Interview with Sarah Davis, Eric’s 6th grade girlfriend

People will read this with their own agenda and get out of it what they want. I hope people think that I see both sides of things, but it's a possibility they won't. I've tried to be clear that I think what happened at Columbine was a horrendous act. I don't feel like I'm the best person to talk about what went on that day because I wasn't there. But I do feel like I can give my perspective because I had some experience with somebody who committed a horrible crime. But he wasn't a horrible person. The negative side has been put out there so much. I guess my goal is just to balance it out.

I don't necessarily talk about Columbine and what happened after. I have a few friends that I talk to. I didn't take the time to deal with it right then. To grieve for the loss of a friend was next to impossible because of everything else that was going on. So that's something that I have not done completely. It's now been five years, and just over the past year, I'm just starting to process this. But I mean it's affected every part of my life. It's affected every part.

The day of the shooting, I was outside playing street hockey with my friends. I was 18 then. My mom came to the door and said, "There was another school shooting." And your heart kind of drops. I later came inside with my friends.We were watching TV, flipping through the channels, and saw the school shooting thing. On the bottom of the TV it says where they are, Littleton, Colorado. I just sat there and couldn't move at first. Then I got up and I went in my room. I shut the door and I started bawling. It was awful. And then my mom came down and asked, "What's wrong?" And I couldn't even get the words out. I finally told her, "Littleton. Eric lives in Littleton. That's where the school shooting was and I'm really worried about him."

The next morning I went to my softball practice and I didn't take my sunglasses off. My eyes were beet red from crying the whole night. When I got home, my dad came out and his eyes were all puffy. He said, "I have bad news. Your friend Eric was one of the shooters." I pretty much broke down there in the driveway.

I didn't talk to anyone about knowing Eric. But this girl who had been at my house when we saw the shooting on TV, I think she called the media. So this is how the whole fiasco with the media got started. I don't want to say it was easy for the media to cover this story, 'cause there was nothing easy about this situation. But they ended up focusing on that Eric was my boyfriend in 6th grade. I thought it was ridiculous that they concentrated on that, instead of the substance of what I had to say.

The problem I have with the media now is they label people negatively and it sticks. You'll never hear me making excuses for what Eric did. He did commit a monstrous act. All I ask is that people take a second and look a little bit deeper, just a little bit. Maybe I'm not going to convince anyone that he wasn't an evil entity or a monster. That's what they made him out to be. I don't even think the word human being was ever used in relation to him. I feel like, by the media not telling the whole story, it was easier for people just to say, "Oh well, those are evil little monsters.We can deal with them because we know who they are." Then they label them as wearing a black trench coat and being angry all the time. The stereotyping led to this situation where the real issues weren't addressed afterward. And if you're looking for answers as to why it happened, or how somebody can go from being your boy next door to the point where they're able to do this-well, maybe if the media had covered it differently, it would shed light on the idea that it was a process.

Eric and I were in 6th grade when we first met, and I was so awkward then. And he was really quiet. We have an Air Force base in Plattsburgh, [New York]. So he was an Air Force base kid. I wouldn't say we were close friends right away. But we became friends and he was like a nice quiet kid. So he was one of my first boyfriends-well, it doesn't really matter. I mean, it was like a 6th grade boyfriend.

It's kind of funny to think back about things we did together. Like we went to the Clinton County Fair with two other kids. I don't like certain rides very much. They were all about to go on one and he came running out so I didn't have to be by myself. He was just a sweetheart. He was a nice kid. I mean, he had friends. It wasn't like he was a loner then. Maybe he was out in Colorado-actually I guess he was, 'cause they wrote and talked about that in the media. But when he was in Plattsburgh, he wasn't like that.

When we first kept in touch, we wrote letters. I have some of them and it's funny to look back and read them, because some of them are really silly. He said things like, "I don't want to see other girls." And we also talked on the phone. There was a time when we lost touch for a little bit, but not that long. Then we got into the Internet. So we would e-mail and didn't talk as much on the phone. But once some of the serious stuff happened-like when he got caught robbing that van-we talked then because he was having some real issues. I think I was 16 or early 17. Then it was every couple of weeks we'd e-mail or talk, and it was always a good thing. I'm a very quiet and not a very emotional person and tend to listen. He tried to be open, and get me to talk about things that were going on in my life. I really liked that about him. He was compassionate.

