Grim details in new FBI report on Sandy Hook school shooting

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NEWTOWN - Adam Lanza had become so estranged from the world at 20 years old that his one fixation was mass murders.

But it wasn’t until Lanza withdrew completely into his bedroom for three months that his only friend — his mother — truly began to worry about him, according to FBI documents released Tuesday.

“[S]he had asked Adam if he would miss her if something happened to her, and Adam answered ‘No, not really,’” one FBI document reads. “Nancy had one gun that she would keep by her bed for protection.”

Nancy Lanza was the first victim in her son’s rampage. On Dec. 14, 2012, Lanza killed his mother, took her AR-15-style rifle from an unlocked closet, shot out the entrance windows of Sandy Hook School, and killed 20 first-graders and six educators. Then he killed himself.

The FBI’s 1,500-plus page report on the case was released in response to a Freedom of Information request. It is highly redacted, but its grim details are still haunting.

The transcript from a telephone answering machine seized by police at the Lanza home in Newtown shows everyday life dissolving in cascade of urgent messages after the worst crime in Connecticut history.

More Information TIMELINE OF REPORTS Nov. 25, 2013 Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky’s report. 44 pages Summary says Adam Lanza acted alone. Dec. 27, 2013 Connecticut State Police report. 7,000 pages Details the events before, during and after the school shooting. Nov. 21, 2014 Office of the Child Advocate report. 140 pages Shows missed opportunities to treat Adam Lanza’s mental illness. Oct. 24, 2017 FBI makes more information public. 1,500+ pages The FBI releases three files related to their investigation into the Sandy Hook shooting.

First there is a message from the dentist’s office that Adam is due in for a cleaning. Then there is a message reminding Nancy about a lunch date.

Then the Connecticut State Police: “Please answer the phone.”

Other callers follow, saying “[S]aw headlines...checking in,” “I’m really sorry for what you are going through,” and “Is this the (expletive) that killed those kids?”

The release of the FBI documents, which a top prosecutor said Tuesday contain little new information for law enforcement, comes two months before the fifth remembrance of the Sandy Hook massacre and Newtown’s irreplaceable loss.

Nicole Hockley, who lost a son in the massacre, said she was reading the FBI documents with a sense of hope.

“We are looking through all of this information to see if there is anything that could have pointed to an opportunity for intervention,” said Hockley, a founding director of Sandy Hook Promise, a Newtown-based gun violence prevention group. “I hope this gives us some additional knowledge to point to signs and signals that were missed.”

The FBI report echoes the Sandy Hook massacre investigation report released by Connecticut State Police in late 2013.

In 2014, the state Office of the Child Advocate released a 140-page report about the mental health history of Lanza, who had Asperger’s syndrome, anorexia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The report found multiple missed opportunities to help Lanza by the school district and by Lanza’s family, but it concluded that no single factor was to blame for Lanza’s act.

The documents released by the FBI on Tuesday, which ranged from evidence logs and subpoenas to transcripts of interviews, seemed to support the 2014 report.

However, because each document is redacted, it is not clear how much weight to give statements.

For example, one statement reads Adam Lanza was in “complete denial of his disease” and never took his medication. Although it is not known whether the person giving the statement was in a position to know, the statement corroborates similar statements made by Lanza’s physicians in the 2014 report.

Charles Grady, an FBI spokesman in the New Haven office, would not comment on the documents or the request that released them.

Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who headed the investigation of the Sandy Hook massacre, said Tuesday that he had not seen the FBI documents, but did not expect “news” out of them.

“We worked so closely and so well with the FBI during the investigation that I would be surprised if there was anything in those documents that represents new information,” Sedensky said.

Instead, the reports contain gripping accounts of what people told investigators about Lanza and his family.

One neighbor told the FBI a story Nancy Lanza shared that “Adam had hacked into a government computer system.”

“Adam had made it through the second level of security and when he tried to breach the third level, the screen went black and the authorities showed up at the Lanza’s door,” the FBI document reads. “Nancy had to convince the authorities that her son was just very intelligent ... the authorities told Nancy that if her son was that smart he could have a job with them someday.”

Another statement from a person who knew of Lanza’s postings online told the FBI: “Lanza did not consider death to be a negative. He saw it as an escape from his joyless existence.”

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342