What do we NOT know about Columbine 4/20/99?

If we think about it, the things that we know occurred on the day of Columbine are also news that are carefully chosen to be released. Of course apart from that along the years we have accounts from students themselves, testimonies, books, etc.

What are things do we not know, though. Things about that day that are possibly kept from us and we never thought about it.

That's a very hard question to answer right there. I like to think what else is there not to know? Right now all I could think about now is Eric's family and hear their side of the story about their late son/brother.

The same things in anyone's life.

-Why the boys didn't kill anyone else after 11:36 PM
-Why they told Brooks Brown to go home after repeatedly threatening him online
-Whether there was anything personal involved in killing Rachel Scott
-What "Nixon" meant (i.e., naming it "Nixon")

Then there's the matter of conflicting testimonies about Rachel Scott dying instantly or not, Cassie Bernall praying or not, etc.

-I believe they were waiting to ambush some police that came into the school and didn't want to blow their cover.

-After Brooks showed concern for Eric, Eric felt that Brooks actually cared about him when he thought Brooks was out to ruin his life, so he "liked him" now.

-Brook's mom says Dylan liked Rachel Scott and knew her, and helped her with some homework. Not sure how valid that is. I think they just wanted to kill everything they could.

-Nixon could refer to vietnam in some fashion. He did mention it in his journal but I am not sure:
“In less than nine hours now, people will die because of me, it will be a day that will be remembered forever.”

You know what the best part is, we can't actually know for sure if that conversation with Brooks actually happened. Eric isn't around to prove that. Were that witness at all seeing the both of them tgt outside?

I agree with the speculation I've seen floating around that Brooks saw something suspicious or caught sight of Eric's weapons and high tailed it out of there. Wasn't Eric's original plan to kill Brooks and his family first? It seems unlikely that during Eric's one and only chance to go on a killing spree he lets the one person he's harboured a significant amount of hatred for (for years!) go... But it could also fall into the theory that they couldn't shoot anyone who had direct contact with them. Whatever Really happened, Brooks sure was lucky.

The "interesting tidbits about Brooks Brown" thread seems to have quite a few answers to whether or not the Eric-Brooks conversation happened. I'm going to believe that it did.

Other than what was caught on camera, what happened outside, and what happened in the library, we don't really know much of what they were doing when they were just shooting at nothing in the hallways. Apparently a few people there were actually shot at in the hallway, but weren't actually shot in the begging of the attack inside the school. (Video below)


I have also heard reports that for a brief period of time, they were shooting at kids at the Cafeteria before everybody was evacuated (Most likely false).
But there are three moments in the columbine high school massacre that are poorly documented.
-From the time between when they went into the school and when they entered the library.
-The time between when they left the library and entered the cafeteria.
And probably one of the most mysterious of all of them
-The ten minute period between when they left the cafeteria and when they committed suicide.

I'd like to see the notes from Eric's therapist . I think they could be very telling as to what may have been going on with him.

Their exact movements through the school.
The Brooks Brown encounter.
Time of Dylan's suicide.
Their morning routine, what they did that morning before going to CHS.

BornToKill wrote:

Their exact movements through the school.

This is actually a very bold point. We don't know their exact movements through the school and things they could have done or left behind.

Good answers [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. Their morning routine too even a minute of it.

I would also like to know more about the authorities' immediate actions right after the shooting meaning after they identified the boys. I remember Danny's dad and Randy brown talked on the radio show about how jeffco had a secret meeting of some sort...urgh I'm gonna have to hear that episode again.

I would like to know exactly when the authorities knew the identities of the victims yet didn't inform the families for almost 24 hours after the shootings, and why they promised a final bus that never arrived at the grade school and they knew was never going to arrive. Also, what really happened the last few minutes before the boys suicide - why the library and did they say anything to each other or did Eric just kill himself without any warning and what was Dylan's reaction to that. So many questions that will never be answered.

