Veil of Echoes

Ep. 64: Columbine Part 1: Inside the Deadliest School Shooting in America

Bria Almany, Lyndsay McKee, Zach Endress Season 1 Episode 64

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On April 20th, 1999, what began as a normal Tuesday morning at Columbine High School became one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.

But before the first shots were fired… there were warning signs.

In Part One of this multi-part series, we explore the months leading up to the Columbine massacre including the journals, threats, homemade explosives, Basement Tapes, failed cafeteria bombs, and the terrifying moments when students first realized something was horribly wrong.

Through immersive narration, real audio, and survivor-focused storytelling, we step back into the final normal moments before Columbine changed America forever.

⚠️ This episode contains discussions of school violence, murder, suicide, and trauma involving minors. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

🕯️ ECHOES FROM THE VEIL

We’re officially accepting submissions for our upcoming listener series:

Echoes from the Veil

Have you experienced something paranormal, unexplained, or unsettling that’s stayed with you?

Send your true stories to:
 📧 veilofechoespodcast@gmail.com

Or message us on TikTok and Instagram.

🎁 MONTHLY LISTENER GIVEAWAYS

Beginning at the end of this month, we’ll be launching our monthly listener giveaways featuring:

  •  Tarot cards 
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To enter:
 Leave a rating or written review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, screenshot it, and send it to us.

We’re also still deciding on an official name for our listeners, so send us your ideas!

🌫️ NEXT EPISODE

In Part Two:
 We enter the library.

The room where terrified students hid beneath tables while Patti Nielson’s 911 call captured the horror unfolding in real time.

And this Friday on Veil of Echoes:

The Greenbrier Ghost

A story that should not have been possible.

🎧 AUDIO USED

  •  Publicly available 911 audio 
  •  Publicly available media audio/commentary 
  •  Ambient cinematic sound design created for this episode 

📚 SOURCES

  •  FBI Columbine Files 
  •  Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Columbine Reports 
  •  Columbine by Dave Cullen 
  •  A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold 
  •  CNN archival coverage 
  •  History Channel archives 
  •  Time Magazine archives 
  •  Publicly available court and investigation records 
  •  Publicly available survivor interviews and news footage 

✨ Step through the veil with us…

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🕯️ New episodes drop every Monday (True Crime) & Friday (Paranormal) — where true crime meets the supernatural.


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Beneath the ordinary world lies a veil, and behind it the voices of the lost still whisper.

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We are your guides into the shadows where true crime meets the paranormal.

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From chilling crimes to haunted histories, we uncover the stories that refuse to rest.

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This is Vale of Echoes.

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See you at lunch. For most people, it was just another sentence. Something you say without thinking twice.

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But on April 20th, 1999, some students at Columbine High School would never make it to lunch.

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That morning, the hallways were full of voices, kids laughing, talking about problems, complaining about class, making plans for after school.

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And none of them knew they were living their last normal moments of their lives.

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Because somewhere inside the school, two students were already waiting for the right time to begin.

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1119 a.m. The first shots echo through the brain. And Columbine High School will never feel normal again. This is episode 64.

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Columbine Part 1.

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Before the bells ring. Welcome to Vale of Echoes, a cinematic, immersive experience where true crime and the unexplained collide. Every story leaves something behind.

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A moment. A choice. A warning sign. Someone missed.

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And sometimes a single day changes everything that comes after it. We're your host, I'm Lindsay.

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I'm Zach.

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And I'm Bria. This episode contains discussions of school violence, murder, suicide, and trauma involving minors. Listener discretion is advised.

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If you enjoy immersive true crime and paranormal storytelling, make sure you're following Veil of Echoes on your favorite platform.

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And leaving a rating or written review really helps support the show and helps more people find us.

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And starting at the end of this month, we're officially be launching our monthly listener giveaways.

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To enter, all you have to do is leave a rating or written review. Take a screenshot and send it to us.

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And inside these packages, we're putting together things that feel like they came straight out of Veil of Echoes.

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Tarot cards, crystals, wax-sealed letters, and little artifacts tied to the show.

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The kind of things that make you feel like you're sitting around a table during a seance listening to ghost stories at midnight.

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We're really excited to start sending them out to you guys. I'm excited. I am.

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I'm yeah, I don't want to give it away, but I'm excited when some of these things come in. I think y'all are gonna like them. But yeah, uh to be um to get I can't talk. For a chance to get one of these, please, please, please leave us a review. Um screenshot it, send it to us. Um you can also send it to us to our email at bailevechospodcast at gmail.com. Yes, send them to us, bitches. Yes. Two winners will be selected each month. And we're also still trying to decide what to officially call our listeners.

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So if you have any ideas for a listener name, send them to us on TikTok, Instagram, or through our email.

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Because you guys are helping build this community with us. And we're also preparing to launch Echoes from the Veil.

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A new series featuring real paranormal experiences sent in directly by our listeners.

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So if you have a story you've never been able to explain, please send it to us on our socials or email us at Vale of Echoes Podcast at gmail.com. For years, people have tried to understand Columbine.

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But what caused it? Who Eric Harris and Dylan Clayball really were?

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And whether there were warning signs that should have stopped it before it ever began.

