06-21-15

I am reposting this essay because of the events in Charleston, SC. I feel there are strong similarities between Eric Harris, one of two Columbine killers and Dylann Roof, the man who ended nine beautiful lives in the Charleston church.

Please read carefully and respond if you see the connections I do. I will be doing another post on this topic shortly.

PLEASE NOTE: At the present time this program will not let me insert the actual autopsy reports mentioned in my essay. If you feel them important, please contact me and I will provide the link to them.

Nov. 17, 2014

“Columbine”

An Amateur Psychological Autopsy of Co-dependent murderers.

At 11:19 a.m. (UTC-6), April 20, 1999 Eric Harris and his friend Dylan Klebold brought hell to the small, suburban town of Littleton, Colorado when they walked through the doors of Columbine High School. By 12:08 p.m. they, along with twelve students and one teacher were dead and twenty-four others were injured (twenty-one by gunshot).

When assigned to read “Columbine”, David Cullen, 2009, Twelve, Hatchette Book Group for our final essay, we were directed to choose either Dylan Klebold or Eric Harris to complete what I refer to as an Amateur Psychological Autopsy of our choice. When I read this in our instructions the very first thing that occurred to me was, sorry professor no can do.

Between 1966 and 2014 there have been eleven major mass murders committed in the United States, each involving guns and having ten or more innocent deaths. The significant variable in those cases is only one event involved more than one proactive killer and that was Columbine, where two, perhaps even three disturbed young men went on a rampage.

I believe Columbine had three killers – Dylan, Eric and Kle-arris, the psychological malevolency created by their co-dependent relationship.

In comments from Susan Klebold’s (Dylan’s mother) essay published in the November 2009 issue of “O”, The Oprah Magazine, she references a theft committed by Dylan and Eric:

“Their theft had shown that under each other’s influence they could be impulsive and unscrupulous. Could they also—no matter how unbelievable it seemed—be violent?”

            This one statement raised a lot of questions for me.

Then Mrs. Klebold went on to say:

“No matter what he (Dylan) did, he was driven to win—and was very hard on himself when he lost.”

“His adolescence was less joyful than his childhood. As he grew, he became extremely shy and uncomfortable when he was the center of attention, and would hide or act silly if we tried to take his picture. By junior high, it was evident that he no longer liked school; worse, his passion for learning was gone.”

“He was quiet. He grew irritated when we critiqued his driving, asked him to help around the house, or suggested that he get a haircut. In the last few months of senior year, he was pensive, as if he were thinking about the challenges of growing older. One day in April I said, “”You seem so quiet lately—are you okay?” He said he was “just tired.” Another time I asked if he wanted to talk about going away to college. I told him that if he didn’t feel ready, he could stay home and go to a community college. He said, “”I definitely want to go away.”” If that was a reference to anything more than leaving home for college, it never occurred to me.”

What Ms. Klebold did not appear to realize, or perhaps failed to recognize was that over time, most probably beginning in early puberty, Dylan was displaying classic symptoms of an early onset dysthemic disorder in the form of chronic depression with suicidal tendencies. (Here too, a question arises, were Dylan’s symptoms exacerbated when he and Eric Harris became friends?)

“”At Columbine High School, Dylan Klebold envied the social successes of the school’s athletes. In his journal, he wrote, “I see jocks having fun, friends, and women.” In another entry he wrote, “I hated the happiness that they [jocks] have.” In contrast, he wrote about himself as being so different from everyone else that he seemed to believe he was not truly human or capable of functioning like a human being.”  Murderous Envy, What is the role of envy in school shootings?” Published on May 27, 2009 by Peter Langman, Ph.D. in Keeping Kids Safe.

Eric Harris, on the other hand was the direct opposite of Dylan. An extrovert on the surface, Eric was charismatic, clever, exceptionally intelligent, and very adept at hiding his true self. He appears to have learned at a young age how to manipulative people to attain his goals. He had talents and skills that might have made him a success in life but his was a tragic path – why?

Unlike Dylan’s parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, the parents of Eric have not been as forthcoming in their comments about their son. Mr. Harris was a career Air Force pilot who retired when Eric was twelve and the family moved to Littleton, CO. Up until this time, Eric was thought to be a normal kid, doing normal kid stuff like playing soccer and wearing in-style preppy clothes, but that began to change when he met Dylan.

Was it love or evil at first sight?

Excerpt from Dave Cullen’s Blog, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 7:06PM

“Meeting the Mauser’s:  Why did Harris’s take Eric to psychologist?