I remember this one phone conversation, I was standing in my kitchen talking to him. I said, "Why would you do that-break into a van?" He said, "I don't know. It was spur of the moment.We saw it there." I'd like to believe what he said was true. I don't know if it was or not. He told me, "Now I have to deal with this court stuff. My parents are real pissed off." And I said, "OK, you made a mistake. Live with the consequences, learn from it. And move on from there." He said, "I definitely am. I think I'm going to start a new job. I'm playing soccer here. And things are going better."

Later on, I was thinking that Eric had lost a lot of hope for his future. I thought things were getting better with him. But he was having a problem with his after-school plans. He told me he'd gotten rejected from the armed forces. And his college prospects weren't looking up all that much. I don't feel like he thought that he had a lot going for him. After it all happened, I just remember thinking that these were important things. But I don't have an answer to the big question: "How could this have happened?" I would never pretend to have an answer for that.

I guess it was a combination of things that told me something was wrong. I was concerned about the van break-in, and Eric didn't seem to be responding well to his juvenile diversion program. He seemed angry and resentful. I remember sitting with a friend after one of the school shootings that happened before Columbine. I was telling her I was concerned about Eric and that the shooting had made me think of him and it seemed crazy, but I felt like it was something he was capable of. You know it's funny, because he never mentioned guns. I know that one time he sent me this Web site. It was something very dark and creepy. I was surprised and even thought that he had sent me the wrong link to look at.

Sometimes I separate thinking about the Eric I knew from the person who did this shooting. But it really can't be separated. When I found out that Eric was one of the shooters, obviously I was upset. But the reality is I would never say I was shocked. Did he ever say to me, "Sarah, I'm going to go on a shooting rampage at my school?" No. But I just knew it was him. People say he must have said something. But he didn't, and there wasn't any one thing that told me this would happen. I think I will always have to fight the feeling that I could have done something to stop this. But I also have come to see that I wasn't right there with him and I really didn't know it would happen.

What would I want people to know about Eric? My whole point is he was a good person to me and so I know at least part of him was good. I wish people could look at him, or at other young people who have committed horrible acts, as human and capable of doing something good. I understand why people define someone by what they've done, but that one action is not always the whole person.

Every school is going to make kids bring mesh backpacks and have metal detectors and guards. You're just putting a Band-Aid on the problem, you're not fixing it. One thing I recognize as being a positive change is that in certain schools, but not most of them, you see people making an effort and making it a community. They're not letting kids go unnoticed by an adult in their life. I'm not saying that was the situation with Eric. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I saw it at my own high school. There were kids who were allowed to slip through the cracks. And that's not OK. When I'm finished with law school, I would like to help kids and their communities to find better options for juvenile offenders. Yeah, no doubt it has something to do with Eric. Like I said before, this incident affected every part of my life. So it affects my choice about where I want to go and what I want to do, definitely.

What would I say to Eric if he were here right now? My mind doesn't work like that. I'll never have that opportunity, so I don't go there because that doesn't do anything for me. What I do think is, it all comes back to the idea of, if we're ever going to put a stop to things like this, then we need to come to terms with the fact that people who do this, they're human. They're not so different from you and me and you're not going to be able to just pinpoint and figure out who's evil. It doesn't really work that way.

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I never knew either one and can only go by what I see and hear. But what I can understand are their feelings. People like to make them out to be monsters. What they did was terrible, yes, but what about who they really are?

My teens were a rough time, home and school. Its not to say it was always bad or that I had the absolute worst time, but it was tough. I had friends but I also felt completely outcast. Hate to compare, but mt best friend and I were the Eric and Dylan of our school. Even the "outcasts" in school outcasted us. We were truly in our on little group.