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But before Columbine became a headline, before helicopters circled the school, and before the names were broadcast across television, it was just another Tuesday morning. And before the first shots were fired, there were already signs that something terrible was coming. And some of them were written down long before April 20th, 1999 ever arrived. Eric Harris had been writing online about violence for years. On a private website, he posted about vandalism, building explosives, and his hatred towards certain classmates. At one point, he wrote, All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can. And someone saw it. A parent reported the website to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Investigators were drafted a search warrant for the Harris home. But it was never approved. Of course not. Yeah. Um, I don't know. He he he was uh I don't know, these kids were fucking weird.

SPEAKER_02

I'm just curious to why it wasn't approved.

SPEAKER_05

Like again, the justice system, our justice system is bullshit.

SPEAKER_02

I just need to know his reasoning. Like, okay, he might have been underage, but he literally was threatening to kill everybody. He wanted to kill everybody. He's been writing about it for years.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. It it says right here, in August 1997, Harris wrote on the blog, All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people like Brooks Brown. Brown was a friend and classmate of his. After Brown's parents viewed the site, they contacted the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. An investigator drafted an affidavit requesting a search warrant for the Harris household, but it was never submitted to a judge.

SPEAKER_07

So somebody dropped the ball somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Sounds like the family knew somebody in the building.

SPEAKER_07

And whoever dropped the ball, your mom's a hoe.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

That's what's wrong with law enforcement. It's just because it's your family. I mean, you still have to uphold the law. Like if it's your friends, it doesn't matter. You still gotta give that ticket. You still gotta serve that search warrant, and if you so be it, you have to slap the cuffs on that motherfucker, too.

SPEAKER_05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Like that is your job.

SPEAKER_05

And then it says in um on the blogs also, um uh yeah, Harris showed signs of anger against society. So and by the end of the year, the site contained instructions on how to make explosives, and especially specifically pipe bombs.

SPEAKER_02

Need instructions for that?

SPEAKER_05

So he created this private website on America Online, AOL.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so he made it himself.

SPEAKER_05

Initially to host video game levels that he created for the first person shooter games Doom, Doom 2 and Quake.

SPEAKER_02

Damn.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So Doom's old as fuck.

SPEAKER_07

Yes, it is. It is. I remember playing that on my grandma's computer when I was little. Like, it was that, or there was a game on there that I would hunt dinosaurs. Oh yeah, no, not terract. This was a completely it was like Jurassic something, but it was like one of my favorite games. But it was, I would either play that, or my papa at the time had Doom on the computer, so I would play Doom. And you know, I remember my age I shouldn't have been playing that at my age. I've been evil since I was five, so but my parents were the ones who were like, Yeah, let's get you a PS2 and then get you Call of Duty.

SPEAKER_05

There you go. And granddad's auto. I thought I played that.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, I think.

SPEAKER_02

There's one hunting game we played where you played as the deer and you hunted down hunters, but you walked around with a rifle and that was fucking goofy.

SPEAKER_03

I would play that one.

SPEAKER_02

Then I used to play that Captain Crunch game all the time, or it's like some kind of Captain Crunch math game that we got off the serial box. We just used to like fucking ride around and just do jumps to make math problems. That's funny. People are like, why are you so good at math? Because I used to play a lot of math games. That's funny. As long as we're just doing a little bit. Yeah. I played modern warfare or Medal of Honor back on the PS1.

SPEAKER_07

That was another one big one, was Medal of Honor. I my parents got me the PS2. And the very first game I had was Call of Duty, I think it was the second one, Medal of Honor Vanguard. I remember having that one.

SPEAKER_02

I'm I played the very first one, and it was only like 1996, and I was like, I had no idea what was going on.

SPEAKER_05

I played Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Spider-Man. I played them all at mom's Scooby-Doo Cyber Chase game. Cyber Chase, yeah. That was one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_02

I haven't my own game system until I was 17, but we used to go to Ron's mom's when we'd visit, and I'd play Spyro and everything on there. Stacy, she had one, so we'd play on her PlayStation.

SPEAKER_05

Which means months before Columbine, someone had already seen pieces of what was coming.

SPEAKER_02

And the warning signs didn't stop there. In 1998, Harris and Dylan Clayball were arrested. After breaking into a van and stealing electronics and tools, they were placed into a juvenile diversion program, attended agar management classes, and met regularly with counselors. To the people around them, it may have looked like two teenagers getting into trouble. But privately the violence was growing.

SPEAKER_05

And inside those journals, they wrote about death, bombs, hatred, and mass murder. Eric Harris wrote about explosives constantly. Testing them, building them, and perfecting them. Yeah, I read that, um again, just weird fucking kids, but uh so they began keep both of them began keeping a personal journal since March of 1997. So about a month before. Uh no, a month I'm sorry, a few years before.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, a few years before.

SPEAKER_02

That's why this one said it was months. Months? No, this is ninety-seven. They got killed in April of 99. That was March of 97. Yeah. Jesus, that's what, 26 months? 25 months?

SPEAKER_05

Yep. And both their journals.

SPEAKER_02

Damn.

SPEAKER_05

They later plotted the attack. Harris's plan for an attack included possibly escaping to a foreign country or hijacking an aircraft at Denver International Airport and crashing it into a building in New York City.

