The BT clue

Gustopoet2 wrote:

They left a "clue" at the end of the last BT video. A bomb with a lit fuse and an arrow pointing to CHS with the word "clue" being visible. This was, barring gunfire and bombs, their final "word" to the world. I think that is quite significant.

Gustopoet2 brought this up and its something I've always wondered about. I feel like this isnt talked about enough because it was very blatant clue Eric left for his parents to find. Did they not think this was an odd thing for their son to have on his wall? Are there any other obvious clues like this the boys had put out there for people to find? We're they hidden "fuck yous" left behind by the boys to rub salt in the wounds after the fact, or was this a way for them to be discovered and stopped?

I get the vibe that Eric would have been ok with being caught had it been by someone smart enough to figure out his clues. As if it would have proven to him that not everyone in Littleton were the idiots he saw them as. This specific clue has always interested me simply because it was obviously directed at his family. No one else really entered his room besides them and Dylan, and if I remember right Mrs. Harris said they never went into his room. Eric loved his parents and said they were "the best ive ever known". If that's true then why leave behind a clue that would rub it in that they never stopped him, even though the evidence was there all along?

He wanted them to know he had a good reason for what he did. He was actually trying to stand up to power. He wasn't a complete psychopath and, most of all, to show it wasn't their fault. It was because of Columbine. My 2 cents.

I always just assumed it was a sketch they'd knocked up quickly to make it easier for their parents to find out it was them after the event in case of an 'accident' - ie the bombs went off before they got chance to leave the cafeteria and blew them to pieces. I guess the last people anyone would have suspected would be a couple of kids from that school who did it so it could have took a while for the cops to work out who did it.

If they had have been blown up with the bomb they might have expected their parents to check the bedroom and then put 2 + 2 together once they'd seen the clue and notified the authorities who the culprits were.

Had that happened and there not have been the 'clue' it could have taken a while for anyone to watch the tapes etc.

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

I always just assumed it was a sketch they'd knocked up quickly to make it easier for their parents to find out it was them after the event in case of an 'accident' - ie the bombs went off before they got chance to leave the cafeteria and blew them to pieces. I guess the last people anyone would have suspected would be a couple of kids from that school who did it so it could have took a while for the cops to work out who did it.

If they had have been blown up with the bomb they might have expected their parents to check the bedroom and then put 2 + 2 together once they'd seen the clue and notified the authorities who the culprits were.

Had that happened and there not have been the 'clue' it could have taken a while for anyone to watch the tapes etc.

Could be. One other thing is that Eric left a cassette tape on the kitchen table for his parents. He also left gas-cans in the house that stunk up the place. Both of their cars were booby-trapped. There were pipe bombs, shotgun shells, and other bomb-making stuff left in plain sight @ both houses, along with a sawed-off shotgun barrel. The poster clue may have even been found later after all the other stuff. Does anyone know?

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

I always just assumed it was a sketch they'd knocked up quickly to make it easier for their parents to find out it was them after the event in case of an 'accident' - ie the bombs went off before they got chance to leave the cafeteria and blew them to pieces. I guess the last people anyone would have suspected would be a couple of kids from that school who did it so it could have took a while for the cops to work out who did it.

If they had have been blown up with the bomb they might have expected their parents to check the bedroom and then put 2 + 2 together once they'd seen the clue and notified the authorities who the culprits were.

Had that happened and there not have been the 'clue' it could have taken a while for anyone to watch the tapes etc.

I could see that, but Eric left the Nixon tape so they would have known either way. I've always felt that Eric may have felt his parents were the only ones who would have been able to figure his plan out. Leaving gasoline cans to me shows that he wanted them to at least notice something was going on with him. Maybe the clues at home were a final "fuck you" to them. "I gave you, my parents, all the clues I could and you still couldn't figure it out. Live with that."

What little evidence we've seen seems to point to a somewhat strained relationship between Eric and his father. Eric may have felt that between Wayne's job and all the moving that he didnt care for him on a deeper level. Do we know if Eric had knowledge of his fathers journal on him? I wonder if he knew about it if it would have changed his devotion towards going NBK? E and D saw the attack as a way to prove themselves and I'd be willing to bet part of that, on Eric's part, was toward his father. His dad was in the Air Force but Eric couldn't qualify as a marine. In some twisted way it was a way for him to show his father what a good soldier he was. I'm just speculating of course. I just find it very cold of Eric to leave clues around his house knowing that his parents would have to live with the knowledge they didnt see them in time. Its incredibly sadistic when you think about it.

