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From Sandy Hook Killer’s Home, a Chilling Inventory Newtown Killer’s Obsessions, in Chilling Detail
(about 3 hours later)
An extensive assortment of ammunition and weapons, including rifles, knives and samurai swords; damaged computer equipment; journals; a newspaper clip of a school shooting at Northern Illinois University; and a report card from the time Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary School. Inside the rambling, pale-yellow Colonial-style home in a Connecticut suburb, Adam Lanza lived amid a stockpile of disparate weaponry and macabre keepsakes: a pair of rifles, 11 knives, a starter pistol, a bayonet, 3 samurai swords. He saved photographs of what appeared to be a corpse smeared in blood and covered in plastic. Strewn about was a newspaper clipping that chronicled a vicious shooting at Northern Illinois University.
Those were among a chilling inventory of items the police found in the home where Mr. Lanza plotted one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history, according to search warrants of the home unsealed on Thursday for the first time since the Newtown, Conn., massacre in December. In what investigators believed was his bedroom was a gun safe. Among his clothing was a military-style uniform. There was also a holiday card that contained a check made out to Mr. Lanza, 20, and signed by his mother. Investigators suggested that the money had been intended to buy a gun.
Mr. Lanza, 20, killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, on Dec. 14 in the spacious yellow home they shared in Newtown. He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 first graders and 6 educators before killing himself as police officers arrived. The disturbing details of Mr. Lanza’s possessions were disclosed on Thursday for the first time since he carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history. The information was included in search warrants and related affidavits connected to the investigation into the Dec. 14 attack, when he killed 20 first graders, 6 educators, his mother and himself.
The search warrants, which a judge agreed on Wednesday to partly redact before their release, shed a glimmer of light on Mr. Lanza’s inner world that, more than three months after the tragedy, has largely remained a mystery. The inventory of the house, combined with interviews conducted over several weeks with law-enforcement officials and people who crossed paths with the Lanza family, afford a somewhat fuller picture of the dark corners of Mr. Lanza’s mind.
Since the shootings, vague portraits of the gunman and his mother have emerged, showing a young loner who spent hours in a darkened basement room playing violent video games, and a woman who had collected numerous weapons, including powerful handguns and a semiautomatic rifle that she and her son enjoyed shooting. The interviews revealed that his mother, Nancy Lanza, confided to friends several years ago that her son, who classmates said had been found to have a type of autism, was faring poorly and being bullied in high school. More recently, he had cocooned himself in front of electronic game consoles in the basement of their home, playing war games.
The police say Mr. Lanza used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle with several 30-round magazines in the attack at the school and also carried two semiautomatic handguns, one of which he used to kill himself. The police also found a 12-gauge shotgun in the car he drove to the school. Officials have said he fired more than 150 rounds in the school. The contents of the Lanza house of are intense interest because the lives of the family have been picked apart since the shootings, often yielding little insight. A clear understanding of Adam Lanza’s thinking and the texture of his relationship with his mother and others has yet to emerge. What pushed him to his brutality may never be unraveled.
The police also discovered numerous books related to autism, including one titled “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant.” One book found was called “Train Your Brain to Get Happy,” a self-help book. After killing his mother at their home on the morning of Dec. 14, Mr. Lanza drove to the grade school that he once attended and carried out the massacre in less than five minutes, according to the search warrant.
Neighbors and classmates of Mr. Lanza have said he had an autism variant known as Asperger syndrome, though investigators have never confirmed that he had such a diagnosis. Even so, his association with the disorder has raised alarms among parents of children with the diagnosis, who have expressed concerns that the public might believe that those with autism are prone to violence. The rampage brought the nation and the world to tears and touched off a continuing national debate over gun control.
Experts say people with autism spectrum disorders are often bullied in school and the workplace, and frequently suffer from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. But the experts also say there is no evidence that they are more likely than any other group to commit violent crimes. Stephen J. Sedensky III, the state’s attorney who is in charge of the investigation, said in a statement on Thursday that Mr. Lanza shot his mother in the forehead with a .22-caliber rifle while she was in bed in her second-story bedroom.
As the police combed through the Lanzas’ home after the shooting, they discovered Ms. Lanza lying dead in a bed in a second-floor bedroom with a gunshot wound to her forehead and a rifle nearby. At the school, he used a Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle to fire 154 shots, the statement said. The police also found 10 30-round magazines for the gun, many of them partly or fully emptied.