I had dark thoughts about hurting or killing others. I can not deny that. But when you feel terrible by how people treat you, your mind wanders. The teenage mind is a chaotic thing. I don't mean that in a bad way, but try to remember your teenage years. Didn't you have thoughts that you look back on as silly or stupid? We were all still going through major changes mentally and physically PLUS dealing with whatever school threw at us. Teenage years are rough.

After Columbine and then people stating my friend and I were going to blow up our school, my thoughts grew darker. When you're made to feel like the lowest of the low and people only view you as a possible killer, it drags you down. I was sinking. I wanted to get revenge. How dare you do this to me? You are all treating me like...you know. I could, without realizing it, comprehend Eric and Dylan. They wanted revenge. I wanted revenge. It was all clear to me.

I was the weird kid growing up, but I like to think people would at least say I was a good person. I tried to be nice. And I did so my youth. But those dark thoughts. Imagine people outside the school who knew me. They would probably say "but he was such a nice boy, I don't understand why he did it".

One must remember, that school is basically the world we grow up in. We have outside experiences, yes, but school is our world. Its all we truly have known from our childhood to our teens. We can look back at things we said and did or thought, and think how stupid we were. Those things are meaningless now. But they aren't then. They mean EVERYTHING at that point in time. The most ridiculous and dumbest of things can drive us mad, sad, whatever. Yet we truly don't understand how pointless it is in the long run. That girl didn't like me? I stopped caring years ago. I wasn't popular? Who cares. I felt left out! And?

Nowadays I don't care and haven't for years. But at that point in my life, it was everything. I wanted to hurt people for mistreating me. I had negative thoughts towards others because I was left out or whatever. Girls didn't like me so I wanted something done, something horrible, to make them all understand the pain it caused to make me feel ugly or unwanted. When I grew up I stopped those thoughts. It just sucked a girl would reject me, but hey, I would move on. The difference between being a teen and early 20s was big. My mind was settling more. I was still stupid, yes, but I was out of that school world. I finally saw how things truly were. Man, I learned real quick people were NOT like they were in school. How I saw people then was complete opposite in the real world.

Back to the other, school was my horrible world. What they said and did affected me greatly then. When I was labeled as a shooter, it truly rocked me to the point of wanting to kill them for a bit. I do understand them a lot. Not 100%, but a lot. Their thoughts and writings and what not are things I felt at their age (I am a year younger than them). I see it all as something terrible now, but if I had access to their journals and what not back then, I probably would have been drawn to them. Someone who, I guess, knew exactly how I felt or close to it.

I guess overall I view them not as pathetic, not as monsters, but just teenagers. Period. They experienced and felt things I did. Granted, they had other feelings I didn't but you get what I'm saying. I could truly relate to them at that time. But, as much as I could relate, they did take it that one step further. They couldn't take it anymore. I truly believe had they just waited to see the real world, it woukd have been a better experience. We sometimes think they would have got in trouble as adults, and maybe they would. But I also believe if they were able to calm down, and see that people change and are different outside of school, they would have been much happier. Given time to settle, and even find a woman to "fix" them, they would be living a good life. I have known people who did things they shouldn't, but one person came into their life, loved them, and made them a better person. Thats what they could have had.

I do feel sorry for them in ways. Again, I truly understand so much of their thought process as I was in that boat almost. They were angry. They wanted people to feel the pain. I wanted others to feel pain for so long. Give it back to them, let them see how it felt. I imagined myself as having powers to over come them. For once I could be the top of the ladder. Let them feel puny and defenseless. It feels terrible doesn't it? I had the thoughts. The guns made them feel powerful....godlike. They had their answer, to make those around finally understand what they had felt all those years.

I am glad I turned my life around. Its not to say I've had it easy, but I do feel ashamed for having such vile and wicked thoughts as a teen. I hope my experiences will help me help my children as they go through those stages. I didn't have help as a teen. My family I guess thought my life was peaches and cream and wouldn't help me understand the trials of the teenage years. That made it harder. If, however, any of my children have problems, I will be there. I'm already dealing with something with my oldest, and we are all there for her, expressing concern but love as well.

