Finally, in June 2003, the search warrant Kate Battan had composed on the afternoon of the massacre came out. It demonstrated conclusively that Jeffco officials had been lying about the Browns all along--that they knew about the warnings from the beginning, and the "missing" Web pages were so accessible they'd found them in the first minutes of the attack.

Anger and contempt kept rising. A federal judge finally had enough. He ruled that Jeffco could not be trusted even to warehouse valuable evidence. He ordered the county to hand over key material such as the Basement Tapes to be secured in the federal courthouse in Denver.

Agent Fuselier beat Mr. D to retirement. Six months after the massacre, the investigation was largely complete. Fuselier continued studying the killers, but he transitioned back to his role as head of domestic terrorism for the Colorado-Wyoming region. Few Americans had heard of Osama bin Laden, but a life-sized WANTED WANTED poster of him greeted visitors to the FBI branch office. Fuselier saw enemy number one's picture every morning as he got off the elevator on the eighteenth floor. poster of him greeted visitors to the FBI branch office. Fuselier saw enemy number one's picture every morning as he got off the elevator on the eighteenth floor.

"He's a dangerous man," Fuselier told a visitor. The Bureau was determined to stop him.

Fuselier also resumed training hostage negotiators and went back on call for serious incidents. Two years later, he concluded one of the most notorious prison breaks in recent history. The Texas Seven had escaped a maximum-security facility and embarked on a crime spree. The ringleader was serving eighteen life sentences--he had nothing left to lose. On Christmas Eve 2000, they stole a cache of guns from a sporting goods store and ambushed a police officer. They shot him eleven times and ran him over on the way out, to be sure he was dead. He was. A reward was posted: $500,000.

The gang kept moving. On January 20, 2001, they were spotted in a trailer park near Colorado Springs. A SWAT team captured four of them, and a fifth killed himself to avoid recapture. The two holdouts barricaded themselves in a Holiday Inn. It took Agent Fuselier's team five hours to talk them out. They were fixated on corruption in the penal system, so Fuselier arranged a live interview on a local TV station at 2:30 A.M. A.M. A cameraman came inside the room so the holdouts could see they were actually broadcast live. Both convicts then surrendered and were sentenced to death. All six survivors await lethal injection in Texas. A cameraman came inside the room so the holdouts could see they were actually broadcast live. Both convicts then surrendered and were sentenced to death. All six survivors await lethal injection in Texas.

The stress wore Fuselier down. He would have twenty years at the Bureau that October and be eligible for his pension. He announced his retirement for that date. He would be fifty-four.

On September 11, 2001, the country was attacked. Bin Laden was behind it. Fuselier postponed his retirement and spent most of the next eleven months on the case. By the summer of 2002, the United States had taken over Afghanistan, bin Laden had fled into hiding, and the urgency had abated.

Fuselier's son Brian graduated from Columbine High that May--the last class Mr. D had been waiting for. Brian was leaving for college in July. Dwayne scheduled his retirement for the week afterward, so Brian wouldn't see his dad lazing about jobless.

"I could see a change the next day," Brian told his dad when he returned home for a visit. "You had mellowed out more than I had ever seen."

Fuselier missed the work, though. Within months, he was consulting for the State Department. It sent him to conduct antiterrorism training in Third World countries. He spent a quarter of the year in sketchy sections of Pakistan, Tanzania, Malaysia, Macedonia--anywhere terrorists were active.

Mimi worried. Dwayne didn't think about it much, and Brian didn't hear the tension return to his voice. Fear wasn't the problem at the FBI; it was the responsibility.

"It was getting harder going to work knowing someone's life might depend on me not making any mistakes that day," he said.

Shortly before Brian left Columbine, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine Bowling for Columbine drew raves at Cannes. It became the top-grossing documentary in U.S. history. It wasn't really much about Columbine, and the title featured a minor myth--that Eric and Dylan went bowling on April 20--but it included a dramatic scene where Moore and a victim went to Kmart and asked to return the bullets still inside the guy. The stunt and/or publicity around it shamed Kmart into discontinuing ammunition sales nationwide. drew raves at Cannes. It became the top-grossing documentary in U.S. history. It wasn't really much about Columbine, and the title featured a minor myth--that Eric and Dylan went bowling on April 20--but it included a dramatic scene where Moore and a victim went to Kmart and asked to return the bullets still inside the guy. The stunt and/or publicity around it shamed Kmart into discontinuing ammunition sales nationwide.

Marilyn Manson was interviewed in the film. Moore asked Manson what he would say to the killers, if he had a chance to talk to them: "I wouldn't say a single word to them," he said. "I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did." That was the story the media had told.

