- Ryan Kraft described Adam as very intelligent, quiet and introverted
- Required extra supervision at school from a physical disorder which meant he could not feel pain
- His mother would sometimes have to be summonsed to deal with him
- A school psychologist was assigned to monitor Adam full time
- When he was freshman at high school he was flagged to the school security chief
- She withdrew him when he was 16 after ongoing disputes about his care
- Nancy planned to move to North Carolina or Washington state so she could enroll him in another college
- Governor implies that school gunman Adam Lanza killed himself and may have been stopped in his tracks before he could kill more people
- Had multiple high-capacity magazines for assault rifle and two handguns
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Killer: Adam Lanza shot and murdered 27 people Friday, 20 of them schoolchildren
The babysitter who watched the Sandy Hook Elementary school killer Adam Lanza when he was nine-years-old was warned by mother Nancy to never turn his back on the child, not even to go to the bathroom.
Ryan Kraft, who now lives in California, said he started shaking when he heard that the young boy he once looked after had shot his mother in the face before gunning down 20 innocent children and six adults on Friday.
Mr Kraft recalls Nancy Lanza's chilling words to him before she left him in charge of her young son.
'(She said) to keep an eye on him at all times...to never turn my back, or even to go to the bathroom or anything like that.'
He described Adam as a quiet, very intelligent and introverted.
'Whenever we were doing something, whether it was building Legos, or playing video games, he was really focused on it. It was like he was in his own world,' he told KCBS.
It was also revealed that the 20-year-old killer, who some who knew him described as a 'genius', suffered from a condition which meant he could not feel any physical pain.
Newtown school district's then head of security, Richard Novia, told the Daily Beast that the disorder meant he required extra supervision whenever he handled equipment with which he might unknowingly injure himself.
Novia recalls that Adam also suffered psychological spells as a result of the physical condition, withdrawing so much that his mother would have to be summoned.
'He was very withdrawn and meek, he was one of those freshmen in very much in need of watching. he would have episodes where he would just shut down. He'd sit staring at the ground and refuse to talk to anyone.
'If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically. It was my job to pay close attention to that, Mr Novia said.
Scroll down for Lanza family statement
Ryan Kraft said of Adam: 'Whenever we were doing something, whether it was building Legos, or playing video games, he was really focused on it. It was like he was in his own world'
Killer: Adam Lanza would sometimes burn himself as if he was trying to find a way to feel, his mother said
He told the Wall Street Journal that it was not unusual for school officials to meet about troubled students, but that Lanza's problems were more severe than most, so much so, that he was assigned a permanent psychologist.
Mr Novia said he told the school's three security staffers who reported to him to carefully monitor the student and 'where he was, who he was with, and what he was doing'.
When he was in his sophomore year at high school, Nancy Lanza decided to withdraw her 16-year-old son after ongoing disputes with the school district over what she believed was the inadequate care and attention he was receiving.
Her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza revealed over the weekend: 'Nancy had issues with school...She battled with the school district.
'I'm not 100 per cent certain if it was behavior, learning disabilities, I really don't know. But he was very, very bright. He was smart.'
Newly public divorce paperwork shows that Nancy had the authority to make all decisions regarding her son's upbringing.
The court papers were made public on Monday and said the marriage broke down 'irretrievably'. The divorce between Nancy and Peter Lanza was finalized in September 2009, when Adam Lanza was 17.
Nancy's friends recalled a time when Adam was ill, he didn't want his mother to be in his room with him so she slept outside the door on the carpet all night but would call to her to make sure he was there
Witnesses say Lanza was going from room to room shooting people, after first killing the principal Dawn Hochsprung and the school psychologist Mary Sherlach execution-style when they confronted him in the hallway
Chaotic scenes at the school as police work to secure the area and bodies are carried out of the school
Lanza enrolled in some part-time courses in Western Connecticut State University, in nearby Danbury. Classmates there also described him as an outsider, revealing he would sit alone at the back of the class with a hooded sweatshirt on.
In an evening German class, he was the youngest student there.
