Images from the Facebook profile of one Ryan Lanza from Newtown, Connecticut, currently living in Hoboken, New Jersey (where a crime scene is being investigated in connection to the shooting) are making the rounds. All the pieces fit, right?


But then there's this:


The Facebook page has since been deleted.

Also? There's a completely different Ryan Lanza page that has the same Lanza pics uploaded on December 5. The URL, however, says jim.duran.33. Is there some Catfish-style shit going on here?

And it gets weirder: We did a Google image search for the file names on the original Lanza page, and we got a 4chan link to a password-protected page.

Well. Some questions/observations:

1. Are there two Ryan Lanzas from Newtown? What are the chances? And if there are two Ryan Lanzas connected to Newtown, well, what the fuck.


2. If this is the Facebook page of alleged shooter Ryan Lanza, who's posting to it?

3. What if — and this is a looong shot — the shooter isn't actually named Ryan Lanza? (Unlikely given confirmation from federal officials.)


4. This is a classic example of the media confusion and clusterfuck that inevitably ensues when faced with truly horrific news (we're as guilty as the next). Everyone's desperate for answers, but the first answer isn't always the right answer.

5. In light of NBC News reporting that the second person in custody is Ryan Lanza's brother, some interesting speculation and a good point from the comments:

Possibility that this guy is the real Ryan Lanza connected to the shooting and his brother swiped his ID and did the rampage (with an unknown, not Ryan Lanza accomplice?)? I have no idea, since this whole thing is all kinds of weird. This is a pretty weird case for it, since the gun control angle is obvious, but since our country doesn't ever want to talk about that perhaps we can have a conversation about the verification of information gleaned from social media.


More as we know it.

UPDATE: Authorities are now identifying the shooter as Adam Lanza.