Look like family problem cause man to kill in elementary school in USA

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Evidence of gunman's motives found in Connecticut mass shooting investigation as police say he 'forced his way into school'

The gunman behind one of the worst mass school shootings in American history forced his way into the building, police said today, as they revealed they had found evidence that could explain his motives.

Adam Lanza, 20, is believed to be the man behind the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut yesterday, which left 20 young children and six adults dead.

Lanza, described as suffering from a personality disorder and being "somewhat autistic" by his older brother Ryan, 24, had already killed their mother Nancy at their home in the town, and shot himself after the slaughter in the school, which he carried out using three guns.

The bloodbath brought despair and horror to a smalltown USA community, 60 miles north-east of New York City, preparing for the Christmas holidays.

State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance told a press conference this afternoon: "Our investigators at the crime scene - the school - and secondarily at the secondary crime scene we discussed, where the female was located deceased, did produce some very good evidence in this investigation that our investigators will be able to use in, hopefully, painting the complete picture as to how, and more importantly, why this occurred," he said.

He also confirmed the gunman forced his way into the school, adding: "It is believed he was not voluntarily let into the school at all, that he forced his way into the school, but that is as far as we can go on that."

The mass killing has prompted fresh debate about the need for gun control in the US, as tales emerged of heroism by teachers and other staff to protect the children.

Principal Dawn Hochsprung reportedly lunged at Lanza before being shot.

Board of Education chairwoman Debbie Liedlien told Associated Press that administrators were coming out of a meeting when the gunman forced his way into the school, and they ran toward him.

Jeff Capeci, chairman of the town's legislative council, was asked whether Ms Hochsprung is a hero. He replied: "From what we know, it's hard to classify her as anything else."

Maryann Jacob, who worked in the library, told today how she led 18 children to safety by crawling with them to a storage room and waiting for the police to arrive.

She said they barricaded the door with filing cabinets, only opening it when a police officer slid an identification badge underneath.

Lanza shot dead 18 children aged between five and 10 and six adults at the school where his mother Nancy was a teacher, before killing himself.

Two other children shot at the scene died in hospital later.

Friends and family members today described the Newtown High School student variously as intelligent, nerdy, a goth and remote.

His girlfriend and another friend are still missing in New Jersey, a police source told AP.

The attack was the latest of several mass shootings in the US this year and carries echoes of the Dunblane massacre, where 16 schoolchildren and one teacher were killed by gunman Thomas Hamilton in the Scottish town in 1996.

It approached the deadly scale of the Virginia Tech university massacre in 2007 that left 32 dead.

The United States also is still reeling from the "Batman" shootings in Aurora, Colorado, in June.

Alleged killer James Holmes, 24, is awaiting trial charged with 24 counts of murder and 116 counts of attempted murder after the cinema shootings which left 12 people dead and 58 wounded.

In another incident today a gunman was shot dead by police after opening fire in St Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, injuring an officer and two employees.

Two pistols - a Glock and a Sig Sauer - were found inside the Newtown school, while a .223-calibre rifle was recovered from the back of a car at the site and officers are currently determining whose they are.

Lt Vance said that the identity of those killed had been confirmed and that they would be released as soon as possible.

Condolences flooded in for those killed, led by the Queen and Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK, with others from figures including Pope Benedict XVI.

President Barack Obama had made a televised address to the nation on Friday night, saying "our hearts are broken today".

The same night hundreds of people packed the town's St Rose of Lima church and stood outside in a vigil for the 28 dead in total, including the gunman.

Lt Vance said investigators were "peeling back the onion" of Lanza's life, including family and friends.

"We still have major crime detectives and Newtown detectives working at the scene in the school," he continued.

"That is not completed, that probably will not be completed for at least another day-and-a-half to two days. I'm not putting a time limit on it, it could take longer.

"It's going to be a long, painstaking process.

 

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So he got angry with the women at school and also his mother, hence he killed innocent children. I got it.

