How The Columbine Killers Inspired a Generation of Violence
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For an ad-free listening experience, visit patreon.com/crimehub. Sign up for a 7-day free trial and gain access to all my episodes completely ad-free. That's patreon.com/crimehub. Now let's dive into the story. On April 20th, 1999, Columbine High School seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher while injuring 21 others. At the time,

The Columbine shooting was the worst high school shooting event in US history. But this isn't a story about Harris, Klebold, and the mental health crises that drove them to madness. This story is about the mass shooting playbook they involuntarily wrote, how the media propagated that playbook, and how it fell into the wrong hands of copycat killers across America.

Dr. Jillian Peterson is a forensic psychologist and professor of criminal justice at Hamlin University in Minnesota. She and Dr. James Densley, a criminal justice professor at Metro State, founded the Violence Project Research Center, famous for its database of mass shooters. Their book, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic,

received national praise for its deep dive into why mass shootings occur and how we can stop them. Thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Peterson and Densley unpacked the Columbine Playbook, tracing its influence to dozens of mass murder events. Their research identified 46 active shooter incidents at elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States.

Of those 46 cases, 20 involved a shooter who specifically used Columbine as a model or inspiration. The FBI defines mass murder as a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered within one event and in one or more locations in close geographical proximity. A mass shooting follows the same definition but limits itself to firearms.

For example, Salvador Ramos's rampage in Uvalde, Texas was a mass shooting, but the FBI would call the quadruple homicide at the University of Idaho a mass murder. FBI data also shows a frightening trend in the rise of mass shooting incidents since the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1979, there was about one incident each year, claiming five lives on average.

The 1980s saw nearly three incidents each year, killing six and injuring five. The 1990s and 2000s averaged four incidents each year, while the 2010s ticked up to four and a half, and that was only up through 2014. People love to point the finger at everyone but themselves when something like Columbine, Uvalde, Parkland, and Sandy Hook occur. For example, after Columbine, the world basically turned on Marilyn Manson.

Conservative Christian watchdog groups labeled him an "emissary of Satan." They erroneously stated that Harris and Klebold were part of a group called the Trenchcoat Mafia, a band of social outcasts and die-hard Manson superfans. In Manson's own words: "The Columbine era destroyed my entire career at the time." The Trenchcoat theory led some to blame the Matrix for Harris and Klebold's massacre.

In May 2003, when The Matrix Reloaded premiered in theaters, ABC News put out a piece titled "Does The Matrix Inspire The Disturbed?" citing examples of violent criminals who were inspired by Keanu Reeves' character Neo. In the piece, they reference how Harris and Klebold wore long black trench coats similar to Neo's on the day of the shooting. It wouldn't be the last time someone blamed Keanu Reeves for a mass shooting.

Not surprisingly, the whole Trenchcoat thing had nothing to do with The Matrix. For an assignment from December 1998, three months before The Matrix premiered in theaters, the boys wrote a business plan for a fake company called Hitman for Hire. The company would basically enlist the Trenchcoat Mafia, which was a real thing at Columbine High, to kill jocks and bullies. A direct line from the project reads:

Using our home computers, we'll acquire the full name, number, and address of our target. Then, we'll hunt them down and relocate him or her to one of the several secluded areas, like the bottom of a lake. According to Peterson and Densley, school shooters are people in crisis. They're almost always students at the schools they terrorize and have experienced some kind of trauma. They are deeply depressed and suicidal and don't expect to leave the school alive.

These troubled children have always existed. Columbine just gave them a blueprint to follow. Dr. Peter Langman, author of "Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters," is a Pennsylvania psychologist who's made a career out of cataloging and analyzing school shootings. He linked the Columbine killers to 35 incidents of violence worldwide, from the US, Canada, and Brazil, to Germany, Finland, and Sweden.

Many of these killers were fascinated with Columbine, Harris, and Klebold. They studied them, read their manifestos, quoted them online, and copied their clothing. As Langman puts it, "It is their way of joining a subculture in which they are not only normal, but perhaps feel themselves to be special."

apart from and above mainstream society. Even Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, can't deny her son's influence on a generation of violent criminals. When speaking with the New York Times in the wake of the Santa Fe Junior High shooting, Sue said, "I believe there is a contagion.