Thank you for sharing. I am sorry that you have had to go through this. I do not know the pain or anything you went through. I dealt with my own issues from it, and lived states away. It affected us but you truly more so. You knew Eric. I do not see him as a monster. I do not see him as a bully. Again, he was just a teenager trying to cope with the difficulties that come with that point in time. Sadly he couldn't take it and I do feel terrible he viewed his actions as the only answer. But as I said earlier, I had thoughts like that as a teen as well, which does make me feel horrible about my younger self. What he did was awful, and I do wish I could time travel to save both he and Dylan from themselves, which would save everyone else. I hope I didn't come off in the wrong wah, but I had some awful thoughts as a teen that I'm very ashamed of, and I understand them a bit more than these doctors and what not. You can have a degree and what not, but if you have never experienced or felt something, you will never fully comprehend it. Again, I am sorry for your trials and I do apologize if anything I said came off wrong.

EDIT: I didn't click the link before. I figured that this was you. My mistake. But I still feel the need to say what I did. It will make me look bad, but those years are long behind me.

Thanks so much for posting this interview with Sara Davis. She's pretty candid about who Eric was in his early years, so it's very interesting to read about Eric's development.  As I read this interview, I made a few mental notes. From what I've read, it seems that Eric had compassion for certain types of people and none for others. I have read police interviews in the 11K from Eric's female associates, and it seems he treated girls with the respect and compassion that he didn't show his male friends. I'm not sure if that's because he felt girls were easier to approach, or he felt more comfortable playing the victim card with the opposite sex, winning him easy affection and sympathy. I am leaning more towards the latter than the former. It's astonishing, and interesting, to see Eric display his softer side to the opposite sex, while showing none of that side to his own male peers. It seems as if there are two diametrically opposite views of Eric out there, depending on the associate's gender.

I had already read this interview somewhere else (there is a little different version of it, too), and I think this girl Sarah is the umpteenth fake self-declared "girlfriend" of Eric: maybe she was a good friend of him, since he had sent to her that famous, misterious email before the massacre, but that was all, I guess.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but nor himself, nor anyone of his friends or acquaintances had known about him beeing rejected by marines before Columbine happened, right? I think she as well had known about that after the massacre, like everyone else: this interview was made a lot later.
I've found an entire Tumbrl blog of an another self-declared female "good friend" of Eric, where you can clearly see that she is just inventing everything, even with evidently fakes photos (of Dylan, too); she too declared how a sweetheart Eric was before been transferred in Colorado with his family, of course.
After Columbine, we had all these Eric's "girlfriends": no one for poor Dylan  ? Ok, I'm just kidding.
I hope this post will not sound as polemic or something: I myself am convinced that Eric was a really pretty different person before his adolescence for a variety of complicated reasons; I just don't consider this interview too reliable. Only my opinion.
Sorry again for my bad english.

I really think Eric became messed up when he left Michigan,because he liked his old school and didn't want to leave, but his father was in the army and had no choice right?

Sarah Davis was not from Michigan, but from Plattsburg in NY, the second last place where Eric lived.
Yes, he writed in a composition about how painful was for him to be forced to always been transferred during his life, due to his father's work as an airman. For sure his continuos transfers from place to place didn't help him, but his brother Kevin didn't seem to have big problems with that, instead.

At first, an interesting interview, it is nice to see another side of Eric.

However, how could she know about Eric being rejected by the Marines when the answer was revealed only after the shooting? Unless he had his suspicions on the results and told her (?).

Also, she compliments Eric during the whole interview - he was considerate, quiet, friendly. But then she says she is not shocked and that she thought if someone would be capable of commiting a school shooting, that person would be him. It doesn't make any sense. If I had a considerate, gentle friend who suddenly committed mass murder and suicide, that would strike me as a completely shock - even if they were going though difficult times, that's definitely not how normal, gentle people react.
She never explains what made her feel he was capable of this atrocious act. Would only an weird e-mail convince her of this evil side of him? What kind of e-mail was this?

lilly1192 wrote:

However, how could she know about Eric being rejected by the Marines when the answer was revealed only after the shooting? Unless he had his suspicions on the results and told her (?).