They also found hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a host of weapons in a brown safe and in bedroom closets. The warrants list at least four firearms, including the one found in the car Mr. Lanza drove to Sandy Hook. Mr. Lanza also carried two semiautomatic handguns, one of which he used to kill himself. The police found a 12-gauge shotgun in the car he drove to the school.
The police also found a certificate from the National Rifle Association bearing the name Adam Lanza, a receipt from a shooting range in Oklahoma, an N.R.A. guide to the basics of pistol shooting and training manuals on the use of a variety of firearms, including a Bushmaster. The inventories attached to the warrants delineated pertinent items found by police in the home that Mr. Lanza shared with his mother, a two-story house with dark green shutters at 36 Yogananda Street in Newtown. Ms. Lanza was a gun enthusiast who often took her son to shooting ranges. She was divorced from his father, Peter Lanza, a General Electric executive.
Among other items police officers found were seven journals written by Mr. Lanza, along with several of his drawings. The contents of the journals and the nature of the drawings were not disclosed. Also found were three photographs of what appears to be a dead person covered with plastic and what appears to be blood, and an article from The New York Times dated Feb. 18, 2008, about a shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. In that shooting, Steven Kazmierczak killed 5 people and injured 21 on Valentine’s Day before he killed himself. The items included hundreds of rounds of ammunition, some of them housed in a Planters peanut can and a Nike shoe box, and a panoply of weapons found in a brown safe and in bedroom closets. The lists mention four guns, including the one found in the black Honda Civic that Mr. Lanza drove to Sandy Hook. There were two rifles, including the one used to kill Nancy Lanza, as well as a BB gun and a starter pistol.
The documents released include inventories from searches of the Lanzas’ home, at 36 Yogananda Street in Newtown, and the 2010 black Honda Civic Mr. Lanza drove to the school. Prosecutors redacted the names of witnesses cooperating with the police, emphasizing in particular one “citizen witness.” Identifying the witness “could jeopardize” the person’s safety, the Danbury state’s attorney, Stephen Sedensky III, who is in charge of the investigation, wrote in his legal motion requesting the redaction. The police also found a certificate from the National Rifle Association bearing the name Adam Lanza. The type of certificate was not clear. The organization said on Thursday that Adam Lanza and Nancy Lanza were not members.
The day of the shooting, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents interviewed a person who said Mr. Lanza rarely left his home. The person, whose name is redacted, considered Mr. Lanza to be a “shut-in and an avid gamer who plays Call of Duty, amongst other games,” a law enforcement affidavit accompanying the warrants states. There was also a receipt from a shooting range in Oklahoma, an N.R.A. guide to the basics of pistol shooting and training manuals on the use of a variety of firearms, including a Bushmaster.
Other discoveries included a holiday card to Mr. Lanza from his mother containing a check for the purchase of a “C183 (Firearm),” the documents say. The date and amount of the check are not listed. There were paper and cardboard gun targets, as well as a considerable amount of computer equipment and game consoles and equipment. There was a hard drive that appeared to have been deliberately smashed.
It was not immediately clear if the reference to C183 contained a typographical error and intended to cite a CZ83, which is a semiautomatic handgun. A C183 is a camera. There were numerous books connected to autism. One was titled, “Born on a Blue Day — Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant.”
Besides the 4 firearms, investigators also seized 12 knives, including a bayonet and a spear, 3 samurai swords and more than 1,700 rounds of ammunition, including for weapons not found at either the home or the school. Classmates of Mr. Lanza and others who knew the family have said he had an autism variant known as Asperger syndrome, though investigators have never confirmed that diagnosis. Even so, his association with the disorder has raised alarms among parents of children with the diagnosis, who have expressed concerns that the public might believe that those with autism are prone to violence.
Searches also turned up various medical records, which are not identified on the inventory, and with school records for Mr. Lanza. Mr. Lanza, who was said by classmates to be a smart but acutely shy student, left Newtown High School after 10th grade and for a time attended college. Experts say individuals with autism spectrum disorders are often bullied in school and the workplace, and frequently suffer from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. But the experts also say there is no evidence that they are more inclined than any other group to commit violent crimes.
The unidentified witness told F.B.I. agents “that school was Adam’s ‘life,” an affidavit says. Though Mr. Lanza’s life remains mostly opaque, interviews in recent weeks show that he was a socially fragile individual captivated by warfare video games and bent on military service.