She believes Dylan and Eric built the temple for young, depressed, and suicidal people to think mass shootings are a viable escape route. Sue, Peterson, Densley, and Langman believe Columbine set the tempo for copycat shooters worldwide. Sadly, it only took one month for someone to put the Harris-Kleebold playbook to use. Part 1: The First Disciple Anthony Thomas Solomon Jr., better known as TJ,

was a 15-year-old sophomore at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia, a small suburb about 30 minutes east of Atlanta. On May 20th, 1999, he walked into the common area where 150 students gathered before classes began. Unknown to them, TJ had his stepfather's .22 caliber rifle and a .357 Magnum revolver hidden in his baggy jeans.

Classmates claim he arrived that morning bearing the weight of a recent breakup with his girlfriend, Kara. A junior named Stacy Singleton told CNN she spotted TJ walking into school with a gun. If anything, she remembers the hateful stare painted across his face. She gripped the payphone as tight as she could and sunk into the booth. Something bad was about to happen. She could feel it. Instead of talking with his friends like he usually would, TJ stood alone in the corner,

psyching himself up before doing the unthinkable. He removed the rifle from his pants and hip-fired 12 shots into the crowded room. A few students thought it was a senior prank. The class of '98 had set a strip of firecrackers off around this time last year, but this was no prank. TJ shot and injured six students before emptying the clip. Among them was Ryan Rosa, who claims TJ wasn't aiming at anybody.

He told reporters, "TJ was holding the gun down low. He wasn't chasing anybody." You could say TJ went about his copycat shooting reluctantly as he fired from the hip with a pump-action sport gun, like something you'd use for target practice of skeet shooting. Exactly one month removed from Columbine, people like Rosa kept the tragedy fresh in their minds. He also thought he'd be the hero who'd tackle the gunmen and save the day. But when fight or flight kicked in,

Rosa ran as fast as he could. He felt a sharp pain in his leg, but adrenaline carried him to the science lab with his fellow classmates. Once there, he realized he'd been shot. Sophomore Steph Laster had just stood up after talking with a teacher when one of TJ's bullets ricocheted off the floor and struck her lower back. She fell into a friend, and both girls collapsed. "I think I've been shot," Steph said.

She reached back to feel where the pain was, but then fainted after seeing her hand covered in blood. Steph's was the only serious injury during the shooting. She was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where surgeons had to remove the bullet from her abdomen and repair her intestines. As chaos overtook the common area, TJ dropped the rifle and backed out the door he'd entered through. Alone in a hallway, he fell to his knees, drew the magnum, and stuck the barrel in his mouth.

But moments before he could pull the trigger, he heard Vice Principal Cecil Brinkley say, "It's going to be all right. Put the gun down." Something about Brinkley's voice must have brought TJ back from the brink. He handed Brinkley the gun and cried into his shoulder, saying, "I'm so scared." TJ wrote a suicide note before he left for school that day. In it, he expressed his allegiance to his brothers and sisters in the Trenchcoat Mafia. TJ claimed he'd been planning the attack for years.

Perhaps Columbine was the push he needed? In the aftermath of Columbine, TJ said he'd make a better gunman than Harris and Klebold. He believed Heritage High was long overdue for a similar massacre. According to a paper by Dr. Langman titled "Role Models, Contagions, and Copycats: An Exploration of the Influence of Prior Killers on Subsequent Attacks," TJ said he envied the attention Harris and Klebold got.

He kept that in mind as he pulled the trigger that morning. TJ was tried as an adult in Rockdale County and faced 21 felony charges, including aggravated assault, cruelty to children, and several weapons violations. In all, the teenager was looking at 351 years in prison. During the trial, the assistant prosecuting attorney called Columbine the trigger that gave TJ permission to shoot his classmates.

Columbine was a way for TJ to gain power and control, a means to become infamous in a world that largely ignored him. TJ pleaded guilty in October of 2000. He was initially sentenced to 40 years in prison, but the judge reduced it to 20 in August of 2001. On July 26, 2016, TJ Solomon walked out of jail after being released on early parole.

He's not allowed anywhere near a school, nor can he contact the victims or their families. Vice Principal Brinkley, the man who convinced TJ to put the gun down in 1999, thinks the now 39-year-old should be allowed to live his life peacefully. Richard Reed, the Rockdale County DA who put TJ behind bars, thinks differently, saying, "The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

and part of his past behavior is walking into a high school and shooting six kids. Part 2: We Martyrs, Like Eric and Dylan When he was a three-year-old boy in Seoul, South Korea, Seung-Hoo Cho developed whooping cough, a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. Doctors also believed the boy had a hole in his heart, but the medical procedure to fix it was so traumatic that Cho developed a crippling fear of being touched.

