the family history. He and Nancy moved to Sandy Hook from New Hampshire in 1998 with Adam and his brother Ryan, 24.

In 2001 the parents split and later divorced. Nancy retained custody.

Ten years later Peter remarried; Nancy never did, instead becoming Adam's full-time carer.

The official report states that Adam and Peter had regular contact until Adam was 18 and they would go hiking and play video games or go shooting.

Their relationship 'deteriorated’ in 2010 and that was the last year they had any contact.

Tragedy: A composite image of all of the Sandy Hook victims killed nearly a year ago

Ryan moved to New Jersey after college and also lost contact with his brother. By the time of the shooting it had been two years since they had spoken too.

The official report states that by that stage 'the shooter (Adam) reportedly became interested in firearms and at one point considered joining the military.'

The legacy however lives on, and Marsha explained that the Lanza name is now ranked among the most notorious in history - and that it affects her life every day. What happened next is only known by two people, Nancy and Adam, and they are both dead.

Marsha said: 'You don't realize how much you use your debit card until something like this happens.

'It happens everywhere, the bank, restaurants, gas stations. You see them see the name, as for your ID and then you know what they're thinking. I know what's going through their mind.



'It happens everywhere, the bank, restaurants, gas stations. You see them see the name and then you know what they're thinking. I know what's going through their mind'

'The shooting happened on a Friday and I went into my sons' high school on the Monday and they understood completely.

'Only one kid said something to one of my sons, a senior, and he told them it was none of his business. One of the teachers gave him a hug afterwards and said he had done the right thing handling it like that'.

For his part, Peter’s only public comments remain his statement shortly after the massacre in which he said that ‘we too are asking why’.

It read: ‘Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones and to all those who were injured.

‘Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy.

‘No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can.’

A Lanza family spokesman told MailOnline that Peter was still not ready to add anything more.

Over the summer Peter put the $710,000 detached home in Stamford, Connecticut that he shares with his second wife Shelley Cudiner, 52, on the market in a sign he too wants to move on - or move away.

Peter and Miss Cudiner, a librarian at the University of Connecticut, had lived together for a decade at various locations in Stamford before moving into the property together.

Grief: Mourners at a memorial for Nancy Lanza earlier this year. Family members have had to struggle with feeling grief for their loss and the guilt of what Adam did. Peter had to claim the bodies - Adam was cremated and his ashes scattered at a secret location

Criticism: Families of the victims have spoken out in recent days at the apparent 'bad parenting' that led to the shooting. Nancy had told Marsha over Facebook that 'time was running out' for her to move away with Adam

They do not have any children together. After the tragedy, Nancy was buried at a private funeral in New Hampshire.

Adam is understood to have been cremated by his father but the location of his ashes, or where they were scattered, is unknown and will likely never be made public for fear of attracting twisted ‘fans’ of what he did.

Meanwhile, MailOnline visited Ryan at his luxury apartment block in Hoboken, New Jersey, just over the Hudson River from Manhattan.

In a worrying echo of his brother's isolation, the blinds were pulled down even though it was past 9am on a weekday, and other windows appeared to be covered over to stop the sunlight getting in.

Ryan answered the door with the chain on and was wearing a dark hoodie which covered up some of his unkempt curly dark hair.

With a blank, unsettling stare he would only answer 'no comment' in a flat voice when asked if he had any thoughts about the official report, or how he had come to terms with his brother's actions.

His burden is that, in addition to being a Lanza, he was falsely accused of being the shooter as his brother had an ID with Ryan Lanza on him when his body was found.

In a Facebook post at the time of the shooting, Ryan wrote: 'Everyone shut the f*** up it wasn't me'.

Ryan does at least appear to still have his job as a tax account, just like his father, with Ernst & Young in their Times Square office in Manhattan.

Horrific day: Police have discovered just how troubled Adam lanza was - but have still no precise idea why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary

A spokesman for the company would only say that it would not comment on the 'activities of its employees'.

Had they lived to see it, the future for Adam and Nancy would have almost certainly involved a move away from Sandy Hook.

At the time of the shooting Marsha revealed to MailOnline that in Facebook messages sent to her Nancy said that her 'time was running out'.

Her plan was to move to Washington state or North Carolina, start a new life and try to get Adam a job in computers

Yet if she secretly feared that her obviously troubled son could be capable of great evil then it is a secret she took with her to the grave.

This week relatives of those who died in Sandy Hook made their most pointed remarks yet about the failings of the Lanza family.

In an interview after the release of the official report on Monday, Nicole Hockley, whose six-year-old son Dylan was among the victims, said that she felt Nancy was responsible.

She told CBS: ‘It's clear that he had mental illness and intervention was not made and there was not responsible gun ownership, either, because there was access to weapons and firearms’.

Bill Sherlach, whose wife Mary was the Sandy Hook Elementary school psychologist and also died, added that there had been an obvious breakdown ‘in terms of the parenting and the structure in that house.’