SPEAKER_02

Mind you, this is before GTA. Yeah. This this ain't GTA related, so let's not go there.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, can't blame video games for this one. Never.

SPEAKER_02

No, they probably got the idea for the game off this, so you know what?

SPEAKER_05

These guys are just fucking nuts.

SPEAKER_02

They were. I'm glad I mean it sucks that they didn't get justice, but I'm glad they're gone.

SPEAKER_05

They also made entries in their journals on topics related to sexuality. Claybold expressed shame for his sexual interests, which included bondage and foot fetishes, stating that my humanity has a foot fetish. And bondage, extreme liking. I try to thwart it.

SPEAKER_02

Not just like normal bondage like BDSM.

SPEAKER_05

And then Harris described his desire for raping and torturing women in his bedroom. He expressed interest in cannibalism, stating that he would like to dismember a woman with whom he could have animalistic sex with and eat her flesh.

SPEAKER_02

Good God. It's like fucking Albert Bundy right there.

unknown

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

Al Bundy, there we go.

SPEAKER_05

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

Sorry, Peggy, your husband's a murderer.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, he's fucked up. And then it says their schoolwork displayed themes of violence. In December of 1997, Harris wrote a paper on school shootings titled Guns in School in a poem from the perspective of a bullet.

SPEAKER_02

So if he wrote about school shootings then, this was the first mass school shooting, I'm guessing, because Well, this is what's fucked up. He was already writing about it.

SPEAKER_05

Claybold wrote a story about a man killing students which worried his teacher so much that she alerted his parents. When Claybold was confronted about it, he said it was just a story. For one project, Harris wrote a paper on Nazi Germany, and Claybold wrote a paper on Charles Manson. In a psychology class, it just gets worse and worse. In psychology, Harris wrote that he dreamed of going on a shooting spree with Claybold. Harris's journals describe several experimental pop bomb detonations.

SPEAKER_07

So they're having all of these fucking signs and that's why this shoot is taken the way it is nowadays.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's why you got fucking detectors and security guards at your schools now in big cities and shit.

SPEAKER_07

Well, not only that, but you've got people that I mean that will make threats online and now you've got the FBI showing up at your house. Oh yeah. Like people don't understand this shit is not it's not taken lightly anymore.

SPEAKER_02

I remember we went to violence and some kid brought his BB gun, just his hand BB gun. All black, you know, they pulled us over, brought the cops in, pulled that little kid. Kid was in second grade, I think I was in fourth, fifth or sixth.

SPEAKER_07

He was like, well, his mom was a drug addict that bought from my parents, so there was just a kid um at Hillsboro that took a gun to school with him at Hillsborough.

SPEAKER_02

They 3D print them now, too. So I mean that's another another kid just got in trouble and arrested because he was selling 3D printed guns to other students. Like you guys are not gonna stop this. You're making things worse. You're making it easier for these types of people.

SPEAKER_07

I want gun control, but you're not gonna get full-on gun control. No one like that.

SPEAKER_05

Or they'll make these blue. Luigi.

SPEAKER_02

Luigi did it. That's how he killed the fucking president of the health. Luigi Manji. Yeah, he 3D printed his gun and went and shot that guy. That's why it didn't get detected when he walked through the detectors, because every single piece was plastic. I don't know how he packed all this fucking shit into the shelter or whatever. He is he wasn't, well, poor. I wouldn't say he was pretty a few classes above us, but I don't know anything about that life.

unknown

Oh, I thought it was.

SPEAKER_07

I mean I haven't really looked much up on him.

SPEAKER_02

I thought it had something to do with like his mother and stuff too. Like she was sick.

SPEAKER_07

She yeah, because um Which I mean, understandable, but bro, come on. He went after the guy because her treatments were getting denied by the insurance companies, which I don't I I personally It was starting to cost his yacht money. Personally, I don't blame him because I understand it because of being a diabetic myself, and I, you know, have witnessed how much my insulin fluctuates.

SPEAKER_05

It's like he wanted an outlet on it.

SPEAKER_07

And he did. And I mean, killing somebody, no, we shouldn't do that. No. Let the I mean, our justice system really inspired.

SPEAKER_02

Well that's the issue, is that's a guy who's making a lot of money paying those people, so they're gonna turn a blind eye to all that. Yeah. Look what happened to the black dahlia. She ended up in a town full of rich fucking weirdos, and every single one of them had a connection to each other. So I don't deny it was I think it was every single one that was blamed.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Who's the one that actually pulled the trigger or did the I don't know, but I think they're all part of it.

SPEAKER_05

So it also says nearly a year before the massacre, Dylan wrote a message in Eric's 1998 yearbook saying, Killing enemies, blowing up stuff, killing cops. My Wrath for January's incident will be godlike. Not to mention a revenge in the Commons. And then um, the Commons was slaying for the school cafeteria.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the common area.

SPEAKER_05

That's just fucking I mean, Hogwarts is like where they sleep, but I know, but it's just they were showing all these f signs.

SPEAKER_02

I that's just the unfortunate part, and nobody wanted to be their parents.

SPEAKER_05

And the parents didn't. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02

It is now.

SPEAKER_05

I'm sorry, I don't know. I hope I oh my god, I couldn't imagine being those parents.