When he was nine, his family immigrated to Fairfax County, Virginia, so that he and his older sister, Sun Kyung, could get a better education. But nobody spoke a lick of English, so adjusting to life in America took some time. Cho didn't speak much anyway. His mother would get so frustrated at times that she'd shake him and demand he say something. Social anxiety caused his palms to sweat whenever he met somebody new.

Cho was in 8th grade when Columbine made headlines across America. His art teachers began noticing disturbing trends in his work. Across the hall, his English teacher was shocked when they read one of his papers mentioning how he wanted to repeat Columbine. Cho wound up in therapy soon after. Doctors diagnosed him with depression and selective mutism, an anxiety disorder involving the inability to speak in certain situations.

Antidepressants seemed to help, and Cho was in better spirits. But his doctor suddenly stopped the drugs, and Cho stopped going to counseling, saying, "There's nothing wrong with me." He was smart, sporting a 3.5 GPA and decent SAT scores. With college around the corner, his guidance counselor recommended a small school. With 26,000 students, Virginia Tech was too big.

but Cho put his foot down and was accepted in 2003. His high school sent his transcripts but conveniently left out Cho's mental health history. Cho fell in love with writing, though he was never that good. He sported D's and C's in English and writing classes. A New York publisher rejected his book idea that it was sort of like Tom Sawyer, except it's really silly and pathetic, depending on how you look at it.

While enrolled in a poetry writing class, Cho made several students so uncomfortable that they stopped showing up. He'd wear mirrored glasses and a baseball cap concealing his face. He took pictures of other students and wrote a disturbing satire piece about an animal massacre in a butcher shop. Female students began complaining in the fall semester of 2005. He'd harass them with phone calls and instant messages. But the girls simply found it annoying and never pressed charges.

One of Cho's messages read, "I might as well kill myself." Campus police took him to a social worker for screening, who said Cho was mentally ill and an imminent threat. His writing topics got darker and darker in the spring of 2006. In one paper, Cho wrote, "I hate this. I hate all these frauds. I hate my life. This is it. This when you damn people die with me." He bought his first handgun in the fall of 2007.

He applied for more weapons and ammo and was happy to comply with the state's 30-day waiting period. A background check never revealed his past issues with mental health, and Cho obtained a 9mm Glock 19 to pair with his Walther P22. On Sunday, April 15th, Cho made his weekly call home. He seemed perfectly normal, but told his parents he didn't need them to keep sending money.

The next morning, Cho killed himself and 32 others in the worst school shooting in US history. Two days after the Virginia Tech massacre, NBC headquarters in New York City received a package from Cho. It contained a 23-page written manifesto, 43 photos, and 28 video clips. The postage stamp indicated that Cho mailed it about an hour and 45 minutes after he opened fire on April 16th. In his manifesto, Cho wrote,

Generation after generation, we martyrs, like Aaron and Dylan, will sacrifice our lives to fuck you a thousandfold for what you apostles of sin have done to us. Part 3: Going Global Columbine poisoned mines across America, but Harris and Klebold's reach extended beyond US borders.

seven years after the attack on November 20th, 2006. 18-year-old Sebastian Basse walked into his former high school in Emsdetten, West Germany. He was armed to the teeth with two sawed-off rifles, a pistol, a gas-powered handgun, and a bag full of homemade pipe and smoke bombs. He had a knife strapped to his leg and kept a machete waiting in his car.

like Harris and Klebold. Bosset wore a long black trench coat during the attack. He also wore a gas mask to keep himself safe from the bombs. Students remember him standing there and looking silly. Then he opened fire, striking a janitor in the stomach, wounding a pregnant teacher, and striking seven other kids. He tossed smoke bombs as he roamed around the school, causing many to suffer from smoke inhalation.

40 minutes after the shooting started, a special task force gained entry and located Basse. They found his body on the second floor around 10:30 AM, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Explosive experts arrived to defuse the pipe bombs he had strapped around his body. Thankfully, none of the injuries Basse inflicted that day were fatal.

