EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, the family secret that haunted the tragic mother of Sandy Hook shooter, her plans to find a new home for her troubled son - and how she feared 'her time was running out'

The mother of the Newtown shooter spent her last months alive criss-crossing the globe in a desperate search for a new home as she knew that ‘time was running out’, MailOnline can reveal today.



Nancy Lanza's sister-in-law Marsha revealed that she had traveled to nine cities in three countries because she wanted out of the mansion she shared with her troubled son Adam - and could have known the end was coming.



It is thought that Nancy - who was suffering from multiple sclerosis - wanted to downsize and find a place for him to go to college as she was tired of home schooling the troubled 20-year-old.



Mother: Nancy Lanza had taken her son to a shooting range for years, and was shot dead by her son with one of her own guns



Killer: Adam Lanza shot his mother in her bed before gunning down 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook elementary school on Friday House of horrors: It is thought that Nancy was planning a move from their house in Newtown, pictured, for Washington state to find a place for Adam to go to college as she was tired of home schooling the troubled 20-year-old

Time was running out: Nancy Lanza was searching for other places to have her son Adam educated and traveled all over the world to find something suitable



In a Facebook conversation seen by MailOnline, Nancy also gave the most revealing account of her own family problems and how they may have shaped her life

In a Facebook conversation seen by MailOnline, Nancy also gave the most revealing account of her own family problems and how they may have shaped her life



She revealed how her own father shut out one of his other daughters at a young age and lived a ‘secret life’ until his past came out.



He ‘turned his back’ on baby Cheryl when he remarried and moved away from his home in Ohio to New Hampshire.



There he started afresh and gave birth to Nancy Lanza whose son Adam killed 28 people including himself and Nancy on Friday during his school rampage in Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut.



In a Facebook message to a relative just two months earlier Nancy spoke in candid terms about her family and said: ‘Yes, life is funny and strange. Lies people tell and try to live in those lies. Sad’.



The disclosure could explain why Nancy was so devoted to Adam even though she was struggling with his mental issues.

But it raises grave and urgent questions over her own family and suggests that secrets and lies run deep amongst them.



Nancy, who herself had been diagnosed with MS, supposedly had a ‘charmed upbringing’ in Kingston, New Hampshire, where her mother was the school nurse.



Victims: Top row, left to right; Ana Marquez-Greene, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Emilie Parker, Noah Pozner. Second row: Jesse Lewis, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Charlotte Bacon, Chase Kowalski. Third row: Daniel Barden, Jack Pinto, Catherine Hubbard, Dylan Hockley, Benjamin Wheeler. Fourth row: Grace McDonnell, James Mattioli, Avielle Richman, Rachel Davino, Anne Marie Murphy. Fifth row: Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Soto, Dawn Hochsprung, Nancy Lanza More victims: Madeline Hsu, six, left, and Allison Wyatt, also six, right, were shot dead on Friday at their school



Chaotic scenes at the school: Police work to secure the area and bodies are carried out of the school

Memorial: A makeshift memorial to the Sandy Hook victims lights the night in Newtown

She married her high school sweetheart Peter Lanza and they moved to Newtown, Connecticut, in 1999 where they moved into a $1.5m Colonial property.



Ten years later however they divorced - but Nancy’s troubles were only just beginning.



Speaking to MailOnline Marsha Lanza, from Crystal Lake, Illinois, said: ‘Nancy opened up with me and told me she had been diagnosed with MS.



‘This was a few years ago but I don't think many of the family knew. She wasn't someone to make a fuss. She accepted life as it was.



‘Over the last year she suddenly seemed to be traveling a lot. I know she went to England and was all over the US.



‘There was no sign her health was getting worse. She still looked beautiful, so full of life, but maybe she felt time was running out.’

The Facebook conversation seems to back this up. On October 9, Nancy wrote to Marsha that she had been to ‘a little bit of everywhere’.



She wrote: ‘Boston, New York, Maine, Toronto, London, San Francisco, Nantucket, Charlotte, Baltimore...that covers this year : )’



Nancy also talked about wanting to move to a smaller house but did not want to sell her home at a loss.



She also wanted to keep ‘stability’ for the sake of Adam, who was diagnosed with Asperger’s and was withdrawn.



She writes of a ‘low key life and very happy’ but her family past has clearly disturbed her.



Nancy, 52, said on Facebook that her half-sister Cheryl was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but that her father and her mother appear to have disowned the child.



Nancy's friends recalled a time when Adam was ill, he didn't want his mother to be in his room with him so she slept outside the door on the carpet all night but would call to her to make sure he was there Innocent once: Gunman Adam Lanza was just another fresh-faced student once, described by peers as shy but intelligent

She writes: ‘She seems nice and I would like to meet her. I feel sorry that my parents turned their backs in her at such a young age. No one is talking so I don't know the real story.



‘As for Cheryl...she had no clue what happened. Her mother is dead, our father is dead, and my mother won't say. It's a mystery. We will never have answers...just have to deal with what is.’



In the conversation Nancy reflects on Adam and her other son Ryan, 24, and says that ‘they do grow up too fast'.