'We tried to say "hi" to him every so often, and he just seemed nervous,' classmate Dot Stasny told the Journal. 'He didn't have anybody to connect with because we were all older.'
He soon dropped out of the class. He did however excel in computer science, with an A and an A-minus in two courses in summer 2008, when he was just 16, according to Paul Steinmetz, a university spokesman.
He said the university had no record of any disciplinary issues with the part-time student. he wasn't pursuing a college degree and had a final grade-point average of 3.26.
Police are currently searching the hard drive of two computers take from the killer's home which were smashed into pieces.
Nancy Lanza told a friend she feared she was losing her son just a week before he shot her multiple times in the face
Though his former classmates describe him as a 'computer geek', he strangely had no online presence on popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
Details on the man behind Friday's monstrous act remain maddeningly scarce as small tidbits of information are slowly being revealed by the few people who knew him - though he had no friends to speak of.
Those few who spoke with the deeply disturbed young man described him as shy, intelligent, and a masochist.
It seems Lanza went from meek fresh-faced schoolboy to a home-schooled loner who hurt himself so that he could 'feel something'.
At his most innocent, Lanza is described as a mild-mannered student in high school, making the honor roll, and living with his mother Nancy, who in turn loved playing dice games and decorating their upscale home for the holidays.
He also suffered from Asperger's syndrome and was painfully shy and awkward, former classmates said.
But a troubling portrait has emerged of the 'Goth' loner, who dressed all in black and was obsessed with video games.
Not long before the shooting at Sandy Hook, Nancy Lanza expressed concerns that her troubled young son was spiraling out of control.
An anonymous friend said Nancy had confided he was 'getting worse' over craft beers just days before the shooting.
'I don't know. I'm worried I'm losing him,' the friend quoted her.
The friend added that Nancy believed her son was hurting himself.
'Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,' he recalled of a conversation they had roughly one year ago. 'It was like he was trying to feel something.'
'I asked her if she was getting him help and she said she was,' the friend recalled.
It has also been reported that Nancy had decided to move to Washington State or North Carolina so that Adam could attend a college in another state.
Nancy had recently been considering moving Adam to Washington state, said Mark Tambascio, a restaurant proprietor and close family friend, because she had discovered a school she thought would be good for him.
'They were going to move out there together,' he told the Washington Post. 'She was willing to uproot her. Nancy pretty much made it clear that she needed to be with him (Adam) because he couldn't handle being on his own.
'He was her whole life. She was very proud of both of her sons. She never mentioned that [Adam] was suicidal or violent. Nothing like that. Everyone that had spent any time around him, they knew he was a little bit different, but you never saw any major, major issues, he added.
Devoted mother: Nancy Lanza's friends talk about the issues she had with her son, and how she was totally devoted to her son and conscious of his needs
Some other friends of Nancy spoke to NBC this morning, telling Savannah Guthrie: 'Adam was calm, withdrawn, typical of someone who has Asperger's. But she never feared him. She was devoted to both her sons. Adam and his needs came first.'
Another friend Ellen said: 'Adam would isolate himself and [Nancy] was conscious of how she would react to him. She was a kind and caring friend.
'She taught Adam how to shoot to teach him that guns had to be treated with respect and would absolutely have had them under lock and key.'
They also recalled a time when Adam was ill, he didn't want his mother to be in his room with him. So she slept outside the door on the carpet all night.
He called out to her frequently to make sure she was there but he didn't want her to be too close.
Nancy was his first victim when the 20-year-old began his rampage by shooting her face multiple times in the family's $1.6?million home in Newtown, Connecticut, dubbed America's 'safest town'.
He then then took three of her guns and drove her black Honda Civic to Sandy Hook Elementary School around 9.30am, where he killed 20 young children and six adults before shooting himself in the head.
Lanza used two semi-automatic pistols, a Glock and Sig Sauer, and wiped out an entire classroom of young children, then shot several in a second class before taking his own life.
Police revealed yesterday that Adam was carrying an arsenal of ammunition big enough to kill just about every student in the school if given enough time, according to police.
Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 26 people including 20 children
Innocent once: Gunman Adam Lanza was just another fresh-faced student once, described by peers as shy but intelligent
Adam Lanza shot himself in the head just as he heard police drawing near to the classroom where he was slaughtering helpless children.
But now it has been revealed he had more ammunition in the form of multiple, high-capacity clips each capable of holding 30 bullets, raising the possibility Lanza had planned an even deadlier massacre and was stopped short.
'There was a lot of ammo, a lot of clips,' said state police Lt. Paul Vance.
'Certainly a lot of lives were potentially saved.'
The chief medical examiner has said the ammunition was the type designed to break up inside a victim's body and inflict the maximum amount of damage, tearing apart bone and tissue.
THE SMILING FACES OF THE INNOCENT VICTIMS
Photographs released of the young victims of Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School reveal 18 of the 20 smiling faces of the innocent boys and girls whose lives were so tragically cut short.
Newly released details about the massacre paint a graphic picture of a merciless gunman who spared no mercy, shooting each of victims multiple times.
Eight boys and 12 girls all between the ages of six and seven were murdered in the senseless violence that has left the quiet New England community overwhelmed with grief.
The names of the young victims are (clockwise from top left): Daniel Barden, seven, Charlotte Bacon, six, Ana Marquez-Greene, six, Caroline Previdi, six, Avielle Richman, six, Benjamin Wheeler, six, Olivia Engel, six, Noah Pozner, six, Jesse Lewis, six, James Mattioli, six, Dylan Hockley, six, Emilie Parker, six, Grace McDonnell, seven, Chase Kowalski, seven, Jack Pinto, six, Josephine Gay, seven, Jessica Rekos, six, and Catherine Hubbard, six.
Allison N. Wyatt, six, and Madeline Hsu, six, are not pictured.
Former classmate Olivia DeVivo said she remembered Lanza talking about 'blowing things up', but added: 'I put that down to the usual talk of boys. I think he went so unnoticed people didn't stop to think, "There's something going on here maybe he needs some kind of help?"
'No one is surprised. He always seemed like he was someone who was capable of that because he didn't really connect with our high school, with our town.'
Another former school friend, Jamie Crespo, 19, said: 'He used to hang with the freaks, guys who dressed in trench coats.'
Other students remember him walking through school dressed in black, carrying a black briefcase.
Newtown High School's 2010 class president Ben Federman is like the rest of his classmates - he can barely remember Adam Lanza.
Mr Federman, who was home from attending college at Vanderbilt University, told MailOnline that he had heard from many graduates from the class of 2010 and none of them can think of a single friend Lanza had.
'The only time I ever saw him was in the hallway and he never seemed to engage anyone. He was just focused on walking from one class to another,' Mr Federman said.
His only memory of the 20--year-old Lanza was the bizarre way he dressed - always in button-down shirts that were too big for him. He also usually had pens in his shirt pocket and usually carried a black leather briefcase.
'You noticed that because it was different. He carried a briefcase and not a backpack,' Mr Federman said. Map of area surrounding Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed at least 26 people, 20 of them small children
Outsider: Former classmates remember Lanza walking through school dressed in black, carrying a black briefcase.
Nancy Lanza's home in Newtown, Connecticut, was raided after 2 pm on Friday and she was found shot dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face
The tragedy has plunged Newtown into mourning and added the picturesque New England community of 27,000 people to the grim map of towns where mass shootings in recent years have periodically reignited the national debate over gun control but led to little change.
Residents and faith leaders were sure to reflect Sunday on the mass shooting and what meaning, if any, to find in it. Obama planned to attend an interfaith vigil the fourth time he will have traveled to a city after a mass shooting.
On Saturday, overflow crowds packed St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Richard Scinto, a deacon, gave a homily.
'In the past 48 hours I've said the phrase "I don't know" about 1,000 times,' he said. 'That not knowing has got to be the worst part of this whole thing.'
Interesting, don't know if anyone else has picked up on this, but the third photo of A.L. waving seems odd, as if photoshopped onto a plain background. You can see a corner of a frame or something in his shadow behind his head that seems to disappear...
- The Grinch , Whoville, 17/12/2012 18:45
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