Click each of the documents below to read through the five search warrants released by authorities regarding the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. You can search for specific words or terms by entering them in the search box below.
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Search warrants and other documents released by prosecutors show that shooter Adam Lanza fired 154 bullets from his rifle in less than five minutes. NBC News' Michael Isikoff has more.
Adam Lanza left a home stuffed with weaponry and carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in a 154-bullet barrage that took less than five minutes, investigators said Thursday in the first detailed account of his surroundings and troubled state of mind.
Search warrants from the second-worst school shooting in American history revealed that the home Lanza shared with his mother in Newtown, Conn., was a veritable arsenal: Authorities found at least nine knives, three Samurai swords, two rifles, 1,600 rounds of ammunition and a 7-foot, wood-handled pole with a blade on one side and a spear on the other.
Authorities also recovered a certificate in Lanza’s name from the National Rifle Association, seven of his journals, drawings that he made and books from the house, including books on living with mental illness.
The warrants offered a thorough look at the environment in which Lanza lived before he shot his mother, Nancy, to death and drove to Sandy Hook on the morning of Dec. 14. Twenty first-graders and six teachers and staff were killed before Lanza shot himself to death with the 155th bullet.
An FBI report based on interviews with people who knew him said that Lanza rarely left home, considered himself a shut-in and was an avid gamer who played “Call of Duty,” a first-person shooter game. Lanza considered the elementary school his “life,” the papers said.
Among other items seized from the home were a holiday card containing a check from his mother to buy a firearm, an article from The New York Times about a 2008 school shooting at Northern Illinois University and three photographs of what appeared to be a dead person covered with plastic and blood.
List of Lanza's arsenal, item by item
Read the warrants, search them
The books included “Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s” and “Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant.”
At the school, Lanza fired the 154 rounds from a Bushmaster .223-model rifle and the final bullet from a Glock 10mm handgun to take his own life, said Stephen Sedensky, the chief prosecutor investigating the shooting. Police recovered 10 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster that Lanza took to the school. Three of the magazines had a full 30 rounds still in them.
Among school shootings in the United States, the death toll from Newtown is second only to the 32 people killed at Virginia Tech in 2007.
The attack touched off a nationwide debate about gun control. The fate of proposed changes to national gun laws, including expanded background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines, remains unclear.
President Barack Obama spoke Thursday at the White House to make the case again for tougher gun laws. He appeared with parents of Sandy Hook victims and of other gun crimes but did not specifically reference the newly released Newtown warrants.
“The entire country was shocked,” the president said. “And the entire country pledged that we would do something about it and this time would be different. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, citing the warrants, also called for stricter gun laws.
“We knew that these weapons were legally purchased under our current laws,” Malloy said. “I don’t know what more we can need to know before we take decisive action to prevent gun violence. The time to act is now.”
The warrants spelled out a vast inventory of weapons and other gun paraphernalia recovered from the Lanza home.
Among the items found were paper targets, gun manuals, earplugs, holsters, almost 40 types of ammunition, nine types of magazines, a bayonet, knives with blades as long as a foot and Samurai swords with blades as long as 2 feet 4 inches.
Authorities also found a starter’s pistol, a BB gun, an NRA guide to pistol shooting and an NRA certificate in Nancy Lanza’s name.
In a statement, the NRA said it had no record of a “member relationship” for the Lanzas, nor for someone with the same last name and their first initials.
“Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory,” the statement said.
On Wednesday, a judge granted a request from prosecutors to withhold some information in the records, including a witness name, credit card information, telephone numbers and serial numbers.
Besides the Bushmaster and the Glock, authorities found a Sig-Sauer 9mm semiautomatic pistol in the school. In the car outside, police found a shotgun.
All those weapons were legally owned by the mother, authorities have said. Enough public blame and anger has been directed at her that she was left out of many of the memorials and shrines to the Newtown victims.
There have been reports that Lanza was obsessed with other mass killers, including Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting and bomb attack in Norway two years ago.
A law enforcement official told NBC News last month that Lanza had collected material on previous mass shootings, although the source said there was no indication that it played a role in the school massacre.
