Making sense of Adam Lanza

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:13:00 +0000

In an ongoing bid to understand the unintelligible, news outlets have been digging deeper and deeper into the details of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza's life. PBS Frontline and the Hartford Courant Tuesday published an extensive investigation into the young man and his sheltered life with the mother he ultimately murdered before gunning down 20 children at his local elementary school.

The piece details the severe learning disabilities that seemed to haunt Lanza's education and alienate him from his peers. At age 6 he was "diagnosed with a condition that made it difficult for him to manage and respond to sights, touch and smell" and in middle school was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Based on interviews with "family members and friends on both Nancy Lanza's and Peter Lanza's side [Adam's divorced mother and father]," the Courant and PBS pieced together a narrative of a life before the massacre:

Salon.com > asperger's syndrome

Making sense of Adam Lanza