SPEAKER_07

The amount of parents though that don't take this stuff seriously boggles my mind. If your kid is writing this kind of shit, you need to take that into serious consideration.

SPEAKER_02

If I would have said anything like that by living with my stepmom and dad, then they would have shipped me off to some fucking boarding school, Catholic school.

SPEAKER_07

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

They wouldn't even have fucking second guessed it. I would have got my ass beat and I would have got shipped out.

SPEAKER_07

If I would have said something like that, my parents would have been like, alright, mental institution right now. It's just fucked up. You're going fucked up. Like, you're nope, we're not gonna we're not gonna tolerate this kind of crap.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05

And Columbine was that was like the first, like leg I mean, I'm sure there was there was other paths, you know, but this is like the first like mainstream like shooting, right? America.

SPEAKER_07

I think so. America.

SPEAKER_05

Um, that was like televised and everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_07

Um actually, the first recorded school shooting in US history occurred on July 26, 1764.

SPEAKER_05

I knew there was past ones, but I this one I think is like the one that it really put it.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah. Yes. This one says during Pontiac's Rebellion when Leopee warriors killed teacher Enoch Brown and nine or ten children in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02

Was that Indians?

SPEAKER_07

Um the earliest known school shooting took place near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, amid Pontiac Rebellion, a Native American uprising against British colonial expansion following the French and Indian War.

SPEAKER_02

So is that more of a school shooting or is that just bystanders of war? Because I mean there's a war.

SPEAKER_07

It was in a school, it was a teacher and his it was a teacher and his students. What's off?

SPEAKER_02

His teacher and students showed up people?

SPEAKER_07

People are just always fucking. No. Somebody killed the teacher and the kids in the school. The kids?

unknown

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_06

How old were these kids?

SPEAKER_02

Um 17, 10. That might have been K through 12 kind of deal. You know, they probably have one left.

SPEAKER_07

Yeah, it doesn't say it says kind of like the old one up here. Yeah. Four Leope warriors entered the schoolhouse and attacked the teacher, Enoch Brown, and his students. Brown was killed, and reports indicate that nine or ten children were also killed. With only two or three surviving. That's awful. One of whom had been partially scalped.

SPEAKER_02

W So yeah, that's like, yeah, it was a school shooting, but it seems like it was war.

SPEAKER_07

But still, that's fucked up.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, the Indians got in there and did their work.

SPEAKER_07

The first child perpetrated school shooting.

SPEAKER_02

I don't agree with any of it, but the whites started that bullshit.

SPEAKER_07

Oh, I know. So the first child perpetrated school shooting occurred on November 2nd, 1853. Thirteen-year-old Matthew Ward shot and killed his schoolmaster, Mr. Butler, in Louisville, Kentucky. After Butler had punished Ward's brother, Ward was acquitted despite the fatal shooting. Hmm. Wow.

SPEAKER_05

Um another it was just the teacher he killed that one.

SPEAKER_07

Another notable early incident occurred on February 23rd, 1853, at Auburn Elementary School in New Hampshire, where Charles William Woodworth fatally shot teacher Marlia Wilcox before taking his own life.

SPEAKER_05

So it was it seemed like it was more so the teachers. But those children, those poor children.

SPEAKER_07

And now it seems like nowadays it's either like now we get bullying people who are getting bullied and you know isolate themselves. And you know, I I was kind of like that in school myself. I was a very quiet person, didn't hang out with a lot of people. Yeah. Because of bullies. And I I get it.

SPEAKER_05

And Dylan Claybold wrote about loneliness, isolation, self-hatred. But over time, those writings became darker too.

SPEAKER_07

And that's part of what still unsettles people about Columbine. Because when you look back now, it feels like tragedy was already leaking out long before the shooting ever happened. And journal entries, in school assignments, and videos. Like pieces of something terrible slowly servicing. While everyone around them was still trying to live normally.

SPEAKER_05

But then again, it was not just one occurrence. It was multiple occurrences they were writing about these fucking shootings. Twenty-and still didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_02

Two school years worth of writings. Fucking teachers, but it could have been prevented.

SPEAKER_05

This is something that could have been prevented. People didn't take it serious. That's why this shit is taken as serious as it is now. Those fuckers should have been taken somewhere. They should have been put somewhere.

SPEAKER_02

It could have been, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05

They should have put these fuckers away somewhere. Or just shot them on site. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Well they were shot on site, but just by themselves.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, pussies. Of course.

SPEAKER_02

At school, teachers had already seen violent themes in some of their work. Harris once wrote a paper about school shootings. Claybold wrote a story about a man killing students. Disturbing enough that a teacher contacted his parents. And nearly a year before the massacre, Claybolt signed Harris's yearbook with the words Killing enemies. Blowing up stuff. Killing cops.

SPEAKER_07

I mean the teacher at least con did something. At least they had some form of a conscience.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and the parents were probably like, oh, he does this all the time.

SPEAKER_05

Well you guys are just as guilty, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, who you ran? Norman Bates?