Police told NBC News in February that investigators were still a long way from determining Lanza’s motive. Police said then that they hoped to have a report on the shooting finished by June.
Search warrants:
Dec. 14 (first) | Dec. 14 (second) | Dec. 14 (third) | Dec. 15 | Dec. 16
President Barack Obama delivers remarks Thursday at the White House regarding gun reform in America.
This story was originally published on Thu Mar 28, 2013 9:23 AM EDT
Lucas Jackson / Reuters file
Nancy Lanza's home in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 18.
Search warrant documents in the Sandy Hook massacre are expected to be released early Thursday and could shed more light on gunman Adam Lanza’s state of mind and motive in carrying out the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
The records were sealed in the immediate aftermath of Lanza’s Dec. 14 shooting rampage through the Newtown, Conn., elementary school, and Connecticut Superior Court Judge John F. Blawie extended the order for 90 days on Dec. 27 (here in .pdf). It covered the applications, affidavits and returns for five search warrants for the home in Sandy Hook where Lanza lived with his mother, Nancy, and for the black 2010 four-door Honda Civic sedan that he parked in front of Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Rhonda Stearley-Hebert, communications manager for the Connecticut Judicial Branch, said Wednesday that the documents would be available Thursday morning. A statement from prosecutors working on the case also was expected to be made public.
On Wednesday afternoon, Blawie granted a motion from the state's attorney to redact some information in the records, including a witness name, a credit card number, telephone numbers and several paragraphs of one item. Serial numbers for several unidentified items also will be redacted. The sealing orders will be lifted at midnight Wednesday, and the documents were to be released by email at 9:01 a.m. Thursday.
Authorities say Lanza shot his 52-year-old mother to death at the home they shared on the morning of Dec. 14, then drove about five miles to the school, where he killed 20 first-graders and six teachers and staff members before fatally shooting himself. Two other teachers were wounded. The death toll is second only to the 32 killed in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre among U.S. school shootings.
Lanza, 20, used a Bushmaster .223-caliber XM15-E2S rifle with a 30-round magazine to shoot the victims at the school, authorities have said. In addition to the Bushmaster, authorities found a Glock 10mm semiautomatic pistol and a Sig-Sauer 9mm semiautomatic pistol in the school – one of which Lanza used to kill himself. In the Civic parked outside, police found an Izhmash Canta-12 12-gauge shotgun, which looks similar to a Kalashnikov rifle; it was not used at the school.
All those weapons were legally owned by Nancy Lanza, authorities have said. There have been reports that several more guns were found in her home, though NBC News has not confirmed that.
On Wednesday, the Lanza home looked untouched since the shooting -- a large Christmas wreath still at the door and holly wrapped in perfect form around the columns.
Authorities have kept tight control over information in the case, including any evidence that might give clues to Adam Lanza’s motivation.
Alaine Griffin and Josh Kovner from the Hartford Courant teamed up with PBS's "Frontline" for a special report on Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter. After finding news articles in his bedroom, they believe Lanza could have been inspired by the deadly Norway attacks, and they also note that his mom Nancy wanted him to be more independent.
There have been reports that he was obsessed with mass killers, including Norway’s Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in a shooting and bomb attack in 2011. A law enforcement official told NBC News last month that Lanza had collected material on previous mass shootings, although the source said there was no indication that it played a role in the school massacre. Some reports also have suggested that investigators believe violent video games might have helped propel Lanza to violence, though authorities have not confirmed that. Like many young adults, Lanza was known to play a variety of video games, some violent and some not.
Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance told NBC’S TODAY in February that investigators “are a long way” from determining Lanza’s motive. Vance said investigators hope to have their report on the shooting completed by early June.
Access to information has become an issue with state lawmakers working on bipartisan gun-control legislation stemming from the massacre.
Lawmakers complained last week after the New York Daily News reported that a state police commander had disclosed evidence about the case at a law enforcement seminar in New Orleans. State House Republican Rep. Larry Cafero said lawmakers should be getting more information for their deliberations, and in response, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the Office of the Chief State’s Attorney had agreed to release more information this week.