In his journal, it was clear that Basset drew inspiration from Columbine and other acts of violence occurring in Germany. He wrote how Eric Harris was probably the most reasonable boy that a shitty high school can offer. He is a god, there is no doubt. He drew similarities between himself and Harris, saying: "If I were to live his life again, everything would repeat itself."

Basse believed he was an advancement of Harris, who learned from the Columbine killer's mistakes, hence the pipe and smoke bombs. The sad part is Basse wasn't the first German youth to draw inspiration from Columbine, nor was he the last. Three other copycats, combined to kill over 30 people between November 1999 and March 2009, all, including Basse, drew direct links to Harris and Klebold.

Half a world away in Suzano, Brazil, 17-year-old Guilherme Taussi Monteiro and 25-year-old Luiz Henrique de Castro claimed 10 lives, including their own, on March 13th, 2019. It was Brazil's first major school shooting since 2011, when a gunman murdered 12 in Rio de Janeiro. But it's the clear Columbine ties that make the Suzano massacre stand out.

Both men were former pupils of the Raul Brazil State School. They began the day by killing Montero's uncle Jorge at his car shop nearby. They drove to the school in a rental car and walked through the doors around 9:40 am. Security cameras caught Montero opening fire at point-blank range while Castro struck the bodies with a hatchet. Police arrived eight minutes after the shooting started, but Castro and Montero were already dead.

According to the cops, Montero shot Castro before turning the gun on himself. They'd spent over a year planning their attack, hoping it would draw more attention than the Columbine massacre. Like Harris and Klebold, the Susano killers made a pact to die together. When police found their bodies, Montero was lying in a pool of blood with a machete tucked into his pants. Castro lay next to him with a crossbow on the ground between the pair. Part 4: Five Minutes

Dave Cullen is an American journalist and author best known for his non-fiction works about the Columbine and Parkland shootings. While writing Columbine in 2009, Dave noticed the disturbing amount of online fandom the shooting attracted during the early 2000s. During an interview with the Daily Beast, Cullen said, "A huge chunk of them are just kids trying to look cool, trying to impress strangers with how cool they are, even though most of them aren't even into killers that much."

However, there exists a small subset of Columbine superfans that aspire to bring about death and destruction. Cullen describes them as a tiny, tiny fraction buried at the bottom of the haystack, but all it takes is one Columbine disciple to bring the entire country to its knees. 20-year-old Adam Lanza was one such kid.

on December 14th, 2012. Around 9.35 a.m., Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .223 caliber semi-auto rifle, a Glock 20, and a 9mm handgun. He already killed his mother at their home about five miles away. Then, he drove to Sandy Hook. Lanza murdered 20 children and six teachers before killing himself at 9.40 a.m.,

when police claim they heard the final shot. A lifelong obsession with Columbine culminated in five minutes of pure, unhinged violence. According to the state's attorney's report, Yud assumed Lanza was a normal kid on the outside. Weird, but normal. He liked writing poetry, hiking, and building computers. His mother was a gun enthusiast who taught her children how to shoot.

But Lanza's online persona revealed his deep obsession with the Columbine Killers and Seung-Hoo Cho. According to the Daily Beast, he used multiple Tumblr accounts to post about his Columbine dreams. His handles were "Gay for Tim K" and "Queer for Kim Veer," references to two other school shooters: Tim Kretschmer and Kim Veer Gill. In one post, Lanza shared a collage of corpses from the Columbine shooting.

On another, he shared an homage to Seung-Hoo Cho. He liked to upload videos and audio of school shootings depicted on TV and in film. He'd also post audio files from Harris and Klebold before they were basically scrubbed from the internet. But if Lanza had to pick one, he liked Dylan Klebold the most. In a forum post in 2011, Lanza referred to Harris as a monster but appeared to hold some sympathy for Klebold.

Columbine investigators always described Dylan as a depressive bullying victim, while Harris was a calculating psychopath and the mastermind behind the whole thing. According to Cullen, many Columbine fans gravitate toward Klebold. They think, Dylan was like me. He was tormented and he struck back. He became a folk hero, which only makes those who admire him more dangerous. They see him as a hero and themselves as infallible.

Lanza took his obsession with Columbine to a whole new level. According to Dr. Langman, most mass shooters draw inspiration from other killers, but the research and references are often minimal. Lanza was different. He had spreadsheets dedicated to mass murderers, upwards of 500 different people. His research was so detailed that Langman describes him as studying mass murderers perhaps more than any other school shooter.