SPEAKER_05

What the fuck? Together, they weren't just fantasizing anymore. They were preparing pipe bombs, propane tanks, sawed off shotguns, a Tech 9 handgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Investigators would later determine they had constructed nearly 100 explosive devices. And while students at Columbine were studying for finals, planning prom, and talking about graduation, Eric Harris and Dylan Claybold were filming themselves in a basement talking about how they wanted to be remembered.

SPEAKER_07

And knowing that now makes the normal moments feel haunting. Because while parents were saying goodbye to their kids that morning, they had no idea that some of those goodbyes would become the last words that they ever spoke to them.

SPEAKER_05

By April of 1999, the plan had already been building for more than a year. And hidden inside journals, videotapes, and homemade bombs was the outline of one of the deadliest school attacks in American history. Yeah, so um I also read here um that Okay. So that was the name of their tapes. The remaining three tapes detailed their plans and reasons for the massacre, including the ways they hid their weapons and deceived their parents. Most were filmed in the Harris family basement and are known as the basement tapes. Thirty minutes before the attack, they made a final video saying goodbye and apologizing to their friends and families. Stop apologizing, you fucking bitches. But if you listen to it, they don't even sound they sound excited.

SPEAKER_02

It's fucked up. I know this is random, but I was looking it up because curiosity got the best of me. And next April 20th is a Tuesday.

SPEAKER_05

That's weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

But then 28 years.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. Yeah, that's creepy. In December 1999, before anyone besides investigators had seen these tapes, Time magazine published an article on these tapes. Victims' family members threatened to sue Jefferson County. As a result, select victim families and journalists were allowed to view them, though the tapes were then withheld from the public and in 2011 destroyed for fear of inspiring future massacres. That is not I mean, I'm sorry. It's never gonna stop. It's not gonna stop.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's you did you can I know it's all in good intentions, but you can't stop violence.

SPEAKER_05

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

You can only meet it.

SPEAKER_05

Gosh, it's just fucked up. But um in economics class, Eric's Aries, I meant to say Eric Harris. It also says in economics class, Eric made an ad for a business. He and Dylan made a video called Hitmen for Hire on December 8th, 1998, which was released in February 2004. It depicts them as part of the trench coat mafia, a clique in the school who wore black trench coats and opposed jocks. Eric and Dylan themselves were apparently not part of the trench coat mafia, but were friends with some of its members. They wore black trench coats on the day of the massacre, and the Hitman for Fire Hire video seemed a kind of dress rehearsal, showing them walking the halls of the school and shooting bullies outside with fake guns. That's weird. So it's just And then a video was also released showing them doing target practice with the weapons they later used in the massacre. Yeah, they're fucking creepy looking.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that smile right there is like if only you knew what was coming.

SPEAKER_05

Oh yeah, they're fucking and Dylan's fucking weird looking too. They just I don't know, they give me the creeps. Um, so before the massacre, Eric left a micro cassette labeled Nixon on the kitchen table. On it, he said, It is less than nine hours now. Placing the recording at sometime around 2 30 a.m., he went on to say, People will die because of me, and it will be a day that will be remembered forever.

SPEAKER_02

My And that was Dylan or Eric.

SPEAKER_05

I feel like out of the two Dylan was a follower. Yeah, I feel like Eric was well because Eric's.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That one dude was driving the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. Um somebody was leading that pack like B was in Butthead.

SPEAKER_05

Both dumb, but they're both dumb. Well, if you think about Eric, he fired 120 shots. 121 shots total.

SPEAKER_02

Because he wanted to do that.

SPEAKER_05

Dylan fired less than half of it, like 67 shots. So I and then I don't know, Eric has all the I mean, they're both fucking weird, but I feel like Eric was the He was the ringleader.

SPEAKER_02

There's my demon cat. He's a sweetheart, but he just likes to be loud. Coming through the vents again. Where are you at? Oh the door shut up.

SPEAKER_05

He has something up. He's carrying something in his mouth, probably.

SPEAKER_02

Siri's staring at the steps, so sorry Siri, not you.

SPEAKER_05

Tuesday, April 20th, 1999. The morning started quietly. Students pulled into the parking lot at Columbine High School, just like they had hundreds of times before. Some were late to class, some were sitting outside in the spring air, and some were thinking about lunch. And inside the cafeteria, students filled tables beneath large windows. As the first lunch period approached, nobody noticed anything unusual.

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But by that point, Eric and Dylan had already begun putting the final pieces of their plan into place. Earlier that morning, the two purchased propane tanks from a local gas station. Investigators later determined they had converted the tanks into bombs. And those bombs were not small. 25 gallon pound 25 pound propane tank can take out almost a block.

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Jeez.

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That thing does not play. According to investigators, they were designed to explode inside the cafeteria during the busiest lunch hour.

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Which means the shooting was never supposed to be the main attack. The bombs were.

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Around 1110 that morning, the two walked into the cafeteria carrying duffel bags. Inside those bags were 20-pound propane bombs set on timers. Students sat only feet away from them, completely unaware, talking, laughing, eating lunch. Some of them would walk past those bags without ever realizing how close they came to dying.

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The bombs were set to detonate at approximately 1117 a.m. Investigators later said that if the explosives had functioned correctly, the cafeteria could have collapsed. Potentially killing hundreds of students.

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And that's one of the most horrifying parts of Columbine. Because the version people remember wasn't even the original plan.