That's probably unrelated to that specific day; still it's something I do not have an answer for.-- I don't know if Eric's or Dylan's home computers have been re-examined during the years, but I'd really like to know if, with more advanced computer forensics tools, something important about their personal lives (maybe another journal?) could have suddenly popped out.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] or maybe an online account that's still out there untouched or archived that belongs to either Eric or Dylan.

Amarantha wrote:

That's probably unrelated to that specific day; still it's something I do not have an answer for.-- I don't know if Eric's or Dylan's home computers have been re-examined during the years, but I'd really like to know if, with more advanced computer forensics tools, something important about their personal lives (maybe another journal?) could have suddenly popped out.

With what we have today we could access what Dylan had on his hdd. May not be anything groundbreaking but it would be something new. I don't know if they have looked at it but if they did they probably would hold off on telling anyone anything for as long as they could.

who the other shooters were, many others were named in official reports, it's my belief E & D did not act alone.

nama3faux wrote:

who the other shooters were, many others were named in official reports, it's my belief E & D did not act alone.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
I'm not going to exclude the possibility that they didn't do it all alone. But a third or more shooters sounds too schizo.

Kiwik wrote:

I agree with the speculation I've seen floating around that Brooks saw something suspicious or caught sight of Eric's weapons and high tailed it out of there. Wasn't Eric's original plan to kill Brooks and his family first? It seems unlikely that during Eric's one and only chance to go on a killing spree he lets the one person he's harboured a significant amount of hatred for (for years!) go... But it could also fall into the theory that they couldn't shoot anyone who had direct contact with them. Whatever Really happened, Brooks sure was lucky.

The reason why Brooks story seems suspicious I submit is because we are told the bombs weren't planted yet, when they were. It was Eric's second time at the school, not the first. The bombs were planted at 11, not 11:14. So, Eric telling him that he needs to get out of there makes sense.  Then "it doesn't matter any more".

It's not about shooting him. As with the rest of the case, it is an error to focus on the attack as merely a shooting, as what happened, not as a bombing, as what was planned.

Somebody like Judy Brown will say Brooks wasn't shot because it would alert the cafeteria and ruin the plan. Ok, then why shoot Rachel? That's literally all it did. Shows how not having Patti interrupt them to start the massacre is also a problem. Having Rachel shot first means you have to make up that they couldn't stop themselves from shooting her but could stop themselves from shooting Brooks. Rather than Brooks wasn't sitting by the west entrance when Patti came to tell them to knock it off.

It's far more likely it was telling Brooks to fuck off because there was only so much time until the bombs went off and Eric couldn't be caught talking to Brooks for ten minutes. Time bombs made him in a hurry.

I find it curious that Brooks walked away too. I used to find it even more curious when juxtaposed with the "just a shooting, bombs planted at 11:14, failed at 11:17" false narrative.

Note the other person who was spared, John Savage, doesn't mention a bomb, but all the witnesses around him do. He was told to run because if he didn't, he could be expected to explode. Not because they would have to shoot him. They could avoid that. They weren't robots. But the bombs were set. They couldn't avoid that. He was likely told to shut up about it. I suspect the same for Brooks. Why we don't have his whole phone call. Also, NBK says spare one to tell the story. Brooks outside and John inside.

See [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for some of my problems with the case.  On the contrary, there is tons people don't know about Columbine. Most of what they think they know is wrong.  They think it was a shooting when it was a bombing. They have never played video games and think their weapons arsenal came from them being evil geniuses, and so on.

Also, Dylan talks about the "n*glet at community service" in Eric's yearbook which must have been Isaiah. "There's that little n*gger" as Josh Lapp recalls it shows re-cognition. Eric says he hates Star Wars fans, plays soccer, and wants to kill a freshman, and just happens to shoot Steven when Dylan signals "Fine, I'll just start shooting" (after his car bomb fails and they have 5 minutes until cafeteria goes boom).  Malik Hall was shot and was in Dylan's French class, or something like that. Tim Krabbe, who I like otherwise, speculates they couldn't shoot anybody who spoke to them. I say tell it to Lance Kirklin. They went to the same school. They probably knew their victims more than vice versa.