 

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Josephine Gay, 7, was among the causalities in the tragedy at the school in Connecticut on Friday

Catherine V. Hubbard, 6, was killed in the shooting rampage

 

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Caroline Previdi, 6, lost her life in the tragic shooting

Grace McDonnell, 6

 

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7-year-old Chase Kowalski

 

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'The worst I've ever seen:' Doctor's grief as he reveals tiny victims of Sandy Hook gunman were hit by up to ELEVEN bullets each

A seasoned member of the medical community who has spent 30 years performing autopsies said that the damage done to the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre are ‘probably the worst I’ve seen.’

Connecticut Chief state medical examiner H. Wayne Carver II said in a press conference Saturday afternoon in Newtown that in his three decades in practice, the shooting is the ‘worst I know of any of my colleagues having seen.’

Dr Carver said that each of the 26 victims was shot between there and 11 times, with two of the victims being shot at incredibly close range. The bullets had pierced everywhere, he said – heads, extremities, and torsos.

‘This is a devastating set of injuries,’ he told reporters in the emotionally-charged news conference.

Dr Carver’s 10 technicians and four doctors in his office worked tirelessly throughout Friday night and on into Saturday to identify and perform autopsies on the 26 dead. They expect to be done by tomorrow morning, the Hartford Courant reports.

He said that 20-year-old shooter Adam Lanza was able to reload extremely quickly during the Friday morning blitz because he taped two magazines together.

The shooter mainly used a military-style assault rifle belonging to his mother, Nancy, to carry out the horrific massacre.

Dr Carver went on to say that most of Lanza’s victims were first graders, between the ages of six and seven.

Parents were allowed to identify their children through pictures, a process intended to minimize shock, he said.

Among the dead were popular Principal Dawn Hochsprung, who town officials say tried to stop the rampage and paid with her life; school psychologist Mary Sherlach, who probably would have helped survivors grapple with the tragedy; a teacher thrilled to have been hired this year; and a six-year-old girl who had just moved to Newtown from Canada.

Dr Carver said that he will personally perform an autopsy on the suspected gunman on Sunday, as well as his mother, Nancy, 52, who was shot dead in her upscale Newtown home.

The shooter’s father, Peter Lanza, today issued a statement detailing the grief his family is going through.

It reads: ‘Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones and to all those who were injured. Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy.

‘No words can truly express how heartbroken we are. We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can.

‘We too are asking why. We have cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so.

'Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired.'

Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy said in a televised address Saturday afternoon that in instances like this, there is little sense to be made.

‘There's precious little anyone can say to the families that will lessen the horror and sense of loss they feel. We could say we feel their pain, but the truth is we can't,’ he said.

‘When tragedies like this take place, people often look for answers, an explanation of how this could have occurred. But the sad truth is, there are no answers. No good ones, anyway.

‘We have all seen tragedies like this play out in other states and in other countries. Each time, we have wondered how something so horrific could occur, and we have thanked God that it didn't happen here in Connecticut. But now, sadly, it has.’

President Obama plans to travel to the affluent suburb of 27,000 people about 80 miles from New York City on Sunday to meet with victims' families and speak at a vigil at 7 p.m. local time, the White House said in a statement.

 

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This 2012 photo provided by the family shows Emilie Alice Parker. Parker was killed Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and adults at the school.

 

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This Nov. 18, 2012 photo provided by John Engel shows Olivia Engel, 6, in Danbury, Conn. Olivia Engel. Olivia Engel, was killed Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and adults at the school.

 

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Flowers and stuffed animals of a makeshift memorial for school shooting victims encircle the flagpole at the town center in Newtown, Conn., Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

 

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Shop owner Tamara Doherty, paces outside her store just down the road from Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

Lt. J. Paul Vance, left, of the Connecticut State Police listens as Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II, M.D. speaks to reporters during a news conference, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 in Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Conn. The victims of the shooting were shot multiple times by semiautomatic rifle, the medical examiner said Saturday, and he called the injuries "devastating" and the worst he and colleagues had ever seen. Police began releasing the identities of the dead. All of the 20 children killed were 6 or 7 years old. Carver, said he examined seven of the children killed, and two had been shot at close range. When asked how many bullets were fired, he said, "I'm lucky if I can tell you how many I found."