The release on Thursday of details about Mr. Lanza’s arsenal came as gun-control advocates across the country were trying to focus attention on the issue, with more than 100 rallies and other event scheduled for what they said was a “day of action” intended to pressure both state and federal lawmakers. Marvin LaFontaine, 53, a mechanical engineer who considered himself a friend of Nancy Lanza from Kingston, N.H., where Ms. Lanza grew up, kept in touch with her chiefly by e-mail, Facebook and phone until 2010. He remembered that Adam Lanza deeply admired one of his mother’s brothers, a retired Kingston police officer named James Champion. Mr. LaFontaine said Mr. Lanza was keen on joining the military, as his uncle, Mr. Champion, had done.
President Obama met on Thursday morning at the White House with survivors of gun violence, including people who lost family members in Newtown, and he renewed his call for stricter gun laws. “This all started when Adam was 3 or 4, and became more ingrained as Adam got older and ultimately decided that he wanted to become a Marine,” Mr. LaFontaine said.
In Hartford, lawmakers have been meeting daily in an effort to write a bipartisan bill that addresses gun violence and mental health issues. Classmates said Mr. Lanza was smart but acutely shy, and was not known to have close friends. His mother frequently moved him in and out of school, and at times home-schooled him. Several years ago, when Mr. Lanza was in high school, Mr. LaFontaine said Ms. Lanza shared with him that “the problems with Adam were getting worse and that he was getting picked on and bullied and was starting to shut down.”
Lawrence Cafero Jr., the minority leader of the Connecticut House, and others have been sharply critical of the State Police, the lead investigative agency, for refusing to turn over preliminary details of the investigation even as some information has been leaked to reporters and shared at law enforcement conventions. A Newtown rabbi who counseled the families of victims of the shooting said former classmates of Mr. Lanza had told him that Mr. Lanza was sometimes the object of ridicule in high school. Other classmates have said they did not recall instances of him being bullied.
Last week, The Daily News, quoting someone who had attended a convention in New Orleans, revealed that Mr. Lanza had compiled a very large spreadsheet of mass killings and the weapons used in them. Mr. LaFontaine said Ms. Lanza had been weighing a number of options, which included once again removing him from school, which she later did. Mr. Lanza left Newtown High School after 10th grade. For a time, he attended college.
The Hartford Courant previously reported that investigators had found news articles about the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in one of two bedrooms Mr. Lanza used. Mr. Breivik killed 77 people in two attacks in July 2011, most of them teenagers who were attending a summer camp. Despite his issues, Mr. LaFontaine recalled, “Nancy was generally confident that he could beat this and grow up into a normal, confident man, and that she could help him to do that.”
Some Connecticut lawmakers have complained that the information withheld by the State Police could help in the drafting of legislation. Under pressure from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and various lawmakers, the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office released additional information on Thursday from Mr. Sedensky. Among the new details were that the gun safe in the Lanza home had been unlocked when the police found it and that there was no indication it had been broken into. Mr. Sedensky also indicated that all the weapons used in the attack had been bought by Mr. Lanza’s mother. Mr. Sedensky added that from the time Mr. Lanza shot his way into the school until he took his own life, less than five minutes elapsed. He shared an e-mail in which she described how much she enjoyed living in Newtown, which is about 75 miles northeast of Times Square.
The search warrants, and reports of what the police found in their searches, were initially sealed for two weeks after the shootings, but Mr. Sedensky received a 90-day extension, which expired on Wednesday. Mr. Sedensky wrote in his court motion that the search warrant affidavits contained information that “is not known to the general public and any potential suspect(s), the disclosure of which would jeopardize the investigation and chances of successfully solving any crime(s) involved.” “People are so nice here,” she wrote. “I feel very lucky to have found a place where there is such a feeling of community.”
Whether the documents prove beneficial to lawmakers as they negotiate a gun-control package remains to be seen. While the documents show that Mr. Lanza readily had access to weapons, a fact that was already known, by themselves they do not shed light on his motives, said Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University who has written several books on mass murders.
The N.R.A. declined to comment about the certificate found in the Lanza home beyond issuing a statement. But in many school shootings, the killers were often bullied or ostracized by their classmates, “and the motive is revenge,” Mr. Levin said in a telephone interview.
“There is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association,” it said. “Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory.” And Mr. Lanza did have other traits in common with school gunmen, including social isolation, and access to weapons and firearms training, Mr. Levin said. The clipping on the Northern Illinois shooting, Mr. Levin said, indicates that, like some mass murderers, he might have been inspired by past shootings.
Mr. Lanza’s assault put Connecticut squarely in the center of a national debate over gun violence and firearms restrictions. But some Democrats and advocates of gun control in the state are concerned over how long the lawmakers are taking to introduce a bill, while other states like New York and Colorado have already enacted new limits on assault rifles or ammunition. Adam Lanza had cut off contact with his father and his older brother, Ryan Lanza, in recent years, according to various accounts.