But in yet another sign of family strain, Ryan and Adam have not spoken in two years. Peter Lanza has also not spoken to Adam over the same period.



Marsha said that Nancy ‘loved spending time with her boys’ even if there were deep divisions between them.



She said: ‘I knew she had issues with him [Adam] but she never felt threatened by him. If she had felt threatened she'd have gone for help.



‘I don't think the two boys were that close. They were just two very different kids.’



'WE WILL NEVER HAVE ANSWERS' - NANCY LANZA'S LAST CONVERSATIONS WITH HER SISTER-IN-LAW

October 6

Hi Marsha!!! All is well here...all is pretty much status quo. What a change! I am still in CT and all is well. What are you up to? Where do you live?

I hear you there...no sense selling at a loss! Best to keep stability in the kid's lives. Moves are so tough at that age. Not surprised you are doing sewing stuff... You were always SO talented! I am still in the same place but getting to the point where I may want a smaller house. I travel a lot, spend time with friends, work with a couple of charities. Low key life and very happy.

A little bit of everywhere... Boston, New York, Maine, Toronto, London, San Francisco, Nantucket, Charlotte, Baltimore...that covers this year : )

I discovered I have a half sister in Ohio, so I have to get there to meet her soon!

Ha! Yes, indeed....definitely part gypsy

Yah...that's what I thought too but apparently my father was married previously and actually lived in Ohio...secret life and all. Weird.

Cincinnati .... Story TOO long to text off my little I Phone... But yes, life is funny and strange. Lies people tell and try to live in those lies. Sad. She seems nice and I would like to meet her. I feel sorry that my parents turned their backs in her at such a young age. No one is talking so I don't know the real story.

As for Cheryl...she had no clue what happened. Her mother is dead, our father is dead, and my mother won't say. It's a mystery. We will never have answers...just have to deal with what is.

Ryan works in Manhattan...Adam still at home. Yes, they do grow up too fast. I am off to bed...SO good to hear from you. Let's keep in touch! Maybe I can visit you when I visit my sister.... I'll be half way there : )



October 29th (during Superstorm sandy)

Texting Ryan. The water is three-feet deep outside his apartment. He is OK on the second floor.

December 14 (after the shooting. Nancy and Adam are both dead)

Marsha to Nancy: Hi Nancy, Just checking in to see if you are OK and what you might know about the school shooting. Isn't this the town you live in? not sure. Drop me a line when you get a chance. My prayers go out to all.





Nancy had dedicated her life to looking after her autistic son Adam, who, after killing his mother, took her car and three of her guns to Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday and shot dead 20 children and six adults. He then turned the gun on himself.



Peter made $445,000 a year and agreed to pay $240,000 a year in alimony and child support, according to court records

She moved to Newtown with her husband Peter in 1998. He would commute to the city for his job as vice president of General Electric.



The couple divorced in 2009 after their marriage 'irretrievably broke down'. Peter made $445,000 a year and agreed to pay $240,000 a year in alimony and child support, according to court records.



This was likely due to the cost of Adam's care.



As the once-peaceful New England town continues today to bury the victims of Friday's massacre, it was revealed the bodies of Nancy and Adam Lanza are not being released by the medical examiner for another week.

Marsha Lanza told the Washington Post her brother-in-law Peter will likely organize the funeral.

'She was my friend,' she said. 'I said to my husband, "Who’s going to bury Nancy?" He said, "Knowing my brother, he’ll take care of it, because that’s the right thing to do".'



Nancy's family - her mother and three adult siblings - have gathered at the family's 1740s farmhouse in Kingston where the 52-year-old had a charmed upbringing.



When she married her high school sweetheart in 1981, the couple built a house next door to the home where they lived until they moved to Newtown.

Adam Lanza, 20, had lived his whole life at the $1.4million home in Newtown where he killed his mother while she lay in bed in her pajamas.



Nancy Lanza was described as a 'gun enthusiast' who taught Adam, who had autism-related Asperger's Syndrome, how to shoot.



The four weapons, including a Glock 10-mm handgun, a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun and a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, used in the mass shooting at the elementary school all belonged to Nancy Lanza.

Both the Lanza residence at Yogananda St and Sandy Hook Elementary School, above, will remain guarded crime scenes for the foreseeable future Horror: Crying children are led from the school where the gunman opened fire on Friday morning

Friends of the mother-of-two told the Today show on Monday that she was not a 'survivalist' despite earlier reports that she had been stockpiling food because she thought the world economy was on the verge of collapse.



John Bergquist said: 'Shooting was one of her hobbies. It wasn’t her main hobby. She loved the arts, culture. She loved the finer things in life. She loved to go to Red Sox games, and that’s the Nancy I knew.'



Another friend Ellen Adriani said Nancy was devoted to her two sons and took care of all Adam's needs.



Her other son, 24-year-old Ryan works for Ernst & Young in Manhattan and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.



Nancy was believed to have been planning a new life with her 20-year-old son Adam as he made plans to go to college. She had been thinking about going wherever he decided to study engineering - Seattle or one of the Carolinas - and live nearby, according to the New York Post.