 

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Robbie Parker, the father of six-year-old Emilie who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, speaks during a press conference, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn.

Firefighters pay their respects at a memorial for shooting victims near Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

 

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Jessica Henderson, 19, walks past a sign with a bouquet of flowers to lay at a memorial at The Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., on Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

Mourners gather for a candlelight vigil at Ram's Pasture to remember shooting victims, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

 

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Where was God at that time?

 

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Molly Delaney, left, holds her 11-year-old daughter, Milly Delaney, during a service in honor of the victims who died a day earlier when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., as people gathered at St. John's Episcopal Church , Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

This 2012 photo provided by the family shows Lauren Rousseau. Rousseau was killed Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and adults at the school.

 

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In this undated photo provided by Mark Sherlach, Mark Sherlach and his wife, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, pose for a photo. Mary Sherlach was killed Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and adults at the school.

Brothers Thomas, 13, left, and Steven Leuci, 9, pay their respects at a memorial for shooting victims near Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012 in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

 

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Elizabeth Bogdanoff, left, kisses her daughter Julia, 13, both of Newtown, Conn., during a prayer service at St John's Episcopal Church, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

A Newtown, Conn., resident, who declined to give her name, sits at an intersection holding a sign for passing motorists up the road from the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. The massacre of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

 

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Brian Tenenhaus, center left, comforts Lauren Foster, during a candlelight vigil outside the Edmond Town Hall, Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012, in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

This undated photo shows Adam Lanza posing for a group photo of the technology club which appeared in the Newtown High School yearbook. Authorities have identified Lanza as the gunman who killed his mother at their home and then opened fire Friday, Dec. 14, 2012, inside an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 people, including 20 children, before killing himself. Richard Novia, a one-time adviser to the technology club, verified that the photo shows Lanza.

 

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'There are no more alive,' Police officer's terrible words... followed by a guttural wail of pure despair

For more than an hour, amid mass panic and confusion, scores of frantic parents raced to Sandy Hook Elementary School, desperate to find out if their children had survived the massacre.

They were directed to a fire station 500 yards away, where the terrified children were being led to safety – and tearful reunions.

But shortly after 11am, around 90 minutes after the first shots had been fired, a young police officer stood at the door of the fire station: 'I'm sorry, there are no more children,' he said quietly.
It was at that moment that the parents still waiting realised all hope had gone. The innocent children they had waved goodbye to that morning were never coming home.
'The wailing started. I will never forget that sound,' he said, tears welling in his eyes. 'They fell to their knees sobbing. That was the most terrible moment of all. What do you say to those parents?'

Father Bob, as he is universally known in this tight-knit community, has spent the long hours since then ministering to the families of the dead. Ten families come from his congregation.

He described a gut-wrenching scene in the aftermath of the shooting. First there were shrieks of joy as mothers and fathers were reunited with their children, hugging and kissing them in utter relief.

But as the time went on, the parents whose children were unaccounted for huddled together in increasing despair.




A guttural wail of pure agony and despair rose from the group; an anguish that could be heard from outside the building. Mothers collapsed sobbing to the ground

For Monsignor Robert Weiss, priest of St Rose of Lima Catholic Church, who was inside the fire station, it is a heartbreaking memory indelibly etched in his mind.

Finally, when there were no more children they were led into a back room where a list of the missing presumed dead was made.

Father Bob said: 'I saw the list. There was palpable devastation in that room. Someone's life was just broken, someone's guts were just ripped out.'

One mother told the priest her little girl was to have played an angel in the Christmas pageant. Another child had chosen the dress she would wear at her upcoming Communion.

'I baptised some of these children', he said, 'How could this happen? And Why? We know there is no answer. We have 20 new saints today.'