Nirvana92 wrote:

Radioactive_Clothing wrote:

I always just assumed it was a sketch they'd knocked up quickly to make it easier for their parents to find out it was them after the event in case of an 'accident' - ie the bombs went off before they got chance to leave the cafeteria and blew them to pieces. I guess the last people anyone would have suspected would be a couple of kids from that school who did it so it could have took a while for the cops to work out who did it.

If they had have been blown up with the bomb they might have expected their parents to check the bedroom and then put 2 + 2 together once they'd seen the clue and notified the authorities who the culprits were.

Had that happened and there not have been the 'clue' it could have taken a while for anyone to watch the tapes etc.

I could see that, but Eric left the Nixon tape so they would have known either way. I've always felt that Eric may have felt his parents were the only ones who would have been able to figure his plan out. Leaving gasoline cans to me shows that he wanted them to at least notice something was going on with him. Maybe the clues at home were a final "fuck you" to them. "I gave you, my parents, all the clues I could and you still couldn't figure it out. Live with that."

What little evidence we've seen seems to point to a somewhat strained relationship between Eric and his father. Eric may have felt that between Wayne's job and all the moving that he didnt care for him on a deeper level. Do we know if Eric had knowledge of his fathers journal on him? I wonder if he knew about it if it would have changed his devotion towards going NBK? E and D saw the attack as a way to prove themselves and I'd be willing to bet part of that, on Eric's part, was toward his father. His dad was in the Air Force but Eric couldn't qualify as a marine. In some twisted way it was a way for him to show his father what a good soldier he was. I'm just speculating of course. I just find it very cold of Eric to leave clues around his house knowing that his parents would have to live with the knowledge they didnt see them in time. Its incredibly sadistic when you think about it.

That's a really good point. The only thing is he also went out of his way to say his parents weren't responsible and he even said he wished he was psycho so he wouldn't feel so much remorse over them.

You're right it was sadistic in the long run but I really do think the poster/bomb clue was meant to say "It was the school that made us do this."

Totally agree on the good soldier idea.

Nirvana92 wrote:

Did they not think this was an odd thing for their son to have on his wall? Are there any other obvious clues like this the boys had put out there for people to find? We're they hidden "fuck yous" left behind by the boys to rub salt in the wounds after the fact, or was this a way for them to be discovered and stopped?

First I think the clue was made just hours before the shooting, so I doubt Eric's parents seen it before it went live on the news.

And I may be wrong, but I think Eric left it not so much for his family, as he left it for the cops and possibly also media people. I think he thought it would make news and be on front pages of newspapers etc. It was his "fuck you" and middle finger out to the world.

Plus it fitrs into the duping delight "amazing foreshadowing" Eric seems to have enjoyed a lot.

Does anyone have information about how Wayne and Kathy Harris discovered the evidence of their son's involvement?

This is what I know. Wayne Harris called 911 at 1:04 and mentioned the television coverage. This means he was probably calling from home. It seems inescapable to me that by this point he had already been to Eric's room and seen the "clue," even though he does not tell the dispatchers about it.

My hypothesis is that he received some type of notification at work of a shooting at the school. He rushed home to see if Eric was there, finding the clues. He called his wife. Then he called 911.

Can anyone expand on the above hypothesis?

I think that it was left for his parents. He spent a lot of time saying goodbye to them, and I think he really felt bad. He probably knew that he could kill two birds with one stone (media/press seeing it) by putting it there, but I think it was mainly for his parents.

eli27 wrote:

I think that it was left for his parents. He spent a lot of time saying goodbye to them, and I think he really felt bad. He probably knew that he could kill two birds with one stone (media/press seeing it) by putting it there, but I think it was mainly for his parents.

Yep.

lasttrain wrote:

Does anyone have information about how Wayne and Kathy Harris discovered the evidence of their son's involvement?

This is what I know.  Wayne Harris called 911 at 1:04 and mentioned the television coverage.  This means he was probably calling from home.  It seems inescapable to me that by this point he had already been to Eric's room and seen the "clue," even though he does not tell the dispatchers about it.

My hypothesis is that he received some type of notification at work of a shooting at the school.  He rushed home to see if Eric was there, finding the clues.  He called his wife.  Then he called 911.

Can anyone expand on the above hypothesis?

Its certainly possible, though I think we need to also consider the alternative: Wayne claled because he knew Eric and knew his interest in bombs etc. Why wouldn't he tell the police about the clue? He was a military man, I doubt he would purposely hide information from the police, especially since they would find it themselves later anyways.

Then again, who knows? Wayne was probably in shock.

