Babylon
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 5, 2009
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[h=1]PICTURED: The mother of massacre gunman Adam Lanza who taught son how to shoot before he went on killing rampage[/h]
Adam Lanza, a troubled 20-year-old loner with a history of autistic behavior, is the monster behind a horrific shooting at a Connecticut elementary school
Nancy Lanza took her son, Adam, to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm before he turned a gun on her and shot her dead, then executed more than two dozen terrified children and teachers at an elementary school.
Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza was an avid gun collector who had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.
'She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,' Dan Holmes, owner of the lanscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens, told Reuters.
He recalled that she once showed him a 'high-end rifle' that she had purchased.
'She was very proud of it,' he told the New York Daily News. 'She loved her guns.'
Adam killed his mother in the home they shared on Friday morning by shooting her in the face using one of her own guns.
Adam then allegedly took his mother's car keys and several guns belonging to her - including a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, and a .223 caliber rifle - and drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he massacred 20 children and six adults, before shooting himself.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it was widely reported that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school. But Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said Saturday that she had 'never met' Miss Lanza and that she was not in the school database as a staff member.
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Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza, pictured, was shot dead by her son, Adam Lanza on Friday. She was an avid gun collector
Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 26 people including 20 children
Nancy Lanza's home in Newtown, Connecticut, was raided after 2 p.m. Friday and she was found shot dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face
Adam Lanza allegedly stole his mother's car keys after shooting her dead and drove her car, pictured, to the school to carry out the massacre
Adam's 24-year-old brother, Ryan Lanza, is seen being led away from his Hoboken home in New Jersey to be questioned by police over the shooting
Ryan Lanza is escorted to a car outside his home in Hoboken by law enforcement. Police said he has been very cooperative during the investigation
Traumatized students were seen being led out of the school crying and holding hands
The families of victims grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary School
Mourners gather inside the St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church at a vigil service for victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut
Map of area surrounding Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed at least 26 people, 20 of them small children
Some reports alleged that Nancy had retired from working as an educator many years ago to take care of her son, Adam, who allegedly had behavioral and personality issues.
Nancy and Adam 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.
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.
Beth Israel tweeted that shooter Adam Lanza was troubled for a long time
Jacob Wycoff also tweeted that Adam was autistic
Adam Lanza's father, Peter Lanza, had divorced Nancy in 2009 because of irreconcilable differences, and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut with a new wife. A reporter for the Stamford Advocate broke the news to him that his son had allegedly shot and killed 26 people, including his ex-wife.
Nancy Lanza was divorced from Peter Lanza who lives in Stamford, Connecticut
He works as the vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services, and lives on a sprawling street glittered with multimillion-dollar homes. The couple apparently married in 2011.
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.'
Friends and neighbors said the divorce, as far as they knew, was amicable.
Holmes said he had just last week decorated Nancy Lanza's yard with Christmas garlands and lights.
She was 'very nice, very pleasant and always very appreciative of our work,' Holmes said.
Jim Leff, a musician who knew Nancy through a local bar and music spot that she frequented, called her a 'lovely person.'
But he said he never became close friends with her because she was 'high-strung.'
'What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung,' Leff wrote on his blog. 'But now that I've been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn't that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace.'
Former classmates of Adam Lanza recall him as a shy and extremely intelligent student.
In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students and carried a black briefcase to his classes, which stuck out to some as most other students wore backpacks.
Classmate Tim Arnone, 20, who graduated with Lanza in 2010, told Reuters.
He said Lanza was 'driven hard' to succeed academically by his parents, particularly his mother. 'She pushed him really hard to be smarter and work harder in school,' Arnone said.
NBC Connecticut also reported that Adam Lanza tried to buy a rifle at a Dick's Sporting Goods in Danbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday but was rebuffed because the state has a waiting period for gun sales.
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.'
President Obama openly wept as he spoke of the mindless shooting, saying, 'Our hearts are broken today'
- Nancy Lanza, 52, was killed by her son, Adam Lanza, before he massacred 26 people and killed himself at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut
- Nancy Lanza once showed off a 'high-end rifle' to family friend Dan Holmes and recalled 'she was proud of it... she loved her guns'
- The mother had five guns registered to her name, two of which Adam Lanza used to carry out the execution-style killings
- A third gun belonging to Nancy Lanza was found in the back of the car that Adam Lanza drove to Sandy Hook Elementary
- Peers remember Adam Lanza as a quiet and extremely intelligent student who kept to himself and carried black briefcase to class
- Brother Ryan, 24, an accountant at Ernst and Young, said Adam had personality disorder
- Reporters broke the news of the massacre to Adam's father, Peter, who is divorced from the mother and lives in Stamford, Connecticut with new wife
Nancy Lanza took her son, Adam, to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm before he turned a gun on her and shot her dead, then executed more than two dozen terrified children and teachers at an elementary school.
Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza was an avid gun collector who had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.
'She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,' Dan Holmes, owner of the lanscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens, told Reuters.
He recalled that she once showed him a 'high-end rifle' that she had purchased.
'She was very proud of it,' he told the New York Daily News. 'She loved her guns.'
Adam killed his mother in the home they shared on Friday morning by shooting her in the face using one of her own guns.
Adam then allegedly took his mother's car keys and several guns belonging to her - including a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, and a .223 caliber rifle - and drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he massacred 20 children and six adults, before shooting himself.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it was widely reported that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school. But Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said Saturday that she had 'never met' Miss Lanza and that she was not in the school database as a staff member.
Scroll down for video
Some reports alleged that Nancy had retired from working as an educator many years ago to take care of her son, Adam, who allegedly had behavioral and personality issues.
Nancy and Adam 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.
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.
Adam Lanza's father, Peter Lanza, had divorced Nancy in 2009 because of irreconcilable differences, and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut with a new wife. A reporter for the Stamford Advocate broke 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 on a sprawling street glittered with multimillion-dollar homes. The couple apparently married in 2011.
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.'
Friends and neighbors said the divorce, as far as they knew, was amicable.
Holmes said he had just last week decorated Nancy Lanza's yard with Christmas garlands and lights.
She was 'very nice, very pleasant and always very appreciative of our work,' Holmes said.
Jim Leff, a musician who knew Nancy through a local bar and music spot that she frequented, called her a 'lovely person.'
But he said he never became close friends with her because she was 'high-strung.'
'What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung,' Leff wrote on his blog. 'But now that I've been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn't that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace.'
Former classmates of Adam Lanza recall him as a shy and extremely intelligent student.
In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students and carried a black briefcase to his classes, which stuck out to some as most other students wore backpacks.
Classmate Tim Arnone, 20, who graduated with Lanza in 2010, told Reuters.
He said Lanza was 'driven hard' to succeed academically by his parents, particularly his mother. 'She pushed him really hard to be smarter and work harder in school,' Arnone said.
NBC Connecticut also reported that Adam Lanza tried to buy a rifle at a Dick's Sporting Goods in Danbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday but was rebuffed because the state has a waiting period for gun sales.
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.'