NBC reporter Ann Curry told how she witnessed parents being escorted from the fire station into the school to formally identify their children: 'They were led, two by two, from the back of the firehouse into the school where the formal identification was made. You can only begin to imagine what that was like for them.'

'These were helpless little children. The question is why? I guess it's something we will never know.'

Neil Heslin

Neil Heslin was one of those who raced to the school, only to find his six-year-old son Jesse Lewis was among the victims. 'I dropped him off at school at 9am. He went happily,' Heslin said last night 'That was the last I saw of him.'

Jesse was in teacher Victoria Soto's class. She also perished. Mr Heslin, 50, said parents were first alerted to the shooting by a 'reverse 911' call, which sends out emergency alerts to a specific area.

'There was a message saying there had been an incident so I rushed to the school,' he said. 'These were helpless little children. The question is why? I guess it's something we will never know.'

Last night, details started to emerge of those who perished in the massacre along with tales of the heroism shown by the teachers who died shielding their pupils and those who miraculously survived.

Library clerk Maryanne Jacob saved dozens of children by locking them in a storeroom when the shooting started. She told how she heard a commotion as gunman Adam Lanza opened fire: 'He walked into the front of the building and turned left. He was by the first classroom.'

She said she noticed the school intercom was on and called the principal's office: 'I called the office and they told me there was shooting.
'I could hear some scuffling over the intercom. I hung up the phone and said “Lock down!” I got some paper and gave the children something to do, to keep them calm and quiet. I told them they needed to stay quiet. I led them to the library storeroom and barricaded them in.

'I didn't open it even when the police hammered on the door, not until I was sure it was the police.'

Initially, Lanza's older brother Ryan had been named as the killer after his ID was discovered on his brother's body. However, it later emerged that the 24-year-old accountant was at work at Ernst & Young in New York when he learned of the shootings He later wrote several posts on his Facebook page proclaiming his innocence.

He was being questioned by police last night, but told them he has not seen his brother for two years.

Last night, just three of the 20 children who died had been formally identified:



ANA MARQUEZ-GREENE, SEVEN: The bubbly daughter of a professional jazz musician, Ana loved dancing, music and painting. Her father, Jimmy Greene said he 'could not find the words' to describe his grief.

Her grandfather Jorge Marquez said: 'We spent all day waiting for news, hoping that she was just wounded. But her parents gave us the sad news. We are heartbroken.'

Ana's older brother Isaiah was inside the school when the attack happened too, but escaped unharmed. The family only moved to the area two months ago from Canada.



GRACE McDONNELL, SIX: Described as 'utterly adorable' and a 'ray of sunshine' by a neighbour who said her hair was so blonde and her eyes so blue 'she looked like a perfect little doll.'

Her mother Lynn, 45, is a housewife and father Christopher, 49, a businessman. The family live just one street away from the shooter's home and can see it from their back garden.

Neighbour Dorothy Werden said: 'I just choke up when I think about it. Grace was like a little doll. She was utterly adorable. I used to see her waiting for the school bus over the road from our house.

'When I saw Lynn and Christopher at the school with Lynn being pysically supported by a nun I knew things were not good.'



JESSE LEWIS, SIX: Jesse had been excitedly telling his father Neil Heslin how he planned to make gingerbread houses at school that day. He also loved maths and riding horses.

His father said: 'He was just a happy boy. Everybody knew Jesse. He was going to go places in life. He did well in school.

'He loved playing on his mum's farm. He was terrific with animals. He's been on horses since he was a year-and-a-half old.'

 

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Did paranoid, gun-crazed mother trigger son's school killing spree? Friends say she believed world was on edge of collapse

The mother of the loner who massacred 26 pupils and staff at a US primary school may have played a major part in his catastrophic mental breakdown, it emerged last night.

Friends and family portrayed Adam Lanza’s mother Nancy as a paranoid ‘survivalist’ who believed the world was on the verge of violent, economic collapse.