Mark Dupuis, spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice, said Wednesday that the release would include the search warrant documents and a statement from prosecutors.
Adam Joseph, communications director for the state Senate Democrats, told NBC News on Wednesday morning that lawmakers still did not have a final agreement on the legislation and were waiting to see the search warrants before scheduling a vote, which could come as early as next week.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images
A nation mourns after the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history left 20 children and six staff members dead at Sandy Hook Elementary.
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While much remains unknown about the Sandy Hook school shooting, we're learning more about one of the victims – gunman Adam Lanza's mother, who owned all of the weapons recovered at the scene. NBC's Mike Isikoff reports, and four of her friends join TODAY's Savannah Guthrie to talk about her life and her relationship with her son.
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- New details about the private lives of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza and his mother, Nancy, emerged Monday, including details of a 2009 divorce settlement that resulted in annual payments to her of nearly $300,000 and gave her ultimate authority to make all decisions on behalf of her troubled son.
Handout / NBC News
Adam Lanza in an undated photo.
While the divorce was granted on the grounds that "the marriage has broken down irretrievably," the parting of the ways between Nancy Lanza and her ex-husband Peter was relatively amicable, according to records obtained by NBC News.
There was no custody dispute over Adam, then a teenager, when the couple split. Peter Lanza, a vice president for taxes at GE Energy and Financial Services, agreed to solely finance the cost of his two sons' college and graduate school education and to provide a car for Adam if he should want one. He also maintained joint legal custody with visitation rights and vacations with Adam. (GE is a minority owner in NBCUniversal.)
There was a check mark in a "limited contest" box on one form -- meaning there appeared to be some financial or property disputes -– but the final settlement reflected no obvious friction.
Nancy Lanza got the Newtown, Conn., house, which she was required to sell or refinance by February 2011 so he would no longer be liable, and the couple kept their own jewelry, and divided photos, personal property -- even season tickets to Boston Red Sox games.
Friends say that Nancy Lanza, a former financial trader, had not been working in recent years. The terms of the settlement could explain why: She received $289,800 in alimony in 2012,which was to increase each year to reach $298,000 in 2015.
But sources close to the family tell NBC News that beneath the apparently cordial separation, which dated to 2001, animosity was growing between the father and his youngest son.
By 2010, Peter Lanza was dating a new woman, whom he later married, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and Adam Lanza cut off all communication with his father. Peter tried to see Adam, but his son refused, they said.
Authorities say Nancy Lanza was the first victim in Friday’s murderous rampage, slain by multiple gunshots in her Newtown home shortly before Adam Lanza, 20, drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School and blasted his way in. By the time police responded, 20 young children, six adults and Adam Lanza were all dead from gunshot wounds, his being self-inflicted.
Friends of Nancy Lanza in Newtown on Monday shed new light on Adam Lanza’s at-times strange behavior in the years before the shooting, but said she did not indicate that it had changed in recent months.
Obtained by NBC News
Nancy Lanza in a Facebook photo provided by a friend.
Ellen Adriani and Russell Hanoman, both of whom said they were close friends of Nancy Lanza’s, said the 52-year-old single mother was devoted to her youngest son, whom they described as intelligent, mild-mannered and socially awkward. He also had an aversion to human contact, they said.
Hanoman, who said he had met Adam on several occasions, recalled him as a “very mild-mannered” young man who was interested in technology and engineering and liked to maintain his distance from other people.
“I remember when I first met him, he deliberately stood maybe 6 feet away from me and took three exaggerated steps toward me … stuck out his hand, shook (mine) … put it back and (took) three exaggerated steps back.”
Adriani, who never met Adam, said Nancy Lanza told her of a time when Adam was ill while he was in high school and didn’t want her to enter his bedroom.
“But yet he still wanted Nancy there for him, so she camped out all night outside his bedroom door,” she said. “Periodically through the evening, he would ask her, ‘Are you there? Are you still there?’ and she’d be, ‘I’m here. I’m here.’ So he needed to have that security that she was there but not in his space.”
Hanoman also remembered Nancy Lanza as a devoted mother.