I think Wayne had to have seen the clue, because if you come home from work early because of a shooting at your son's school (which I assume he did), the first thing you do is call for the child in the house and go to his room to see if he is there. The 11K interview with Harris's parents mentions that there was an itinerary for the shooting left in open sight, and the smell of gasoline was so overpowering that they could not continue the interview. So when Wayne came in he would have noticed both of these things and gone to Eric's room I am sure.

As to why he did not tell police, it was clearly to protect his son in case Eric's involvement ended up being far less than appeared. I know it seems obvious to us from the clues that Eric was a perpetrator, but that is an unthinkable reality for a parent, and I am sure Wayne Harris was hoping that Eric's culpability might be mitigated. According to journalist Alan Pendergrast, when the police arrived Kathy Harris told them she did not want them going down to Eric's room, and they had to obey her until the search warrant arrived.

I still don't know exactly what Wayne and Kathy Harris were doing the morning of the shooting. Were they at work? Did they come home after seeing something on the news? I don't know anything about this and I'd love someone to fill me in, or at least confirm that there is no evidence either way.

lasttrain wrote:

I still don't know exactly what Wayne and Kathy Harris were doing the morning of the shooting.  Were they at work?  Did they come home after seeing something on the news?  I don't know anything about this and I'd love someone to fill me in, or at least confirm that there is no evidence either way.  

IIRC Kathy was a homemaker, so she would have known Eric left and is in school, or at leats out of the house. So iuts possible they didn't check Eric's room, becuas ehe was obviously not there.

Did Erioc keep his duster in his room, or somewhere else? Perhaps the first thing they checked is his trewnchcoat as soon as tehy heard the shooters are in trenchcoats? If he had it in his room and they went to check ther,e they would have seen the clue.

Sabratha wrote:

Did Erioc keep his duster in his room, or somewhere else? Perhaps the first thing they checked is his trewnchcoat as soon as tehy heard the shooters are in trenchcoats? If he had it in his room and they went to check ther,e they would have seen the clue.

I know that is what Dylan's father did.

"When my husband picked up the phone, he shouted, "Listen to the television!"—then held out the receiver so I could hear. I couldn't understand the words being broadcast, but the fact that whatever had happened was big enough to be on TV filled me with terror. Were we at war? Was our country under nuclear attack? "What's happening?" I shrieked.

He came back on the line and poured out what he'd just learned during a distraught call from a close friend of our 17-year-old son, Dylan: There was some kind of shooting at the high school…gunmen in black trenchcoats were firing at people…the friend knew all the kids who wore trenchcoats, and all were accounted for except Dylan and his friend Eric…and Dylan and Eric hadn't been in class that morning…and no one knew where they were.

My husband had told himself that if he found the coat, Dylan couldn't be involved. He'd torn the house apart, looking everywhere. No coat. When there was nowhere left to look, somehow he knew the truth. It was like staring at one of those computer-generated 3-D pictures when the abstract pattern suddenly comes into focus as a recognizable image."

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Yeah, but remember that iirc Eric's mom was a homemaker and was at home when Eric went out that day.

So maybe she already knew he took his coat. Perhaps the Harrises already knew all of this, and didn't feel a need to check his bedroom at the time? Perhaps it wa stheir priority to call cops and watch the news on TV?

Did Eric have his own cellphone at the time? I remember him playign with a cellphone on one of the public videos, but iirc it was not his cellphone.

lasttrain wrote:

My hypothesis is that he received some type of notification at work of a shooting at the school.  He rushed home to see if Eric was there, finding the clues.

Wasn't Wayne Harris retired then?

Sabratha wrote:

Did Eric have his own cellphone at the time? I remember him playign with a cellphone on one of the public videos, but iirc it was not his cellphone.

The phone he spins in the video made in the commons is Mike Vendegnia's cellphone.

Neither of the boys had cells. I think I asked about that around here before...

Yeah thought I recalled correctly he did not have a phone. Just wanted to check. I'm away from my sources atm.

Sabratha wrote:

Yeah, but remember that iirc Eric's mom was a homemaker and was at home when Eric went out that day.

What is the source for this?

There is something that needs to be clarified here.

In Eric's planner, Dylan wrote that at 7 they would "go to Reb's house," meet back at his house at 8:30, "practice gear ups," "chill," etc. And they mostly stuck to this plan. The final preparations and videos before the shooting were made at Eric's house.

So, they must have known for sure that Eric's parents would be gone, or they would not have planned to do all this stuff at his house.  Also Eric left behind guns, flammable material, a schedule, a taped confession.  So there was no one there.

So what were Eric's parents doing the morning of the shooting?

Eric's Mom was also working part time for a caterer at this time and I believe she had went in to work that day.

Seems like Final Destination to me with the whole "clue" thing going on