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Outside, Eric Harris parked in a junior parking lot. And before the attack began, he ran into someone he knew. A student named Brooks Brown. So the friend of his that his parents who originally Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

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That online stuff he was saying.

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Yeah.

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Brown later said he was surprised to see Harris at school that day. There had been an important test earlier, and Harris rarely missed class. So Brooks asked him why he skipped it, and Harris replied, It doesn't matter anymore.

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Sorry.

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I mean, Chester's like, okay, this is getting too intense. I'm gonna just add my uh palette. Yeah.

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I don't know, but Brooks is one lucky motherfucker, I'll tell you that.

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Oh, I know, yeah.

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Then Harris looked at him and said, Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home.

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Ugh, I just got goosebumps.

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I'm getting better.

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Jesus Christ.

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He gave me some too, but.

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That poor guy, though.

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All I don't know, this what the f Brooks is lucky he wasn't here for me to pat him on his shoulder when I said go home, because I'm gonna get into it.

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Yeah, that's and at that time, Brooks didn't fully understand what he meant. But later, those words would follow him forever.

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Alright, I got goosebumps against.

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Yeah.

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Cause this one, I mean, this is they're all rough, but god, for no apparent reason. Oh, you're getting bullied. Bro, I stand 5'7. I've been bullied my whole life. Get the fuck over yourselves.

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Yep. It's not even that though. These fucks, the sick fucks just hate they were obsessed with death. They just hated people.

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Alright, then do what fucking the lead singer of that one band did. Kill yourself. Don't worry about the other people. Go blow your own fucking brains out. Yeah. Or if you're obsessed with death, murder yourself.

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Do everyone some justice and go find some pedophiles. Yes.

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That. No one's against them.

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Make sure you get the evidence first, though.

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Right. Yeah, you gotta have the evidence. But we aren't condoning people to the ghost. Yeah, no. This is just um.

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But it's just like just like, you know, the the whole animal testing that they still do, like the Ridgelands farms that have just released 1,500 beagles from animal testing. Instead of testing on animals, because you know, if you're gonna make a skincare product, test it on a fucking human first.

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Yeah, because how it's gonna work on humans.

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Those poor animals. Again, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not gonna get no.

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Like, no, monkeys don't look sexy with lipstick.

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Like, I'm sorry, but this type of lab testing for rabbits are small products because you know, um, you know, people have to make themselves look good and all this kind of shit. Start testing that shit on pedophiles, on murderers, on rapists. Do it on them. Good god. Poor Leika. Have you heard of her? Yes, don't even get me started on that one. What is it? Stop it, stop it, stop it.

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Why'd you bring it up?

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Because these people are assholes. They sent this poor dog in space.

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I they did it to a monkey too. I remember.

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I mean, what the fuck? Strap a motherfucking pedophile in that goddamn thing, and then someone who's on death row and fucking shoot him up in the fucking sky. Don't what look at how happy this poor dog Okay, I gotta get off the dog now. We're done.

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We're done with the Yeah, that poor thing's like this is the most comfortable bed I've ever laid in.

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My biggest thing. My three biggest things. Don't touch the animals, don't touch children, and don't touch the elderly. Or the um the seal thing. Oh, this the sea lion, the monk sea lion. This fucking asshole in Hawaii? Hawaii.

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Yeah, I did, and I watched him didn't get his ass whooped by one of the locals.

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I actually just watched another video last night on it.

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So for our listeners who haven't heard.

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The guy is from um, the guy's name is Igor, and he's from Washington State. Um, he said that he travels to Hawaii at least once a month. He decided that he was gonna rich fucking. Yep. He decided that he was gonna throw a rock at an endangered monk seal, which is under, you know, it's protected under federal regulations through Hawaii.

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I don't know why he thought so. Um his stupid ass girlfriend was just standing there. She could have gotten her ass beat too.

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Well, the person did, that's why she was standing there.

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She yeah, she kind of just looked around like, huh? The person recording him doing it had told him, What are you doing? You know, you can't do that. And his response was, I don't care, find me, I'm rich. If you're gonna act like that, I'm gonna throw a fucking boulder at your head and make sure it crushes it.

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And I know the guy that beat him up didn't get any, like, he tried to sue him.

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He got a letter of recognition from Hawaii.

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Good. Cause, dude, you know, what the fuck?

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That sea line was just again, mining its own hand. The sea line had the name because it was a community sea lion and its name was Lani, the monk seal.

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And it's like, ew, that poor thing is probably what the fuck? Are you? It had no idea.

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All it was doing was playing with a log. Stop it! That's what it was doing was playing with the log. And this guy's like, I'm gonna disrupt it and be a little bitch about it. And you know what? I'm glad the guy got the shit beaten out of him. I'm glad the guy that got robbed because he deserved it. And you know what? If it would have been me, if I would have been in that situation and caught the dude, I would have been in prison.

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Alright. We need palette cleansers. Since we all love animals, we need our listeners to start sending us pictures of their animals and then we'll start putting them up.

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Start sending us um pictures of your animals' stories. We love to see pictures of animals and tell us their names and the meaning behind their names.

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Let's do it. That'll be fun. That'll be cute. I'm excited. Yeah, send us your send us pictures of your pets now.