He did tell other people he had been rejected despite not getting confirmation while he was alive. I think the moment for him was when his mom showed the recruiter his Luvox - he likely knew it would bar him entry.

I dont think this is an entirely accurate portrayal, but fair enough.

kblu wrote:

People will read this with their own agenda and get out of it what they want. I hope people think that I see both sides of things, but it's a possibility they won't. I've tried to be clear that I think what happened at Columbine was a horrendous act. I don't feel like I'm the best person to talk about what went on that day because I wasn't there. But I do feel like I can give my perspective because I had some experience with somebody who committed a horrible crime. But he wasn't a horrible person. The negative side has been put out there so much. I guess my goal is just to balance it out.

I don't necessarily talk about Columbine and what happened after. I have a few friends that I talk to. I didn't take the time to deal with it right then. To grieve for the loss of a friend was next to impossible because of everything else that was going on. So that's something that I have not done completely. It's now been five years, and just over the past year, I'm just starting to process this. But I mean it's affected every part of my life. It's affected every part.

The day of the shooting, I was outside playing street hockey with my friends. I was 18 then. My mom came to the door and said, "There was another school shooting." And your heart kind of drops. I later came inside with my friends.We were watching TV, flipping through the channels, and saw the school shooting thing. On the bottom of the TV it says where they are, Littleton, Colorado. I just sat there and couldn't move at first. Then I got up and I went in my room. I shut the door and I started bawling. It was awful. And then my mom came down and asked, "What's wrong?" And I couldn't even get the words out. I finally told her, "Littleton. Eric lives in Littleton. That's where the school shooting was and I'm really worried about him."

The next morning I went to my softball practice and I didn't take my sunglasses off. My eyes were beet red from crying the whole night. When I got home, my dad came out and his eyes were all puffy. He said, "I have bad news. Your friend Eric was one of the shooters." I pretty much broke down there in the driveway.

I didn't talk to anyone about knowing Eric. But this girl who had been at my house when we saw the shooting on TV, I think she called the media. So this is how the whole fiasco with the media got started. I don't want to say it was easy for the media to cover this story, 'cause there was nothing easy about this situation. But they ended up focusing on that Eric was my boyfriend in 6th grade. I thought it was ridiculous that they concentrated on that, instead of the substance of what I had to say.

The problem I have with the media now is they label people negatively and it sticks. You'll never hear me making excuses for what Eric did. He did commit a monstrous act. All I ask is that people take a second and look a little bit deeper, just a little bit. Maybe I'm not going to convince anyone that he wasn't an evil entity or a monster. That's what they made him out to be. I don't even think the word human being was ever used in relation to him. I feel like, by the media not telling the whole story, it was easier for people just to say, "Oh well, those are evil little monsters.We can deal with them because we know who they are." Then they label them as wearing a black trench coat and being angry all the time. The stereotyping led to this situation where the real issues weren't addressed afterward. And if you're looking for answers as to why it happened, or how somebody can go from being your boy next door to the point where they're able to do this-well, maybe if the media had covered it differently, it would shed light on the idea that it was a process.

Eric and I were in 6th grade when we first met, and I was so awkward then. And he was really quiet. We have an Air Force base in Plattsburgh, [New York]. So he was an Air Force base kid. I wouldn't say we were close friends right away. But we became friends and he was like a nice quiet kid. So he was one of my first boyfriends-well, it doesn't really matter. I mean, it was like a 6th grade boyfriend.

It's kind of funny to think back about things we did together. Like we went to the Clinton County Fair with two other kids. I don't like certain rides very much. They were all about to go on one and he came running out so I didn't have to be by myself. He was just a sweetheart. He was a nice kid. I mean, he had friends. It wasn't like he was a loner then. Maybe he was out in Colorado-actually I guess he was, 'cause they wrote and talked about that in the media. But when he was in Plattsburgh, he wasn't like that.