She is reported to have been struggling to hold herself together and had been stockpiling food, water and guns in the large home she shared with her 20-year-old son in Connecticut.

Mrs Lanza, 52, was a ‘prepper’ – so called because they are preparing for a breakdown in civilised society – who apparently became obsessed with guns and taught Adam and his older brother, Ryan, how to shoot, even taking them to local ranges.

That backfired horrifically on Friday when Adam Lanza began his killing spree by shooting his mother dead in bed.

He fired four bullets into her head – possibly as she slept – then took three of her guns to Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, where he killed 20 children and six staff.

Lanza’s aunt Marsha said Nancy was ‘self reliant’ and that they talked a lot about how she was preparing for the economic meltdown.

She said her former sister-in-law was meticulous about never leaving guns out, but made no secret of having an imposing firearm collection.
It included not only the two handguns and semi-automatic assault rifle used in the killings but also two traditional hunting rifles.

She would boast about them in a local bar and also showed them off to her landscape gardener.

‘She told me she liked the single-mindedness of shooting,’ said Dan Holmes, who looked after the large garden around her rambling home. He also recalled how Mrs Lanza would go target shooting with her boys ‘pretty often’.

Mr Holmes revealed how Mrs Lanza – who divorced Adam’s father Peter, a wealthy senior executive at a financial services company, in 2008 – never liked people to see inside her house.

‘I would ring the bell on the front door and she would come out the side and meet me,’ he said. ‘It was a little weird. It’s stranger now thinking back on what happened.’

As for her son, he was described yesterday as a ‘ghost’ – an autistic genius, according to former school fellows, but also a ‘deeply disturbed’ young man who was so withdrawn that even many of his closest relatives hadn’t set eyes on him for years.

It emerged last night that police are trying to repair a computer hard drive which was found shattered on the floor in the killer’s bedroom but which they believe may hold vital clues to his motives.

Friends who regularly played Mrs Lanza at a dice game said they too never managed to see the inside of her home.
During 15 years of playing together at alternating homes, Mrs Lanza’s turn to host the game was always skipped, said Rhonda Collens.

Fellow players and her neighbours described her as generous but reserved, a ‘nice lady’ who loved to make small talk about their gardens.

But others noted that beneath the mellow exterior, she was highly-strung and appeared to be ‘holding herself together’.

Like Mr Holmes, they never met Adam, a reclusive youth who had few if any friends and spent most of his time in two adjoining bedrooms in the family home.

There he would spend hours on his computer, much of the time devoted to playing violent games.

Neighbours said Mrs Lanza, who grew up on a New Hampshire farm, recently took time off from a job in finance to spend more time with her troubled younger son.

Despite initial reports that she was a kindergarten teacher at the school her son attacked, she had no connection with it and was described by a neighbour as ‘just a stay-at-home mom’.

While her older son Ryan, 24, had a successful career in a New York finance house, there is no evidence that the 20-year-old killer ever had a job. And despite his addiction to the computer, he kept away from social networks and had neither a Facebook page or a Twitter account.

Ryan Kraft, who babysat for Mrs Lanza when Adam was ten, said the boy was prone to serious temper tantrums. The fiercely protective Mrs Lanza insisted the babysitter never left Adam on his own for a moment, even to go to the lavatory.

But he remembered her as an ‘engaged’ mother who did her best to arrange playdates for her sons.

Marsha Lanza, the killer’s aunt, described him as a ‘nice, quiet’ and ‘very, very bright’ boy who had issues with learning.

That verdict tallies with the accounts of fellow school pupils who said he was very bright, particularly at maths, but painfully shy.

Catherine Urso said her son, who was at school with him, described him as ‘very thin, very remote and one of the goths’.
Kate Leen, who was at school with him in their early teens, added: ‘You would say ‘‘hi’’ and he would say ‘‘hi’’ back but he didn’t give you a lot to work with. He wasn’t exactly welcoming.’