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Yes, send us pictures of your fur babies.

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Yep, that's gonna be a new thing we're gonna do. I've we've decided.

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Talking about all the animals just reminds me of being over by the brain station. I went to drop the boys off. I was passing the train tracks. I looked over to my right and I saw a fucking woodchuck sniffing a turtle, and the turtle kind of went to snap at it, and then she I was like, what the fuck is going on out here? Oh fuck.

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That's funny. That's cute. Meanwhile, inside the school, the timers kept counting down. 1115, 1116, 1117. Nothing happened.

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The bombs failed to explode. For a moment, the school kept moving normally. Students kept eating lunch, teachers had kept teaching.

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And nobody knew how close they had just come to dying.

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But outside the school, Eric Harris and Dylan Claybold realized their plan was falling apart. And instead of leaving, they chose something else. At 11.19 a.m., the first shots were fired outside Columbine High School. For a few seconds, nobody understood what they were hearing. Outside the west entrance of Columbine High School, students turned toward the sound thinking it was fireworks. A prank. Something stupid. Because school shootings weren't something people expected back then. Not at Columbine.

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Seventeen-year-old Rachel Scott was sitting outside on the grass eating lunch with her friend Richard Costaldo. Without warning, Eric Harris opened fire. Rachel Scott was struck multiple times and killed almost instantly. Costaldo was critically wounded, but survived.

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And that's the moment everything changed. Because after the first shots, the normal Tuesday morning disappeared forever.

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I wasn't even there, had nothing to do with it. It's just heartbreaking. Like, bro.

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I know it's true.

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If you're that hungry for attention, eat your own bullet, bitch.

unknown

Yeah.

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I will you did, but you should have done it sooner. More like 11 o'clock.

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Yeah, um, Rachel was shot four times with a high point nine ninety-five. From a distance of ten to fifteen feet. She sustained a fourth and fatal wound to her left temple. Castaldo was shot eight times in the chest, arm, and abdomen by both Eric and Dylan.

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Oh shit.

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He fell unconscious to the ground and was left paralyzed below the chest. He survived, but Scott immediately died from a reach. I owned one of these high points. What does it look like? Poor kid, he was he ended up getting paralyzed. I think unfortunately some of these survivors, they I think a few of them took their lives too.

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Yeah, Survivors Guild's no uh sad. Because like why? For what reason?

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Students started running. Some ducked behind cars. Some froze completely. Others still didn't understand what was happening. A group of students near the stairs actually believed the shooters were using paintball guns. Then more shots rung out. And suddenly people were collapsing.

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Daniel Roarbo was shot and killed near the staircase outside the school. Several others were wounded within seconds. Teacher and coach Dave Sanders hearing the gunfire immediately began warning students to get inside and run.

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And while the shooting was happening outside, inside the school, many students still had no idea what was coming towards them.

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In the cafeteria, students continued eating lunch beneath the bombs that had failed to explode. Some heard noises outside, but stayed where they were, and others walked toward the windows to look. Because curiosity feels normal right before fear takes over.

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As Harris continued firing outside, Dylan moved down the staircase toward injured students. At one point, an already wounded student asking for help. According to witnesses, Dylan replied, sure. I'll help you. Then shot him again.

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What a piece of shit. Oh my god, oh my god.

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What was the one I want to know? You said Cassie was based off this one, or was it the other one? Because I could have sworn that it was that guy actually asked him if they believed in God's sake.

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That's when they go into the library.

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Okay.

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Or doing that's in part two, but yes. I I I think That song hurts every time. Fly Lee. Well, is it called Cassie?

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Yeah, Fly Leaf's Cassie because she was one of the victims. I think she might have been friends with her or something, but I know.

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Like Yep. It's a song honoring Cassie Bernal, a 17-year-old student killed in the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. It highlights the later contested report that she was asked if she believed in God and answered yes, and was killed for her faith, framing her as a Christian martyr who stood by her convictions.

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That's why that song hurts every time I hear it, because she d they did.

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These guys are fucked up. Really? Someone asked me for help? Sure, I'll help you. You fucking did.

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Well, the fly leaf, she also didn't have to lace it, or she didn't have to put that in the song either.

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No.

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Danny pulled the trigger.

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I mean, yeah, but that's what happened. I don't know. These guys kids are february.

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Ever comes. Up to you with a gun and ask you if you believe in something, throat punch that motherfucker.

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And moments like that are what make Columbine feel so difficult to process. Because the violence wasn't distance, it was personal. Close enough to hear breathing. Close enough to hear people begging for help.

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And that's what's fucked up. So I guess they realized, oh, did they think like they brought all these the ammunition guns, but originally their plan was just to blow up the school, right? They would have killed hundreds. They would have killed hundreds.

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They went to plan B, which your mama should have taken.

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Yeah. Yeah. Outside, students were now sprinting across the grass away from the school. Some covered in blood, some dragging injured friends. And inside the hallways, teachers were beginning to realize this was not a prank. These were not fireworks.

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Art teacher Patty Nielsen walked toward the west entrance after hearing the commotion. She believed students were filming a video pulling some kind of stunt. But when the doors opened, gunfire shattered the glass.

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And within seconds, the panic moved inside the school.