Time, some gun-control advocates fear, is an enemy, even in a state traumatized by the killings and with widespread support, according to opinion polls, for new restrictions. But the state is also home to several gun manufacturers that have in the past successfully argued that restrictions would cost local jobs. And gun rights supporters have turned out in force at hearings and rallies to urge legislators not to use the Sandy Hook deaths to curtail what they regard as their constitutional rights. David Burton, a former co-worker of Peter Lanza’s at General Electric who is now a lawyer in private practice, said Peter Lanza spoke rarely about Adam Lanza’s challenges.
In the wake of the attack, legislative leaders set up a bipartisan task force to study gun control and mental health issues and hoped to introduce legislation by the end of February. When that deadline passed, they set a new goal to have a package within three months of the attack, but that deadline passed, too. Still, Mr. Burton recalled being at a Christmas party in 2010 or 2011 at which Peter Lanza’s eyes lit up upon learning that Mr. Burton’s wife was an educational consultant.
Now lawmakers hope to have a bill introduced as early as next week. Democrats and Republicans agree on many of its elements, including expanded background checks, enhanced safe-storage requirements and additional regulations on buying ammunition. People close to the negotiations say that the list of assault weapons under an existing ban could be expanded and that the bill could restrict the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 bullets. Peter Lanza peppered her with questions, Mr. Burton said.
Gun-control advocates and some of the families of Newtown victims want a sterner bill that would also make it illegal to possess larger magazines, even those already owned. “When Peter learned of her expertise, he brought up Adam to her, and was clearly looking for an educational solution for Adam,” Mr. Burton said. “She mentioned some boarding school options. It’s one of those things you look back and say we should’ve done more there. But then everybody gets busy and it doesn’t happen.”
Governor Malloy, in a statement, noted that Mr. Lanza used 30-round magazines on his rampage, leaving magazines that held fewer bullets at home. Two law-enforcement officials who were initially involved in the investigation said in recent interviews that the Newtown police had never been called to the Lanza home for any disturbances, and that before the shootings the family was basically unknown to the authorities.
“This is exactly why we need to ban high-capacity magazines and why we need to tighten our assault weapons ban,” he said. They said they believed that Mr. Lanza had spent most of his time in the basement of the home, primarily playing a warfare video game, “Call of Duty.” According to these officials, it also appeared that Mr. Lanza may have taken target practice in the basement.

Marc Santora contributed reporting.

In the documents released on Thursday, prosecutors redacted the names of witnesses interviewed by the police, but shared some of what they said.
The day of the shooting, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents interviewed a person who said Mr. Lanza rarely left his home. The witness considered Mr. Lanza to be a “shut-in and an avid gamer who plays ‘Call of Duty,’ amongst other games,” according to a law-enforcement affidavit accompanying the warrants. It also said the witness told agents “that school was Adam’s ‘life,’ ” referring to Sandy Hook Elementary School, which Adam Lanza had attended.
Additional material turned up in the searches might contain clues into Mr. Lanza’s thoughts in the days and weeks before the massacre, but their contents were not divulged. Police officers found seven journals written by Mr. Lanza, along with several of his drawings. The drawings were not described.
Beside three photographs of what appears to be a corpse, there was an article from The New York Times in February 2008, about a shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. In that shooting, Steven Kazmierczak killed 5 people and injured 21 on Valentine’s Day before he killed himself.
Whatever problems Adam Lanza may have had, the documents indicate that Nancy Lanza was comfortable with him being around guns. The police found the gun safe in what they believed to be his bedroom, according to the affidavit.
The holiday card to Mr. Lanza from his mother contained a check that specified that the money was to buy a “C183 (Firearm),” the documents say.
The date and amount of the check are not listed. It was not clear if the reference to C183 contained a typographical error and was intended to mean a CZ83, which is a semiautomatic handgun.
The Hartford Courant previously reported that investigators had found news articles about the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik in a bedroom of Mr. Lanza. Mr. Breivik killed 77 people in two attacks in July 2011, most of them teenagers who were attending a summer camp.
Those articles were not mentioned in the documents released on Thursday.
The searches did turn up medical records, which are not identified, as well as some of Mr. Lanza’s school records.
Among the records was a report card for Adam Lanza from many years ago.
It was issued by Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Reporting was contributed by David M. Halbfinger, Sharon LaFraniere, Marc Santora and Nate Schweber. Lisa Schwartz and Jack Styczynski contributed research.