Alex Israel, who was in his class at Newtown High School, said she was convinced he was a ‘genius’, adding: ‘He was always different – keeping to himself, fidgeting and very quiet. His parents – particularly his mother – reportedly drove him hard to succeed.’

Others recalled that he carried a black briefcase when everyone else had backpacks, joined a technology club, cementing his reputation as one of the school nerds, and declined to be photographed for the school yearbook.

His school years came to an abrupt end when his mother had a dispute with local education officials and ended up having her son home-schooled.

The Lanzas moved to Sandy Hook in around 1998 but Mrs Lanza and her husband divorced ten years later amid rumours that their difficult younger son had put a heavy strain on their marriage.

She had no real need to work again after reportedly extracting $200,000 a year in support from her husband.
It appears she was not only estranged from her ex-spouse but also possibly from her older son. Before he was questioned by police over his brother’s crime, Ryan Lanza claimed he had not seen Adam since 2010.

Mrs Lanza’s brother, a former police officer named James Champion, said he hadn’t seen his younger nephew in eight years.

Police say a member of Adam’s family – probably his brother – has told them he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism.

Experts have insisted the condition, while prompting the sufferer to withdraw into his own world, would not be responsible on its own for making him go on a homicidal spree.

That said, the experts note that if he had mental problems, these, combined with years of social isolation, inadequacy and the easy availability of an arsenal of firearms, could have been a recipe for disaster.

 

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'He is getting worse': Gunman's mother told friend of her fears less than a week before bloody rampage that began when he shot her multiple times in the head

Just days before Adam Lanza would begin a bloody rampage beginning with shooting her multiple times in the head, mother Nancy Lanza confided that 'she was losing him' and that 'he was getting worse.'

An anonymous drinking buddy said Nancy made the remarks in a disturbing conversation over craft beers at a bar called My Place in Newtown, Conn.

The friend asked not to be named by press.

On Friday morning Adam shot Nancy Lanza, 54, several times in the head before his horrifying


Cold blood: Adam Lanza opened fire on Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 26 people at the school before turning the gun on himself

rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 children and six others.

The friend knew Adam had been troubled, and he rarely came up in conversation, with Nancy preferring instead to talk about son Ryan if she discussed her children.

The friend said they knew Adam was prone to hurting himself.

'She just looked down at the glass and said, 'I don't know. I'm worried I'm losing him,' the friend told the Daily News.

'She said it was getting worse. She was having trouble reaching him.'

It wasn't the first time Nancy told him something was wrong with her son.

'Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,' he recalled of a conversation they had roughly one year ago. 'It was like he was trying to feel something.'

With Adam now dead and the nation mourning his victims, Nancy words earlier in the week seem foreboding, the friend said.

'It was weird. She never really talked about (Adam),' he said. 'She mainly talked about her oldest kid (Ryan). I knew about the other one but she never spoke much about him.

'She looked disturbed. She was looking down at her glass and kind of talking slowly.'

The friend never met Adam.

'I asked her if she was getting him help and she said she was,' the friend recalled.

For Nancy, who was generally a happy woman, the melancholy talk was eerily out of character.

'You have to know Nancy to know how weird that was,' he said. 'She was just always so full of life.'

The conversation broke up when the friend took a phone call and when they started talking again the subject changed.

The friend remembered Nancy as a die-hard Red Sox fan with season tickets to Fenway Park and a country girl who loved to hunt game.

The friend knew she had 'at least a dozen' firearms most of which were larger rifles. He was unaware of the pistols.

'Adam learned how to shoot a rifle by the time he was 9 years old,' said the friend. 'They would go to the range.'

Nancy was always careful with her firearms.

'Nancy was a responsible gun owner,' the friend said. 'It was important that she teach her son how to responsibly use a firearm.'

And she had a strained relationship with her ex-husband, Peter Lanza.

'She didn't talk about him a lot. But I knew they didn't get along," the friend said. 'I don't think she ever saw him.'