NEW YORK — The gunman who massacred 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was obsessed with mass murders and so mentally twisted that his mother planned to move him out of state so he could attend a special school, yet she had him living in a home with firearms and ammunition and gave him money to buy a gun for Christmas.
The information was released Monday in the most detailed account yet of the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting that left 20 first-graders and six school employees dead and galvanized calls nationwide for stricter gun control.
The report from the Connecticut state's attorney in Danbury, Stephen Sedensky III, also gave a chilling account of shooter Adam Lanza's downward mental spiral and of his increasingly antisocial behavior in recent years.
Among other things, it said Lanza, 20, kept a spreadsheet of mass murders, hated to be touched, and did not allow anyone — including his mother, Nancy Lanza — into his bedroom. He covered his bedroom windows with black trash bags, disliked birthdays and holidays, would not let his mother put up a Christmas tree, and made her get rid of a cat because he didn't want it in the house.
As time went by, he only spoke to his mother via email, even though they lived together.
But the 48-page report, a summary of the police investigation that includes 78 photographs of the school and the Lanza home, does not offer a reason for Lanza's rampage or his decision to target the school.
"The obvious question that remains is: Why did the shooter murder 27 people, including 20 children? Unfortunately that question may never be answered," it said.