“Everything that she did in life … was devoted to making sure that he was taken care of,” he said.
Adam Lanza also was “an organic vegan” with a conservative worldview, he said.
“He was actually politically aware for a teenager,” he said. “… He was always very free-market economics and capitalism, as I think most people are in this country.”
He also was interested in target shooting, sometimes accompanying his mother to local shooting ranges to practice. (Federal agents investigating the school massacre said Monday that they have found evidence that Adam Lanza visited more than one range and "engaged in shooting activities." And they say they know that he visited some ranges with his mother.)
In addition to his technological and weapons prowess, Adam Lanza was an excellent dancer – at least within the confines of the Dance Dance Revolution video game.
“It’s an arcade game as well as on the home systems where you basically dance around to a pattern on the screen,” Hanoman said. “And he was extremely good at it. He would often accumulate an audience of people around watching him…. (But) because it’s a two-player game … if anyone tried to come on the platform with him, no matter what he was doing, he would just turn around and walk out of the arcade.”
Despite such anti-social behavior, Hanoman said that mother and son had over the past several years looked at a number of colleges where Adam Lanza might be able to make a fresh beginning.
“He wanted to go back to school, so they were looking at colleges all over the country, looking for an ideal environment for him,” he said. “… He wanted to become more socialized. He didn’t want to stay trapped in his home the rest of his life.”
NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams, Today Investigative Correspondent Jeff Rossen and Today Producer Robert Powell contributed to this report.
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Nancy Lanza, in a 2012 photo that a relative saved from Facebook.
NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The mother of the suspected Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman, herself slain at the outset of the murderous rampage, was an avid gun enthusiast who liked to take her sons to the shooting range to practice their marksmanship, a friend tells NBC News.
Dan Holmes, a local landscaper and a friend of Nancy Lanza, mother of 20-year-old suspected gunman Adam Lanza, said she also was a collector.
“She had a pretty extensive gun collection,” Holmes said. “She was a collector, she was pretty proud of that. She always mentioned that she really loved the act of shooting.”
Holmes recalled that she said she was able to “focus in” while shooting.
Federal officials tell NBC News that Adam Lanza took three weapons with him to the school – two pistols, a Glock and a Sig Sauer, and a Bushmaster .223-caliber semi-automatic assault-style rifle – all of which were registered to Nancy Lanza.
It is unclear whether all the guns were used in the attack. At a news briefing on Saturday, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, who led the team that autopsied the victims, said, “All the (injuries) … I know of were caused by the rifle.”
The Associated Press reported that authorities investigating the school shooting later recovered additional weapons -- a Henry repeating rifle, an Enfield rifle and a shotgun. It was not clear where those weapons were found.
Holmes, Nancy Lanza’s friend, said the 52-year-old single mother also frequently talked about how she was worried about Adam.
Investigators and former classmates of Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza say he was bright, but extremely shy and remote. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
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She talked about “how he was an unstable kid,” he said. “She would talk about that. “She was very protective of him. I don’t … think she ever got major help for him. She just tried to handle it on her own. It was something she was definitely disturbed about.”
Meantime, federal agents visited a gun shooting range near Newtown, Conn., in an effort determine if Adam Lanza visited in the months before the attack, which could indicate he was planning or practicing for the bloodbath he carried out early Friday.
Dean Price, director of the Wooster Mountain Shooting Range near Newtown, told NBC News that he was visited by agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol ,Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Friday night and that they searched through his records for any evidence that the younger Lanza had signed in there in 2012. They also checked to see if he had used the name of his older brother, Ryan, Price said.
There was no indication that Adam Lanza had used the shooting range, which requires customers to sign in and show identification prior to using the facility, Price said.
Agents also have been checking local firearms dealers to see if Adam Lanza purchased or attempted to purchase weapons or ammunition prior to the shooting.
Law enforcement officials said members of the public reported they thought they saw Adam Lanza trying to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Good store in Danbury, but investigators have yet to confirm that.
NBC News' Senior Investigative Correspondent Lisa Myers and Justice Correspondent Pete Williams contributed to this report.
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