When we first kept in touch, we wrote letters. I have some of them and it's funny to look back and read them, because some of them are really silly. He said things like, "I don't want to see other girls." And we also talked on the phone. There was a time when we lost touch for a little bit, but not that long. Then we got into the Internet. So we would e-mail and didn't talk as much on the phone. But once some of the serious stuff happened-like when he got caught robbing that van-we talked then because he was having some real issues. I think I was 16 or early 17. Then it was every couple of weeks we'd e-mail or talk, and it was always a good thing. I'm a very quiet and not a very emotional person and tend to listen. He tried to be open, and get me to talk about things that were going on in my life. I really liked that about him. He was compassionate.

I remember this one phone conversation, I was standing in my kitchen talking to him. I said, "Why would you do that-break into a van?" He said, "I don't know. It was spur of the moment.We saw it there." I'd like to believe what he said was true. I don't know if it was or not. He told me, "Now I have to deal with this court stuff. My parents are real pissed off." And I said, "OK, you made a mistake. Live with the consequences, learn from it. And move on from there." He said, "I definitely am. I think I'm going to start a new job. I'm playing soccer here. And things are going better."

Later on, I was thinking that Eric had lost a lot of hope for his future. I thought things were getting better with him. But he was having a problem with his after-school plans. He told me he'd gotten rejected from the armed forces. And his college prospects weren't looking up all that much. I don't feel like he thought that he had a lot going for him. After it all happened, I just remember thinking that these were important things. But I don't have an answer to the big question: "How could this have happened?" I would never pretend to have an answer for that.

I guess it was a combination of things that told me something was wrong. I was concerned about the van break-in, and Eric didn't seem to be responding well to his juvenile diversion program. He seemed angry and resentful. I remember sitting with a friend after one of the school shootings that happened before Columbine. I was telling her I was concerned about Eric and that the shooting had made me think of him and it seemed crazy, but I felt like it was something he was capable of. You know it's funny, because he never mentioned guns. I know that one time he sent me this Web site. It was something very dark and creepy. I was surprised and even thought that he had sent me the wrong link to look at.

Sometimes I separate thinking about the Eric I knew from the person who did this shooting. But it really can't be separated. When I found out that Eric was one of the shooters, obviously I was upset. But the reality is I would never say I was shocked. Did he ever say to me, "Sarah, I'm going to go on a shooting rampage at my school?" No. But I just knew it was him. People say he must have said something. But he didn't, and there wasn't any one thing that told me this would happen. I think I will always have to fight the feeling that I could have done something to stop this. But I also have come to see that I wasn't right there with him and I really didn't know it would happen.

What would I want people to know about Eric? My whole point is he was a good person to me and so I know at least part of him was good. I wish people could look at him, or at other young people who have committed horrible acts, as human and capable of doing something good. I understand why people define someone by what they've done, but that one action is not always the whole person.

Every school is going to make kids bring mesh backpacks and have metal detectors and guards. You're just putting a Band-Aid on the problem, you're not fixing it. One thing I recognize as being a positive change is that in certain schools, but not most of them, you see people making an effort and making it a community. They're not letting kids go unnoticed by an adult in their life. I'm not saying that was the situation with Eric. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I saw it at my own high school. There were kids who were allowed to slip through the cracks. And that's not OK. When I'm finished with law school, I would like to help kids and their communities to find better options for juvenile offenders. Yeah, no doubt it has something to do with Eric. Like I said before, this incident affected every part of my life. So it affects my choice about where I want to go and what I want to do, definitely.

What would I say to Eric if he were here right now? My mind doesn't work like that. I'll never have that opportunity, so I don't go there because that doesn't do anything for me. What I do think is, it all comes back to the idea of, if we're ever going to put a stop to things like this, then we need to come to terms with the fact that people who do this, they're human. They're not so different from you and me and you're not going to be able to just pinpoint and figure out who's evil. It doesn't really work that way.

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I see you are posting a lot of interviews. Do you know where I can find them ?