The connection to KMFDM, the nihilistic band Eric did did idolize and quote frequently, was ignored by the major media. Fans got word, however, and the band issued a statement of deep remorse: "We are sick and appalled, as is the rest of the nation, by what took place in Colorado... none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever." idolize and quote frequently, was ignored by the major media. Fans got word, however, and the band issued a statement of deep remorse: "We are sick and appalled, as is the rest of the nation, by what took place in Colorado... none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever."

The killers' parents remained silent. They never spoke to the press. Pastor Don Marxhausen stayed close to Tom and Sue Klebold. He was a great comfort. Sue went back to training disabled students at the community college. That helped her cope.

"It's amazing how long it took me to get up and say my name at a meeting, to say, 'I'm Dylan Klebold's mother,'" she said later. "Dylan could have killed any number of the kids of people that I work with."

Shopping could be intimidating--anticipating that moment of recognition as a salesperson examined her credit card. It was a distinctive name. Sometimes they noticed.

"Boy, you're a survivor," one clerk said.

Tom worked from home, so he had a choice about when to go out. He stayed in all the time. Pastor Don worried about him.

Reverend Marxhausen paid for that compassion. Much of his parish loved him for it; others were outraged. The church council split. That was untenable. A year after the massacre, he was forced out.

Marxhausen had been one of the most revered ministers in the Denver area, but now he could not find a job. After a bout of unemployment, he left the state to head up a small parish. He missed Colorado, and eventually moved back. He got a job as a chaplain at a county jail. His primary function was to advise inmates when loved ones had died. He was born for the job, ministering to the desperate. He empathized with each one, and it sucked the life out of him.

The lawsuits sputtered on for years. They got messier. A rash of new defendants was added, including school officials, the killers' parents, the manufacturer of Luvox, and anyone who had come in contact with the guns. The suits were consolidated in federal court. Judge Lewis Babcock accepted the county's two major arguments: that it was not responsible for stopping the killers in advance, and that cops should not be punished for decisions under fire. Babcock said the authorities should should have headed off the massacre months earlier but were not legally bound. have headed off the massacre months earlier but were not legally bound.

In November 2001, he dismissed most of the charges against the sheriff and the school. The families appealed, and the county settled the next year: $15,000 each--a fraction of their legal fees. The discovery process never brought much to light; it didn't need to. The Rohrboughs' initial offensive had set the legal process in motion, and it continued under its own power.

Judge Babcock refused to dismiss the Sanders case. He balked at the contention that Dave's rescue involved split-second decisions.

"They had time in the third hour!" Babcock boomed.

The cops had hundreds of people to rescue, their attorney responded. They'd had to allocate resources.

More then 750 cops had been on the scene, the judge reminded him. "It's not as though they were a little shorthanded out there that day," he said.

In August 2002, Jeffco paid Angela Sanders $1.5 million. It admitted to no wrongdoing. The last Jeffco case to close was Patrick Ireland's. He got $117,500.

After years of wrangling, most of the fringe cases were dismissed. Luvox was pulled from the market. That left the killers' families. They wanted to settle. They didn't have a lot of money, but they had insurance. It turned out their home owner's policies covered murder by their children. About $1.6 million was divided between thirty-one families. Most of it came from the Klebolds' policy. Similar agreements were reached with Mark Manes, Phillip Duran, and Robyn Anderson, for an estimated total of approximately $1.3 million.

Five families rebuffed the Harrises and Klebolds: no buyout without information. It really wasn't about the money for the Rohrboughs and four others. They were battling for information, and they proved it.

But they were caught in a stalemate: the killers' parents would talk if the victims dropped the lawsuits; the victims would drop the suits if the parents spoke.

For two more years, it continued. Then the judge brokered a deal. The holdouts would dismiss their suits if the killers' parents answered all their questions--privately, but under oath. It was a bitter compromise. The holdouts wanted answers for the public as well as themselves. They settled for themselves.

In July 2003, the four parents were deposed for several days. Media came to photograph them. They had remained so private that few reporters even knew what they looked like. Two weeks after the depositions, an agreement was announced. It appeared to be over.

But Dawn Anna called for the depositions to be made public: understanding the warning signs could prevent the next Columbine. A chorus gathered behind her. A magistrate ruled that the transcripts would be destroyed, per the agreement. That set off a public outcry and a wave of open records requests. Judge Babcock agreed to consider arguments.

It had taken four years to reach this point. They were only halfway there.

