The Columbine Guide

An insider's guide through the web of myths, contradictions and the truth.

Expansion/re-org in-progress, we apologize if some links aren't functioning.

Content / Navigation

The Columbine Guide is organized into seven sections, listed in the vertical nav bar, to the left. The white-boxed item indicates your current location. 

Each section has several detail pages for pictures, scans, etc. From a detail page, use the nav bar or your browser's back key to return to the main section page.

Icons in the right column link to popular features across The Guide. This column disappears on detail pages to provide more room for the scans.

Each section is summarized below, following an Introduction. The section titles there also link.

Introduction
"Everything You Know is Wrong"

That was the subtitle Salon used on my 1999 piece addressing the Columbine myths. They took a little poetic license on the everything, but you'll be wise to start with approach, clear the slate and begin a fresh understanding.

Two things you need to know: 

1. MYTHS: Within six months of Columbine, virtually all reporters on the case accepted that we had gotten most of the basics wrong (mostly by a lot of assumptions, and jumping to conclusions based on fragmentary evidence). This makes researching Columbine problematic: google the early coverage, and you'll get all the myths. Dig up later material, and much of it was based on the bad early stuff. The myths are self-propagating.
   
   The good news: lots of clean material is out there. It has been ID's. You just need to know which is good, which is bogus, and which has bits of each. 

2. CONTRADICATIONS: In total, the journals, videos and other writing present a crisp portrait of each killer. But beware of quotes out of context. Eric and Dylan were teenagers. They rambled, contradicted themselves and changed their minds as the plan developed. I link to lots of evidence on this site, and for many items, I provide some analysis, so you can see how it fits into the larger picture without reading it all.

Sections of The Guide

GUIDE HOME

This page.

JOURNALS / WRITING
Eric & Dylan's writings & drawings

This includes the most revealing written material Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left, including their journals, sketches, diagrams, Eric's website, Dylan's creative writing story essentially describing what they were about to do, and their 1998 yearbooks (where they wrote about the Columbine attack in each others' books).

Nearly a thousand pages of the killers' writings were released, and I sifted through it all to point you to the best stuff, and indexed it and uploaded the best stuff for you to get it quickly.

VIDEO  
The killers, Survivors, and interviews with me

Warning: This section is graphic and can be traumatic. Exercise caution.

There is video of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the Columbine cafeteria, Patrick Ireland tumbling out the library window, and helicopter shots from April 20. Links to transcribed passages from The Basement Tapes are included both here and in the Killers / Plan section.

VICTIMS / RESOURCES
Resources for parents, teachers, students, victims, etc.

No graphic photos in this section! This is a trauma-free zone. (For pix of victims on April 20, see the Killers/Attack section.)

This section provides two things:

1. Info on the victims, including profiles on each of the thirteen killed at Columbine, passages from the lawsuits, video footage,  results of the Danny Rohrbough inquiry, links to memorial sites.

1. A resource package on trauma, PTSD, identifying potential shooters, and psychopaths. It includes a link to Dr. Frank Ochberg's excellent "PTSD 101" article, designed for the layman, and the FBI's report on identifying threats.

KILLERS / ATTACK
Pix, bios, profiles, bombs, guns, crime-scene, plans, schedules, etc.

Warning: This section is graphic and can be traumatic. Exercise caution.

This section has two parts:

1. KILLERS: All the basics on Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold, including photos, capsule bios, autopsy reports, and links to longer published profiles.

2. PLAN / ATTACK: Everything about Eric and Dylan's plan and attack on Columbine, including pictures and descriptions of the bombs, the guns, knives, photos from the attack and of the crime scene, Eric's sketches of their battle gear, schedules, budgets, plans, etc. Graphic/traumatic photos of victims and survivors from April 20 are included here, in order to keep the Victims / Resources section trauma free. Links to transcribed passages from The Basement Tapes are included both here and in the Video section.

ALL EVIDNCE / REPORTS
Police & DA evidence & all official reports

This is a massive section, in several parts:

1. Official government reports on Columbine & school shooters, including the ones by the Jeffco sheriff, FBI, Secret Service, CDC, a grand jury investigation, etc.  

2. All of the released evidence, including all police reports, the DA's Diversion files on the killers (with session notes), 911 tapes, videos made by the killers, their journals and daytimers, all the search warrants, autopsies, field notes, photographs,  a grand jury investigation, etc. These total well nearly 30,000 pages, so I provide an overview, highlights, links to scans of 11,000 pages of them, and several indexes, so you can find your needles in this enormous haystack.

3. Information on obtaining your own copies of this evidence. (Most of the interesting stuff is on the web, but a few important selections and a great deal of detail is not, such as audio of 911 calls, the search warrants (the book of them is nearly two inches thick), thousands of pages of supplemental reports, etc. You can also get your own copies of anything released from Jeffco for a modest fee. 

MEDIA REPORTING
The good & the bad

Millions of words were published on Columbine. Most of it is wrong. Some of it is excellent. I point you to the best Columbine stuff out there, including Time's December 1999 cover story, and several pieces in Westword and the Rocky Mountain News. (Avoid the early Denver Post coverage!) A handful of pieces summarize what happened and why quite well, and are a great starting point.

MISC
Sites, books, indexes, etc.

This contains:

1. OTHER SITES: There are several great Columbine sites with more great links, as well as a vast amount of Internet garbage. I'll point you to some of the best ones, and highlight some things you'll find there. I also list some of the Columbine-related books (mostly memoirs and accounts of the Christian experience, along with novels from major authors such as Wally Lamb).

2. SCHOOL PIX, ETC: These include interior and exterior shots of Columbine High, photos I took from the 2005 Homecoming assembly to give you a feel for student life, photos from the Jeffco area, etc.

3. INDEXES: Various sections of The Columbine Guide include indexes, and I repeat the links here, so you'll have them all in one place. Lots of other miscellaneous Columbine material is gathered here.

4. COMMENTS: This section now also houses the comments section, for you to chime in and ask a question or make a comment about anything related to Columbine, this guide, or my book about it.

NOT HERE
Items you won't find in The Columbine Guide:

1. Video of The Basement Tapes. Long, representative passages have been transcribed and published, and I provide quite a bit of that. But the videos have not been released. You will not find them anywhere.
2. The "Nixon" microcassette tape that Eric Harris recorded the night before the massacre. It has not been released. A few lines from it were transcribed, and appear in my book. Lead Investigator Kate Battan told me there is nothing else significant on it. She has generally been straight with me.
3. Testimony by Eric and Dylan's parents. As a final settlement with five holdout families, Wayne & Kathy Harris, and Tom & Sue Klebold answered questions in a deposition that lasted several days. It was a closed session, and the plaintiffs gained entry by agreeing to a gag order. In April 2007, a federal judge ruled that the transcripts would be sealed for another 20 years, then released. Only the small audience in that room knows what the parents divulged, and there have been no leaks. I'll post them in 2027.
4. Crime-scene photos of Eric and Dylan's bodies. These were never officially released, but leaked. They are graphic and horrific. You can easily google them, but I won't post them here. The ones that appear at the top of most searches are legit. That's really how they died. I've gone through diagrams and talked through the details at length with Battan and other investigators. We know how they died. I describe it in the book, but I'm going to forego that here.

Just about everything else that's been gathered is available, and I'll try to point you to most of it here.

The Columbine Guide was formerly known as The Columbine Almanac and The Columbine Navigator. If you're looking for either of those, you're here.

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