It seems to me that it helped them to imagine their victims as video game NPCs, is coupled with the usual victim blaming to say "see, they couldn't bring themselves to do it " rather than it just made it easier.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

-Why the boys didn't kill anyone else after 11:36 PM
-Why they told Brooks Brown to go home after repeatedly threatening him online
-Whether there was anything personal involved in killing Rachel Scott
-What "Nixon" meant (i.e., naming it "Nixon")

Then there's the matter of conflicting testimonies about Rachel Scott dying instantly or not, Cassie Bernall praying or not, etc.  

-Because 11:35 is when the last cafeteria bomb failed, not 11:17. PS 11:36 is "when they leave the library", not when they stop killing, which is right before. 11:29 is "when they enter". Not a coincidence that it was exactly 5 minutes of library massacre - it was 5 minutes between Dylan's car's bomb and the second cafeteria bomb. They go to the bomb then, not earlier.

-Because the first cafeteria bomb was set to go off at 11:20 and Eric didn't have time for small talk

-No, she was sitting by the west entrance and Patti came out of the west entrance to tell them to knock it off because their guns looked too real. She caught them with their guns out. Where that event is said to happen is out of order. Rachel was the first to die, not the first to be shot.

-Nixon was the name of a guy from Singapore who was interviewed by Eric for class. His school paper he did for it is in the 11k (pg # 26659). That's why they say the voice on the tape was Oriental. He taped over a previous recording.

Cassie wasn't praying, her hands were over her ears because of the fire alarm. The fire alarm from the first bomb was supposed to send the library into their guns, but Patti got them shooting. They only enter the library once they get the fire alarm going, expecting everybody inside to get up despite shooting everyone outside.

Eric said "peekaboo" in reference to himself, not in reference to Cassie. "peekaboo shooting" as in a video game by going up and down from table to table.  Her hands weren't over her eyes. That's why shooting her in the side of the head caught her finger. Think it's also why Daniel Mauser got his finger shot.

Does anybody know what Dylan and Eric used as inspiration for the trench coats and sunglasses? I feel like I came across the answer before, but I’ve just forgotten.

One can only speculate, but Duke Nukem wears sunglasses in Duke Nukem 3D. Caleb of the video game Blood wears a trench coat and has red eyes. Postaldude of the video game Postal wears a trench coat and sunglasses. I'd wager some combination of those. The tossing of the coats on to the ground seem an homage to the opening scene of Natural Born Killers.

And just to note, the sunglasses weren't worn during the attack, at least according to the surveillance and the usual story.

Why didn’t Eric and Dylan actually use good bomb making recipes instead of shitty Anarchist Cookbook? No offense 1999 probably had Islamic extremist stuff available like what we see in Boston and Ariana Grande.

It's a myth from people who never played video games (like Cullen) that their bombs were made out of the Anarchist's Cookbook, which can be illustrated by asking for a page number. There is no "barbecue model" in the Cookbook; there are no propane bombs. A good example to show with this case, it's more what people think they know that isn't true.

The only thing which even resembles the cookbook is the drawings of the napalm launcher, a weapon inspired by the video game Blood.

The pipe bombs and propane bombs were out of Duke Nukem 3D.  I don't know where the crickets come from, but it isn't the cookbook. Their name comes from Men in Black (the noisy cricket gun).

People imagine the attack is thanks to the "wild west" nature of the internet in 1999 with bomb recipes all over, but it wasn't like that.  Further, the internet and computing were more distinct back then. One had to take up the phone line if they wanted to get on the internet. One didn't need to be online to play video games. DOOM is one of the first to even have that option - has port 666 as a result.

So that's one reason, they longed to act out a video game and were tricked by those - as teenagers would be, into thinking their pipe bombs could blow a hole in a propane tank.  They also only had fireworks for gunpowder and their hands to tighten them.