In April 2007, Judge Babcock finally ruled. "There is a legitimate public interest in these materials so that similar tragedies may hopefully be prevented," he wrote. "I conclude, however, that the balance of interests still strikes in favor of maintaining strict confidentiality."

He settled on a compromise. The transcripts would be sealed at the national archives for twenty years. The truth would come out in 2027, twenty-eight years after the massacre.

Though he was retired, Fuselier hoped to see the depositions, too. Optimally, he would like to question the parents himself. He knew where the boys ended, psychologically, but their origins were a mystery, particularly Eric's. Only two people had an eighteen-year perspective on his path to psychopathy. When did Eric start exhibiting the early hallmarks, and how were they visible? Wayne had adopted a stern parenting style--how had that worked? Eric wrote little about interaction with his mother--what had Kathy's approach been? Were there any successes? Anything that could help the next parent?

Fuselier understood their refusal to talk.

"I have the utmost sympathy for the Harris and Klebold parents," he said. "They have been vilified without information. No one has sufficient objective information to draw any conclusions."

Fuselier said he had raised two sons, and either one could have emerged with traits beyond his comprehension. Eric documented his parents' frustration with his behavior, as well as their attempts to force him to conform. Their tactics might have been all wrong for a budding young psychopath, but how do parents even know what that is?

"I believe they have been unjustifiably criticized for what their sons did," Fuselier said. "They are probably asking themselves the same questions that we in the profession are asking."

Patrick Ireland left home for Colorado State in fall 2000. He did fine. He really took to campus life. And he was surprised by how much he enjoyed business school. Letting go of architecture turned out to be easy. He had been forced into something he liked more.

He still fought memory battles, struggled a bit to find words, and would probably remain on antiseizure medication for life. He met a girl his first night. Kacie Lancaster. She was clever, attractive, and a little shy. They clicked immediately and became close friends.

In May 2004, he graduated magna cum laude. Armed with a BS in business administration, he accepted a job as a financial planner at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. He loved it.

One finger troubled him a little. His right pinkie jutted out away from the others, which caused a minor issue when he shook hands. It could poke the other person in the palm a little--just enough to signal that something was off. You could catch him glancing down there nervously, if you knew what to look for. It was not the first impression he wanted to make. But he had such a commanding presence once he spoke. Clients trusted him. His bosses were happy. He was becoming a star.

Patrick had retired the wheelchair and the crutch in high school. The foot brace remained. His right leg lagged behind a little: noticeable, but not debilitating. Running was out of the question, but water skis were not.

Balance, strength, and agility were all hurdles Patrick could overcome. But he would never regain the dexterity in his right foot to grip the ski. So he worked with an engineering friend to build a custom boot he could slip on as he tried to rise up on the water. They spent months working on prototypes and experimenting with them at the lake. John went with them for encouragement. Every time, the boat dragged Patrick uselessly behind.

They tried stripping the shell off a Rollerblade and adhering it to the ski. Nope. They refined it, and returned to the lake. Useless. Patrick tried over and over. He had made about ten runs that evening, and it was getting late. John was sure Patrick was exhausted, and thought it was time to break. No, I can do this, No, I can do this, Patrick said. Patrick said.

John agreed. He sat in the passenger seat facing backward. The driver throttled the engine, and John watched his boy rise up onto the surface of the lake. Wow.

Patrick felt the spray pelt his face. The sun danced on the waves. The towrope jerked his arms. He dug in for a turn. A sheet of water shot up and sliced into his calf. It hurt, just a little. Ahhhhhh. The pain of competition. It felt great.

Everyone expected copycats. The country braced for a new level of horror. School shooting deaths actually dropped 25 percent over the next three years. But Eric and Dylan gave young eyes a fresh approach: terrorist tactics for personal aggrandizement. In 2001, a pair of ninth graders at a Fort Collins, Colorado, middle school procured a similar arsenal: TEC-9, shotgun, rifles, and propane bombs. They planned to reverse Eric's chronology: seal off exits, mow down students, and save the bombs for stragglers. They would finish by taking ten hostages, holding them in the counseling office for fun, then killing the kids and themselves.

But they leaked. Kids nearly always leak. The bigger the plot, the wider the leakage. The Fort Collins pair went recruiting for gunmen to cover all the exits. One of the plotters told at least seven people that he planned to "redo Columbine." He bragged to four girls that they would be the first to die. They went straight to the police.

Teen peers were different after 1999. "Jokes" scared the crap out of kids. Two more grandiose plots--in Malcolm, Nebraska, and Oaklyn, New Jersey--were foiled in the first five years.