He went above and beyond, but like most young shooters, he found someone who inspired him and whose footsteps he wanted to follow. In the months leading up to Sandy Hook, Lanza committed virtual suicide. He deleted all his accounts, wiped his hard drive, and went entirely offline. All of his Tumblr posts were gone as of November 2012. A month later, he perpetrated the second worst school shooting in US history.

Part 5: Intelligence, Ideology, and Malice Alex Riebel was a prophet, but not the kind you'd find in the Bible, Torah, or Koran. In his own words, "I became a prophet because I spread the word of a god, Eric Harris." Before Alex, Murrysville was just another suburb about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh. After Alex, it was home to one of the worst mass stabbing attacks in US history.

Guns aren't the only deadly weapons these self-proclaimed prophets of Columbine might use. They only exist to cause as much destruction as possible. The how is up in the air. Alex was a sophomore at Franklin High. To his classmates, he was a really shy kid with a good future ahead of him. But most people don't know what goes on behind closed doors. According to Alex, he'd been dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts since the fifth grade.

He suppressed the feelings through middle school, but they roared back during his freshman year at Franklin High. Alex originally planned the attack for April 20th, 2014, Columbine's 15-year anniversary. The only problem was that April 20th was a Sunday. To keep with his Columbine theme, Alex changed the date to April 9th, Eric Harris's birthday. Alex arrived at Franklin High that morning, dressed in all black and armed with two kitchen knives.

Around 7:13 AM, moments before classes began, Alex began stabbing and slashing at people in the first floor hallway. According to police, Alex didn't have any specific targets in mind. If you were in range, you were in danger. After harming several people, Alex pulled the fire alarm to draw more students out of the classrooms and into the hallway. It worked. Witnesses say Alex looked emotionless as he aimlessly attacked his classmates.

In all, he injured 21 people, some much worse than others. Assistant Principal Sam King and a Franklin senior named Ian Griffith tackled Alex and ended the attack. As they subdued him, Alex allegedly said, "My work is not done. I have more people to kill." Five students were in critical condition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

One boy clung to his life after Alex's knife pierced his liver and missed his heart and aorta by millimeters. Several other victims were in serious condition at Forbes Regional Hospital a few towns over. Miraculously, nobody died during the Franklin High attack. In his locker, police found a multi-page manifesto titled Ragnarok, the Norse legend about the end of the world.

The piece opens with: "By now, my art has obviously been revealed to the world in its most beautiful fashion." He writes about selfishness and how this world is full of hypocrites who only care about themselves. On his gods, Alex wrote: "I would be nothing, and this whole event would never occur if it weren't for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High School."

They worked hard to achieve freedom in heaven. I admire them greatly because they saw something wrong in the world and moved away the herd of sheep to do something about it. Alex describes what it takes for people like Harris, Klebold, Julius Caesar, and Vladimir Lenin to become gods. One needs intelligence, ideology, and malice. Did Alex believe he would ascend to a god-like form? It doesn't appear so. Instead,

He saw himself as an emissary, saying, "I became a prophet because I spread the word of a god, Eric Harris." In closing, Alex wrote about how much he loved his family and close friends. He was sorry for the harm his actions would inevitably cause them, but he was incapable of loving them more than he admired Harris, Klebold, and Lennon. He believed he belonged with people that developed quickly. That changed the world when everyone else were just sheep in a herd.

In October 2017, then 20-year-old Alex bled guilty to 21 counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to between 23 and a half and 60 years in prison and will be eligible for parole shortly before his 40th birthday. Part 6: Natural Selection Coined by Charles Darwin, natural selection is the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change.

Individuals with adaptive and desirable traits have the edge regarding survival. They're more likely to live, reproduce, and spread those traits to their offspring, thus molding a species into a more formidable version of its previous self. As Eric Harris reigned hell upon Columbine High School, he wore a white t-shirt with the words "Natural Selection" printed in black. He saw himself as the harbinger of death,

Here to eradicate those he deemed lesser for the betterment of the species. To Harris, everyone was lesser. From people that only know stupid facts to anyone who can't figure out how to use a fucking lighter. About 250 miles northeast of Murraysville, Pennsylvania is the small community of Eaton Township. It's the kind of place that stays out of national headlines. The kind of place where a sick obsession with Columbine could fester without anybody noticing.

even when the warning signs were right under their nose. Eaton was home to 24-year-old Randy Stare, a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan with dreams of becoming a world-famous YouTuber. In high school, Randy was your typical teenager. Some might have called him weird, but think of the kid in your high school that was into YouTube. You might have called them weird too. Maybe it was you. Tragedy and trauma affect people differently. Some make full recoveries after getting help.