Were there no psychologists at the “juvenile diversion program”? “Wayne was mystified by his son.[1] Wayne and Kathy accepted that Eric was a psychopath. Where that came from, they didn’t know. But he fooled them, utterly.”

““He’d also fooled a slew of professionals. Wayne and Kathy clearly felt misled by the psychologist they sent him to. The doctor had brushed off Eric’s trademark duster as “only a coat.” He saw Eric’s problems as rather routine. At least that’s the impression he gave Wayne and Kathy.”  They shared that perception with the Mausers. “Other than the van break-in, Eric had never been in serious trouble”, they said. He and Dylan were arrested in January 1998 and charged with three felonies. They eventually entered a juvenile diversion program, which involved close monitoring and various forms of restitution.””

“”Eric rarely seemed angry”, his parents said. “There was one odd incident where he slammed his fist into a brick wall and scraped his knuckles. That was startling, but kids do weird things. It seemed like an aberration, not a pattern to be worried about.””

“Wayne and Kathy knew Eric had a Web site, but that didn’t seem odd. They never went online to look at it. “I found them kind of incurious,” Linda said.””

One might come to wonder if they were wearing blinders or were simply oblivious to what Eric was really like and really doing.

It is said that opposites attract; that may be true on the surface however I believe that commonalities are the adhesives that bond people. In the case of Eric and Dylan the commonality was Kle-arris, the malevolent, unseen cancer created by their disturbed minds. I believe there may have been clues.

I believe that both Klebold and Harris suffered from congenital neurobiological disorders which, had they never met may have taken them on much different paths in life. Admittedly, Eric’s path may not have been radically different than Columbine but that is something we will never know because they did meet either in the seventh or eighth grade and, hypothetically the seed of Kle-arris was planted.

During the years prior to the Columbine attack is can easily be argued that Eric was the dominant leader however Dylan, via his more reticent nature was also a force to be reckoned with. Dylan had unpredictable fits of rage that may have fed Eric’s dominant/sadistic nature adding to his own rage at the inferior world. I believe this may be seen in the types of wounds inflicted on their victims with the high percentage of head and neck wounds as though they’re saying you are not beautiful like us.

Much has been said about the victims and how they died but little has really been said about the deaths of Dylan, Eric and Kle-arris. They died, kneeling together on the floor of the Columbine High School library of self-inflicted gunshot wounds the nature of which suggests to me, one final act of defiance.

“Final Anatomic Diagnosis” of post mortem examinations.

On reading Dr. Galloway’s report, it struck me that Eric knew long before he committed suicide how he had to do it to prove to the world that he was “The Man!” He was in control right up to the end when he placed the muzzle of the shotgun into his mouth, positioned it to do the most damage and pulled the trigger. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Wf_RfRJTI ) Warning, graphic.

NOTE: These are footnotes:

I do not believe Eric wanted anyone to get into his mind while he was alive or dead. Dylan, on the other hand used a large caliber handgun which he placed against his left temple and fired. It is quite possible he chose this manner to preserve his face so that in death at least he might be handsome.

Dr. Galloway’s report on Dylan mentions aspiration of blood. This is only possible if the respiratory system is functioning, ergo Dylan did not die immediately as Eric did. Did he know what he’d done, did he feel any remorse, and did he finally find peace from his torment? I sincerely hope they both did.

[1] I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Harris was afraid of his son as well as mystified.

• [2]Luvox, Paxil and other antidepressants also made the top 10 list of violence-inducing prescription drugs in a report from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, which was based on data from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (see “Study Reveals Top Ten Violence-Inducing Prescription Drugs [– Eight Are Psychiatric Drugs.. DSM V criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder, Posted on 06/20/13, 02:01 pm

Closing:

I chose to write my essay on Eric Harris, the psychopathic murderer who led his best friend, Dylan Klebold into a web of deceit, terror and mass murder. In writing this essay I discovered Eric Harris, a troubled young man with an intense anti-social personality disorder that appears to have doomed him almost from birth. Despite what anyone, even Eric might think he was not in control of his actions because he saw no need to be. He was not in control of his feelings because he didn’t have any. He was not in control of his future because he saw none.

Had Eric not met Dylan when he did, would things have turned out differently? Maybe, but then our world is filled with chronically depressed Dylans, Eric may have found another or simply acted alone. In any event, I feel that Eric was born without a conscience and he died without one.

Were Dylan and Eric also victims? There is only one logical answer – Yes.

As sure as some children are born with congenital malformations of their organs, Dylan and Eric were born with congenital malformations of their minds.