School administrators around the country responded with "zero tolerance"--meaning every idle threat was treated like a cocked gun. That drove everyone crazy. Nearly all supposed killers turned out to be kids blowing off steam. It wasn't working for anyone.

A pair of government how-to guides helped. The FBI and the Secret Service each published reports in the first three years, guiding faculty to identify serious threats. The central recommendations contradicted prevailing post-Columbine behavior. They said identifying outcasts as threats is not healthy. It demonizes innocent kids who are already struggling.

It is also unproductive. Oddballs are not the problem. They do not fit the profile. There is no profile. There is no profile.

All the recent school shooters shared exactly one trait: 100 percent male. (Since the study a few have been female.) Aside from personal experience, no other characteristic hit 50 percent, not even close. "There is no accurate or useful 'profile' of attackers," the Secret Service said. Attackers came from all ethnic, economic, and social classes. The bulk came from solid two-parent homes. Most had no criminal record or history of violence.

The two biggest myths were that shooters were loners and that they "snapped." A staggering 93 percent planned their attack in advance. "The path toward violence is an evolutionary one, with signposts along the way," the FBI report said.

Cultural influences also appeared weak. Only a quarter were interested in violent movies, half that number in video games--probably below average for teen boys.

Most perps shared a crucial experience: 98 percent had suffered a loss or failure they perceived as serious--anything from getting fired to blowing a test or getting dumped. Of course, everyone suffers loss and failure, but for these kids, the trauma seemed to set anger in motion. This was certainly true in Columbine: Dylan viewed his entire life as failure, and Eric's arrest accelerated his anger.

So what should adults look for? First and foremost, advance confessions: 81 percent of shooters had confided their intentions. More than half told at least two people. Most threats are idle, though; the key is specificity. Vague, implied, and implausible threats are low-risk. The danger skyrockets when threats are direct and specific, identify a motive, and indicate work performed to carry it out. Melodramatic outbursts do not not increase the risk. increase the risk.

A subtler form of leakage is preoccupation with death, destruction, and violence. A graphic mutilation story might be an early warning sign--or a vivid imagination. Add malice, brutality, and an unrepentant hero, and concern should rise. Don't overreact to a single story or drawing, the FBI warned. Normal teen boys enjoy violence and are fascinated with the macabre. "Writings and drawings on these themes can be a reflection of a harmless but rich and creative fantasy life," the report said. The key was repetition leading to obsession. The Bureau described a boy who'd worked guns and violence into every assignment. In home ec class he'd baked a cake in the shape of a gun.

The FBI compiled a specific list of warning signs, including symptoms of both psychopathy and depression: manipulation, intolerance, superiority, narcissism, alienation, rigidity, lethargy, dehumanization of others, and externalizing blame. It was a daunting list--that's a small excerpt. Few teachers were going to master it. The FBI recommended against trying. It suggested one person per school be trained intensely, for all faculty and administrators to turn to.

The FBI added one final caution: a kid matching most of its warning signs was more likely to be suffering from depression or mental illness than planning an attack. Most kids matching the criteria needed help, not incarceration.

Columbine also changed police response to attacks. No more perimeters. A national task force was organized to develop a new plan. In 2003, it released "The Active Shooter Protocol." The gist was simple: If the shooter seems active, storm the building. Move toward the sound of gunfire. Disregard even victims. There is one objective: Neutralize the shooters. Stop them or kill them.

The concept had been around for years but had been rejected. Pre-Columbine, cops had been exhorted to proceed cautiously: secure the perimeter, get the gunman talking, wait for the SWAT team.

The key to the new protocol was active active. Most shootings--the vast majority--were labeled passive: the gunman was alive but not firing. Those cases reverted to the old protocol. Success depended on accurately determining the threat in the first moments.

Officers face a second decision point when they reach the shooters. If the killer is holed up in a classroom, holding kids but not firing, responders may need to stop there and use traditional hostage techniques. Storming the classroom could provoke the gunman. But if the shooter is firing, even just periodically, move in.

The active shooter protocol gained quick and widespread acceptance. In a series of shootings over the next decade, including the worst disaster, at Virginia Tech, cops or guards rushed in, stopped shooters, and saved lives.

Sue Petrone asked for and received the two sidewalk blocks her son Danny died on. They were jackhammered out of the ground and installed in her backyard, in the shadow of a fragrant spruce tree. Around the slab, she created a rock garden, with two big wooden tubs overflowing with petunias. She had a sturdy oak truss constructed over the slab, and a porch swing suspended from the crossbeam. She and Rich and their shaggy little dog can nestle comfortably into the generous swing.

