Personal facts about Adam Lanza

The house of Adam Lanza and family. picture by examiner.

"Former classmates of Adam Lanza, 20, the man identified as the gunman in the Sandy Hook School killings, do not remember much about him.They talk of a boy who dressed smartly and worked hard, but who barely said a word during his time at school.Lanza appears to have kept a low profile throughout his life. US media report that unusually, his high school yearbook of 2010 contained no photograph of him."[BBC]

"He carried a black briefcase to his 10th-grade honors English class, and sat near the door so he could readily slip in and out. When called upon, he was intelligent, but nervous and fidgety, spitting his words out, as if having to speak up were painful. Pale, tall and scrawny, Adam Lanza walked through high school in Newtown, Conn., with his hands glued to his sides, the pens in the pocket of his short-sleeve, button-down shirts among the few things that his classmates recalled about him." [NYTimes]

"If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically," Novia told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "It was my job to pay close attention to that." [HuffingtonPost]

"In the desperate scramble to name the perpetrator who forced his way into a Connecticut school on Friday and shot dead 20 children, the family and friends of the Lanza family were rooted out through their social media pages and old-fashioned door knocking, with even 20-year-old Lanza's father, Peter, hearing about the shootings from a local paper reporter as he drove home."[Guardian]

"He was a 20-year-old man who, by multiple accounts, was incredibly smart and quiet. He didn't appear to have any run-ins with the law.

But Adam Lanza's seemingly innocuous life was thrust into the spotlight when authorities said he perpetrated the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

On Friday morning, Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, dressed in black battle fatigues and a military vest" and began firing, according to a law enforcement source. By the time he was done, 26 were dead -- 20 of them young students." [CNN]

"Friday's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the second-deadliest shooting event in United States history, has sent shock waves well beyond the country's borders. During his shooting spree, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School before turning the gun on himself. Most of the victims of the mass shooting, including 20 children, mostly kindergartners, and six school employees, were found in two classrooms. The shooter also killed his mother." [Spiegel]

"Who was Adam Lanza, why did he kill 20 innocent children, and how is it possible that one 20-year-old can inflict so much pain in the world? If Adam Lanza’s last actions mirror who Adam Lanza was, then he was a young man who had a troubled relationship with his mother, with children, and, most importantly, with himself. According to a Dec. 15, 2012, AP News Brief, Adam Lanza’s former school adviser remembers Adam Lanza as “awkward loner who had trouble feeling pain.” [Examiner]