Columbine - From a website by Vanessa West

This is something I haven't read in many years, but I remember it popping up on Yahoo search back in 2007 or 2008, I believe.

Here is a portion of the columbine section on this woman, Vanessa West's website that describes a discussion she had with someone who claimed to know Eric online.


I was recently given the opportunity to speak with a former AOL chatroom user who vividly recalled speaking with Eric Harris online as early as 1998, continuing into the spring of 1999. The source, who chose to remain anonymous and will henceforth be known as R, recalled heated debates in some of the America Online political chatrooms. Late in the evening, sometimes as late as midnight, a user going by the name of 'Rebdomine' would log on and proceed to whip the other chatters into a frenzy with his hard-line political views and refusal to consider other's opinions. R states that while Rebdomine made a few valid points, he used verbal attacks and swearing to take the difference of opinion to a personal level with other users. In mid March of 1999, R pointed out to Rebdomine that he was taking matters far too personally. In a private message, Rebdomine asked R what he meant by this, to which R responded that his (Rebdomine's) point could be better made if he used less profanity and personal attacks. Perhaps because R took the time to reach out to Rebdomine - Eric Harris - a sort of online friendship arose. Through private messaging and chatting, the source learned that Rebdomine was a high school student in Colorado. Harris would ask his new friend, a war veteran, about what is was like to go to war, as well as growing up and living in Chicago among street gangs. Harris eventually told R that he was writing a book, and asked if he would like to read a portion of it. Not keen on reading the writings of a high school student, the source agreed to read it but eventually forgot about the offer.
The friendship grew, with Harris discussing his love for video games like Doom, (which R also played with adult friends,) guns, and his feelings of ostracization at school. At times he detailed creating a 'diversion' before a 'big attack', and spoke of how when the day came, he was going to make sure he got the chance to shoot certain other students at his school. Assuming that the teen was merely blowing off steam, R chalked Harris's ranting up to adolescent feelings of peer pressure and a vivid imagination, a coping mechanism for his feelings of being 'outside' the rest of his peers. Despite the violence he spoke of, R found Harris to be articulate, intelligent, and entertaining. He credited Harris's interest in guns to video games such as Doom, and felt that Harris was just seeking attention with his vitrol.

On Sunday, April 19th, 1999, R was spending a free weekend at home and logged onto American Online. Moments later, a private message from Eric Harris appeared. Eric told R that his prom had been that weekend, and proceeded to say that Monday was the "big day" and that "plans were in motion" and there was nothing to stop the turn of events now, and that after Monday prom would be distant memory. The two discussed Harris's book and website, prompting Harris to send R a few pages from the book. R told Harris that he would look at his website, but did not bother to write down the address.

Later that day, R sat down to read the sampling of pages Harris had sent him. R told me that the contents of the 'book' were greatly disturbing, and having read them I must agree. Included in the pages were detailed, explicit instructions on how to build pipe bombs and produce homemade napalm. Harris omitted nothing, even relating in the instructions how and where to hide gasoline so that one's parents wouldn't discover it. At the bottom of each page was a copyright with the name of one Wayne Harris - Eric's father. Unnerved by the documents, R planned to discuss them with Eric in the AOL chatrooms. He never got the chance.

The events of April 20th, 1999 unfolded and R realized that his internet friend was Eric Harris of Littleton, CO. R told me that he finds the ordeal sad, and that he felt Harris was an intelligent person who was obviously far more troubled that he let on - or that R noticed. Hindsight, as R pointed out, is 20/20.


Vanessa West.

This is the columbine section of her website.


****If this has already been posted here, please let me know!

I honestly don't know how much I believe this story, very frankly.

wow. If only the person who spoke with him knew his intentions were real.

This all really takes me back (i was in 8th grade in 1999 and was on dial up internet) to when AOL was the place to meet and make friendships through chatrooms. What a different world we live in today.

I don't know how much I believe this. For one, the dates are wrong. April 19, 1999 was a Monday, and this article states it was a Sunday.