Others spiral alone in the background. In his book, Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from Stone Age to the Present, author Peter Vronsky says, "Trauma is the single recurring theme in the biographies of most killers. As a consequence of this trauma, they suppress their emotional response. They never learn the appropriate response to trauma and never develop other emotions, which is why they find it difficult to empathize with others." In Randy's own words,

2013 was the worst year of his life. Two close friends died in freak car accidents. Randy himself was involved in a car crash that totaled his car. His YouTube videos turned dark. He fell head over heels in love with a cartoon ghost named Ember McClain, and he developed an unhealthy obsession with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. He bought three replicas of Eric's Natural Selection t-shirt and wore them constantly.

How his parents never put two and two together is unexplainable. They were alive and well when Columbine happened in 1999. His 235-page journal opens with the line, "As the late Eric Harris once said, 'I hate the fucking world.'" Elsewhere in his journal, Randy referred to Harris as a hero and a god, and expressed a desire to meet him in the afterlife.

He also wanted to meet his other dead heroes: Lee Harvey Oswald, Adam Lanza, and Timothy McVeigh, a domestic terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. Randy worked the night shift at Weiss Market, a grocery store in Eaton Township, akin to Trader Joe's and Big Y. In the early morning of June 8, 2017,

Randy locked the doors, barricaded the exits, and drew a pair of pistol grip, pump-action shotguns from his gym bag. Before he opened fire, Randy published a cache of troubling videos, including a short animated film called "The Westboro High Massacre." In the video,

Randy and his Ghost Girl characters wreak havoc on a fictional high school. The extremely disturbing movie was his final ode to Harris and Klebold, his self-proclaimed magnum opus. Randy shot and killed three co-workers before taking his own life. When police finally arrived, they found the only surviving victim, Randy's co-worker, Kristen Newell, trembling in a bush by the store.

She came face to face with Randy, but for some reason, he spared her. She escaped the store and called 911, but it was too late to save the other Weiss Market employees. Part 7: The Valentine's Day Massacre For nearly 20 years, Columbine was the worst high school shooting in America.

It's upsetting that we need different classifications: elementary, high school, college. But that's what happens when people like Harris and Klebold ascend to godlike status. Their disciples look for unique ways to appease their idols. You could say the same for any major religion. On Valentine's Day, 2018,

Columbine fell to second on the list after Nicholas Cruz murdered 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Armed with a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-auto assault rifle, Cruz wreaked havoc across three floors and escaped among the chaos. Police arrested him at a nearby McDonald's nearly two hours after the shooting started. Cruz pled guilty in October 2021.

and the conversation pivoted toward what the state of Florida would do with him. They would need a unanimous jury vote to sentence him to death. Otherwise, he'd spend the rest of his life in jail. Before the penalty trial, Cruz sat down with Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychologist and expert witness for the prosecution. Cruz told Scott how he read about Columbine five years before the Parkland shooting. It planted the idea in his head.

and he aspired to commit his own mass killing. But Cruz's research didn't stop at Harris and Klebold. He studied Virginia Tech and the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting from 2012. In his own words, "I studied mass murderers and how they did it." He wanted to know how they planned and what weapons they used. He learned to watch for people coming around corners and to keep some distance between himself and his victims.

He needed to be as fast as possible, and he knew the police response would be slow. Slow enough to afford him a 20-minute window. Like other Columbine disciples, Cruz made several videos about his hatred toward humanity and his desire to commit mass violence. He said: "With the power of my AR, you will know who I am. You're all stupid and brainwashed by these fucking political government programs. You will all see. You will all know my name.

In the wake of Cruz's attack, Keanu Reeves once again found himself on the other side of the blame gun. While attempting to shift the conversation away from gun control, Florida Republican Representative Brian Mast told NPR, "The biggest pusher of violence is Hollywood movies. When you look at movies like John Wick, the societal impact of people being desensitized to killing is troubling and very different." Part 8: Another One Bites the Dust

Imagine you're the late Joe Montana Sr. Every time an up-and-coming college or NFL quarterback makes a name for themselves, the experts say they took a page out of your son's playbook. Now imagine you're Sue Klebold. Every time someone kills innocent children during a school shooting, the experts draw a line between them and your son. Young girls send you letters saying they wish they could have had Dylan's baby. Some call your son a hero. The most call him a monster.