Linda Sanders kept the Advil tablet found near Dave's body. He had trouble with knee swelling, so he always carried one in his pocket. Just one. She took his bloody clothes, a swath of carpet from under his head, a little fragment of tooth that chipped off when he fell, and his glasses.

She would never let those glasses go. She snapped them into an eyeglass case and placed them on the nightstand by her bed. She intends to leave them that way forever.

The lawsuit on behalf of Dave Sanders outlived all the others, but his widow chose not to take part. She was not angry at the police, or the school, or the parents. She was angry at her situation. She was lonely.

50. The Basement Tapes

Eric wanted to be remembered. He spent a year on "The Book of God," but five weeks before Judgment Day, he decided that wasn't good enough. He wanted a starring role on-camera. So on March 15, he and Dylan began the Basement Tapes. It would be a tight shooting schedule, with no time for editing or postproduction. They filmed with a Sony 8mm camcorder, checked out from the Columbine High video lab.

The first installment was a basic talk-show setup: a stationary camera in the family room in Eric's basement, outside his bedroom. He continued making camera adjustments after he was rolling--perhaps as a sneaky way to ensure his audience would be clear on the director. The video project was entirely about his audience. Ultimately, the attack was, too.

Eric joined Dylan on-set. They kicked back in plush velvet recliners, bantering about the big event. Eric had a bottle of Jack Daniel's in one hand and Arlene laid across his lap. He took a swig and tried not to grimace. He hated the stuff. Dylan munched on a toothpick and took little sips of Jack as well.

They ranted for more than an hour. Dylan was wild and animated and angry, obsessively hurling his fingers through his long, ratty hair. Eric was mostly calm and controlled. They spoke with one voice: Eric's.

Eric introduced most ideas; Dylan riffed along. They insulted the usual inferiors: blacks, Latinos, gays, and women. "Yes, moms, stay home," Eric said. "Fucking make me dinner, bitch!"

Sometimes, Eric got kind of loud. That made Dylan nervous. It was after 1:00 A.M. A.M., and Eric's parents were upstairs, snoozing away. Careful, Dylan warned.

They rattled off a list of kids who'd pissed them off. Eric had been dragged across the country: the scrawny little white guy, constantly starting over, always at the bottom of the food chain. People kept making fun of him--"my face, my hair, my shirts." He enumerated every girl who had refused his advances.

Dylan got fired up just listening. He faced the camera and addressed his tormenters. "If you could see all the anger I've stored over the past four fucking years," he said. He described a sophomore who didn't deserve the jaw evolution gave him. "Look for his jaw," Dylan said. "It won't be on his body."

Eric named one guy he planned to shoot in the balls, another in the face. "I imagine I will be shot in the head by a fucking cop," he said.

No one they named would be killed.

It went back so much further than high school. From prekindergarten, at Foothills Day Care center, Dylan could remember them: all the stuck-up toddlers sneering at him. "Being shy didn't help," he said. At home it was just as bad. Except for his parents, his whole extended family looked down on him, treated him like the runt of the litter. His brother was always ripping on him; Byron's friends, too. "You made me what I am," Dylan said. "You added to the rage."

"More rage, more rage!" Eric demanded. He motioned with his arms. "Keep building it."

Dylan hurled another Ericism: "I've narrowed it down. It's humans I hate."

Eric raised Arlene, and aimed her at the camera. "You guys will all die, and it will be fucking soon," he said. "You all need to die. We need to die, too."

The boys made it clear, repeatedly, that they planned to die in battle. Their legacy would live. "We're going to kick-start a revolution," Eric said. "I declared war on the human race and war is what it is."

He apologized to his mom. "I really am sorry about this, but war's war," he told her. "My mother, she's so thoughtful. She helps out in so many ways." She brought him candy when he was sad, and sometimes Slim Jims. He said his dad was great, too.

Eric grew quiet. He said his parents had probably noticed him withdrawing. That was intentional--he was doing it to help them. "I don't want to spend any more time with them," he said. "I wish they were out of town so I didn't have to look at them and bond more."

Dylan was less generous. "I'm sorry I have so much rage, but you put it in me," he said. He got around to thanking them for self-awareness and self-reliance. "I appreciate that," he said.

The boys insisted their parents were not to blame. "They gave me my fucking life," Dylan said. "It's up to me what I do with it."

Dylan bemoaned the guilt they would feel, but then ridiculed it. He pitched his voice to mimic his mom: "If only we could have reached them sooner. Or found this tape."

Eric loved that. "If only we would have asked the right questions," he added.