Newtown School Child Murderer Adam Lanza Kept Twisted Scoresheet Of Other Mass Murders, Cops Say
Mar. 18 2013, Published 11:34 a.m. ET
Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza kept a detailed spreadsheet of mass murderers in his twisted obsession with killing, mass murdering and video gaming, according to a new report from the NY Daily News.
“We were told he had around 500 people on this sheet,” a law enforcement source told the NY Daily News Saturday after attending a law enforcement conference in New Orleans, La. in which police officials from Conn. spoke in detail about the Dec. 14 massacre.
Lanza's log, which took a special printer to produce, measured at 7-feet long and 4-feet wide, according to authorities.
“Names and the number of people killed and the weapons that were used, even the precise make and model of the weapons," the source said. "It had to have taken years. It sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research.”
The source told the paper that authorities "don’t believe this was just a spreadsheet," pointing to Lanza's fondness for video gaming.
“It was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school, because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills. That’s what the Connecticut police believe.”
The law enforcement professional said that Lanza specifically targeted the school because he "believed that it was the way to pick up the easiest points" for each person he killed.
“In the code of a gamer, even a deranged gamer like this little bastard, if somebody else kills you, they get your points. They believe that’s why he killed himself."
The police officer said Lanza clearly "had this laid out for years before" when looking back on older pictures in which he was "strapped with weapons and posing with a pistol to his head."
The lawman said that Lanza "didn’t snap" on Dec. 14, and wasn't pushed to the edge by an event in his life, but was just "a violent, insane gamer" empowered with weapons from his mother Nancy's extensive gun collection.
“In the end, it was just a perfect storm: These guns, one of them an AR-15 … It was like porn to a rapist. They feed on it until they go out and say, enough of the video screen. Now I’m actually going to be a hunter.”
Lanza's fascination and experience with video games was reflected by the by-the-book technical procedure he followed during the Sandy Hook shooting.
“The fascination he had with this subject matter, the complete and total concentration," the lawman said. "There really was no other subject matter inside his head. Just this: Kill, kill, kill. It really was like he was lost in one of his own sick games.
"That’s what we heard -- that he learned something from his game that you learn in the police academy, about how if you’re moving from room to room -- the way he was in that school -- you have to reload before you get to the next room. Maybe he has a 30-round magazine clip, and he’s only used half of it. But he’s willing to dump 15 rounds and have a new clip before he arrives in the next room.”
He said that police “believe he learned the principles of this -- the tactical reload -- from his game. Reload before you’re completely out. Keep going. When the strap broke on his first weapon, he went to his handgun at the end. Classic police training.
"Or something you learn playing kill games.”
The lawman speaking to the paper refused to call Lanza by name to avoid further publicizing his exploits, which he said fuels the desire of those who commit such acts.
“We keep calling them mass murderers,” the police officer said. “But there should be a new way of referring to them: Glory killers.
As we previously reported, Lanza, 20, shot his mother in her bed before taking an arsenal of her firearms to the school, killing 20 first-graders and six staffers. As police drew in on him, he shot himself in the head.