During the shooting, Dylan wore a red, star-shaped hammer and sickle pin on his boot. It was a gift Sue's friend bought him on a trip to Russia. On May 18, 2018, Sue saw the same pin attached to 17-year-old Dimitrios Pogortsev's black trench coat. The teenager was responsible for killing eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in Galveston County, Texas. It was the third worst high school shooting behind Columbine and Parkland.

It began when Dimitrios entered an art classroom wearing a long black trench coat and a sawed-off shotgun. Two classic Columbine odes. According to witnesses, Dimitrios entered another art classroom singing Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" as he opened fire on everyone inside. Some students barricaded themselves in a supply closet. Dimitrios just shot through the door. Police arrived and attempted to convince the boy to come peacefully.

Demetrios had other plans. He opened fire on the cops, critically wounding one and forcing the others to back off. Finally, after a lengthy standoff, Demetrios surrendered. According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the teen gave himself up because he didn't have the courage to commit the suicide. During an interview at the police station, Demetrios told officers that he didn't shoot the kids he liked because he wanted them to tell his story.

You can follow this infamy theme between every school shooter who drew their inspiration from Columbine. They're often quiet, lonely, unpopular kids who want attention more than anything. As Chris Harper Mercer puts it, "So many people are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are." Seems like the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight.

Chris went on to murder nine at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. On his Facebook page, Dimitrios posted an image of a black t-shirt with the words "Born to Kill" printed in bold white letters across the chest. It was similar to the font used on Eric Harris's natural selection shirt.

He also posted an image of his black duster, showing the hammer and sickle pin and the Nazi cross. Was his assault on the art classroom a subtle nod to Adolf Hitler as well? According to the FBI, female mass shooters are extremely rare. Of the 250 active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2018, only 9 involved a female shooter in some capacity.

According to Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist, men commit the overwhelming majority of mass shootings for the same reasons they commit most violent crimes. Men lean toward aggression more often than women and aren't inhibited by empathy as easily. Cornell explained that men in distress seem less willing to turn to others for help.

As a result, a young, distressed man might see people like the Columbine killers as beacons of hope. As for why we don't see more females following a similar path, Cornell blames a lack of data. Then again, he believes that lack of data is ultimately a good thing. It means fewer dead people.

Regarding female Columbine disciples, only one name comes to mind. 18-year-old Sol Pais will forever be known as the girl who was infatuated with Columbine. April 20th, 2019, the 20th anniversary of Columbine, was supposed to be a day of prayer and memorial services.

Instead, school districts across Colorado either closed or went into lockdown when news broke that an armed, 18-year-old Columbine-obsessed woman had flown across the country to buy a gun. Sol grew up in South Florida. Her high school classmates called her the quiet kid who sat in the corner. In her journal, she described herself as a pot of scalding water on the verge of boiling over. She wrote about her obsession with Columbine and her desire to buy a gun.

She drew pictures of bloody knives and automatic weapons. According to the FBI, one page had a rough sketch of Dylan Klebold. The real question is if she ever planned on committing a school shooting. Sol bought a one-way ticket from Florida to Colorado on Sunday, April 14th, 2019. When she landed, she took an Uber to a gun store in Littleton, not far from Columbine High School, and bought a pump-action shotgun. Sol's parents reported her missing on Monday morning.

Her journal and online blog posts gave Miami police cause for concern. They contacted the FBI, who tracked Sol to Littleton, Colorado. It was the perfect setting for something terrible, and a statewide search ensued. They eventually contacted an Uber driver who dropped Sol off in the Mount Evans area Monday night, about 45 miles west of Columbine High School.

They found her body Wednesday morning, dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. One of her final journal entries read: "The last few days have been especially painful and tumultuous, which kickstarted me again to start revving my plans and getting on with them." We'll never know if Sol planned on committing a mass shooting, or if she just wanted to kill herself near Columbine. Clear Creek County Undersheriff Bruce Snelling believes the latter,

In his opinion, Sol killed herself Monday night in the snowy mountains near the Echo Lake Lodge. She never knew about the manhunt or the school closures. The logical likelihood was she was here to end her journey.

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