President Obama wept as he spoke of the mindless shooting. He seems to agree it's time for action over gun control

Map of area surrounding Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed at least 26 people, 20 of them small children

People arrive for a prayer vigil at the Newtown United Methodist Church following a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School

Heavily armed Connecticut State troopers and FBI agents swarmed to the scene at Sandy Hook High School

A TROUBLED LONER: EMERGING PORTRAIT OF ADAM LANZA

Ryan Lanza's high school classmates always knew something was different about him. He almost never spoke in class, but made good grades and was an honors student. And he always seemed profoundly uncomfortable in social situations. A portrait is emerging of the alleged shooter who killed 26 people and himself during a rampage at the elementary school where his mother taught kindergarten.

It was widely understood that he had mental disabilities - either Asperger syndrome or more severe autism.

A former babysitter told the Washington Post he was 'rambunctious' as a teenager and prone to temper tantrums.

He had to be medicated to control his moods.

Olivia DeVivo, a student at the University of Connecticut who went to high school with Lanza, said that when it emerged that he was suspected of gunning down 20 small children - none of her classmates were surprised.

'They said he always seemed like he was someone who was capable of that because he just didn’t really connect with our high school, and didn’t really connect with our town,' she told the New York Times .

Lamza, 20, lived with his mother Nancy in a quiet, upscale subdivision in Newtown, Connecticut.

Before his alleged rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, he reportedly shot his mother in the face at her home.

He then took her car and three guns registered registered to her and went on a killing spree - starting with her kindergarten class, police say. Students described being ushered from their classrooms hand-in-hand, with their eyes closed, to the safety of a nearby fire station as police converged on the school.

'Everyone just assumed he was a smart kid and that’s why he didn’t like talking to people all the time,' Peter Lalli, 20, who graduated with Lanza in 2010, told the New York Daily News . 'He hung out with the smart crowd.'

Another former classmate said Adam has been 'a weird kid since we were five years old.'

Tim Dalton wrote on Twitter: 'As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised.... Burn in hell, Adam.'

Quoting a 'family insider,' the New York Daily News reported that Adam was a 'deeply disturbed kid' who 'certainly had major issues' and was 'subject to outbursts.'



Lanza's aunt, Marsha Lanza, said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it.

The Crystal Lake, Illinois resident told the Associated Press she was close with Adam Lanza's mother and sent her a Facebook message Friday morning asking how she was doing. Nancy Lanza never responded.

Marsha Lanza described Nancy Lanza as a good mother and kind-hearted. If her son had needed counseling, 'Nancy wasn't one to deny reality,' she said.

Marsha Lanza said her husband saw Adam as recently as June and recalled nothing out of the ordinary about him.

However, another relative to the family said that Adam Lanza was ‘obviously not well,’ adding that he often seemed troubled. They described Nancy as being rigid and at times, overbearing.



His father, Peter Lanza, had divorced Nancy in 2008 because of ‘irreconcilable differences,’ and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. A reporter for t he Stamford Advocate bro ke the news to him that his son had allegedly shot and killed 26 people, including his ex-wife.

He works as the vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services, and lives with his new wife on a sprawling street glittered with multimillion-dollar homes. The couple apparently married in 2011.

One neighbor told MailOnline that her daughters had visited the house while trick or treating on Halloween, and that an older woman answered the door.

A man several houses down, who said he was friends with the couple, declined to give his name, saying only that they are 'great people' and 'my heart bleeds for them.'

Pia Conte, 47, who lives in the neighborhood and has two sons in their 20s, said Lanza and his girlfriend kept to themselves.

Ms Conte called the ordeal 'sad' for Lanza and his family, and suggested that the violence is a portion of a much larger situation.

'Guns are easy to point to, but it's really a mental health issue.'

Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil Friday evening in Newtown said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.

'He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,' she said.

Alex Israel described her former classmate Adam Lanza as crazy

Beth Israel tweeted that shooter Adam Lanza was troubled for a long time

Jacob Wycoff also tweeted that Adam was autistic

Adam Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held 'LAN parties' - short for local area network - in which students would gather at a member's home, hook up their computers into a small network and play games.

Gloria Milas, whose son Joshua was in the club with Lanza, hosted one of the parties once.

She recalled a school meeting in 2008 organized by the gunman's mother to try to save the job of the club's adviser. At the meeting, Milas said, Adam Lanza's brother Ryan said a few words in support of the adviser, who he said had taken his brother under his wing.

'My brother has always been a nerd,' Ryan Lanza said then, according to Milas. 'He still wears a pocket protector.'

Alex Israel, pictured, told Piers Morgan that Adam Lanza was a loner who kept to himself

Joshua Milas, who graduated from Newtown High School in 2009, said Adam Lanza was generally a happy person but that he hadn't seen him in a few years.

'We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart,' Joshua Milas told the AP. 'He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius.'

Lanza and his mother, Nancy, lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown, a prosperous community of 27,000 people about 60 miles northeast of New York City. Neighbors said that the mother always took great pride in her Colonial-style house, and always kept her home tidy.



The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house is estimated to be worth around $537,000, and is situated on 2.19 acres of land.



He graduated high school in 2010, but was not pictured in the school yearbook. Rather, a block reading ‘camera shy’ is the entire imprint he left.

A grandmother of the suspect - who is also the mother of Nancy Lanza - was too distraught to speak when reached by phone at her home in Brooksville, Florida.

'I just don't know, and I can't make a comment right now,' Dorothy Hanson, 78, said in a shaky voice as she started to cry. She said she hadn't heard anything official about her daughter and grandsons. She declined to comment further and hung up.

Adam's brother Ryan, 24, who was originally thought to have been the shooter, was being questioned by police after he was arrested at his home in Hoboken, New Jersey.



He was on a bus on his way home from work when he was being named as the gunman and posted on Facebook that it wasn't him.

Ryan Lanza had been extremely cooperative and was not under arrest or in custody by Saturday morning, but investigators were still searching his computers and phone records. He told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, said he sent him a Facebook message Friday asking what was going on and if he was OK. According to Wilshe, Lanza's reply was something along the lines of: 'It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God.'

Ryan Lanza, brother of Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting suspect Adam Lanza, is seen being led away by cops, left, and in photos pulled from his Facebook page, right