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Yeah, apparently origin um she was going to uh walk outside and tell the two students to knock it off, thinking they were either filming a video or pulling a student prank, and then realized. And she I believe she survived. She got um struck by the glass, I think though.

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I had a glass in my foot this morning. Yeah, she survived. Because Luna decided to knock over one of my bottles. Oh gosh.

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Because now the hallways of Combine were no longer filled with students changing classes. They were filled with people trying to survive.

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And even now, more than two decades later, people still ask the same questions.

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With all the warning signs, the journals, the threats, the explosives. Could Columbine have been stopped before April 20th ever happened?

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Yes.

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100%.

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Well, with all these I mean, my personality.

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The first thing happened in what? March 1997. They made one of these first entries or whatever.

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And it wasn't just the first time.

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That's when they both started their journal.

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Yes.

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Twenty-five months before. Like, they planned this out.

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Like I said, I would have taken these little bastards out of school and fucking put 'em in one of those one school for all the bad kids or whatever. Like the reform school. Yes.

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No outcome of this.

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I mean, unfortunately, I don't know if that would have, but it would have prevented this from I mean, who knows, they could have fucking planned some other unfortunate event, but still.

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I mean, the fortunate part is those tanks did not go off.

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Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

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That right there would have instantly killed hundreds of people when that building collapsed because they would have been honest expected. Yeah. Yeah, all those years planning for your stuff to fail.

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Fucking idiots. And that's the question we want you thinking about as we move further into this story. By now, the fear was spreading faster than the facts. Inside Columbine, students were hearing screams in the hallways, running footsteps, glass breaking, but many still didn't fully understand what was happening. Some thought it was a senior prank. Others thought construction equipment had exploded. And some were about to come face to face with the reality of it.

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After the shooting began outside, Eric and Dylan moved toward the west entrance of the school. As they walked, they continued firing. They also threw pipe bombs into hallways and outside onto the grass. Several detonated. Others did not.

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And for the students trapped inside the building, every sound became terrifying. Because nobody knew where the shooters were or where they were going next.

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Yeah, so, um So Eric, before all of this too, um they went into the school, he turned uh he fired seven shots in the direction of five students sitting on the grassy hillside. Um Michael Johnson was hit in the face, leg, and arm, but ran and escaped. Mark Taylor was shot in the chest, arms, and leg, and fell to the ground, where he faked death, and the other three escaped uninjured. Um Dylan fired down the stairs with his shotgun, injuring Nicholas Foss with a graze wound, then walked down the steps toward the cafeteria. He came up to Lance Kirkland, who was already wounded and lying on the ground, weakly clawing for help, and that's we already went through that. But um the So this other kid that he um that was shot, Sean Graves, um, although near fatally injured, um he was he ended up being paralyzed beneath the waist. He crawled into the doorway of the cafeteria's entrance and collapsed. He rubbed his blood on his face and played dead. After shooting um Kirkland, Dylan walked toward the cafeteria door. He then stepped over the injured Sean Graves to enter the cafeteria. Sean remembers Dylan saying, Sorry, dude.

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Fuck the fuck?

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Yeah. Dylan then only briefly entered the cafeteria and did not shoot at the several people still inside. Officials speculated that Dylan went to check on the propane bombs. Eric was still on top of the stairs shooting and severely wounding and partially paralyzing 17-year-old Anne Marie Hotchhalter as she attempted to flee. Dylan came out of the cafeteria and went back up the stairs to join Eric. They each shot at students standing close to a soccer field, but did not hit anyone. They walked toward this west entrance, throwing pipe bombs in several directions, including onto the roof. Only a few of these pipe bombs detonated, and witnesses heard one of them say, This is what we always wanted to do. This is awesome.

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You mean you heard Eric say that?

unknown

What the fuck? Yeah.

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I don't care what the Dylan was there for the ride. I don't know what he saw in Eric, but Dylan was apologizing to people while he was still killing them. Doesn't seem like somebody that But he was also planning to take his own life, so I don't know why he didn't just fucking shoot Eric. He would have been it would have been a whole different world if he'd be like, you shot and killed your best friends. Like, listen, this dude was about to take all of you out with pipe bombs, fucking propane tanks, shotguns, rifles, like he was coming to kill. I did you guys a favor.

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Inside the cafeteria, students had finally begun realizing something was terribly wrong. Some crawled beneath tables, others ran towards exits, and above them, on the second floor of the school, the library was beginning to fill the students looking for somewhere safe to hide.

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After being injured by shattered glass, teacher Patty Nielsen ran into the library with student Brian Anderson. She immediately warned students to get under the tables and stay down. Then she dialed 911.

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Trying not to cry, trying not to make a sound.

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Some called their parents, some whispered prayers, and some honestly believed if they stayed quiet enough, the shooters might pass them by.

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Meanwhile, teacher Dave Sanders continued helping students escape. Witnesses later said he was directing kids through hallways and warning classrooms to lock their doors. He kept moving students to safety while the gunfire spread deeper into the building.

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And that part of the story often gets lost. Because while fear was taking over the school, there were also teachers and students trying to save each other.

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I think he was the one too. He uh yeah, you see him um in the video. He's running down the cafeteria just like he's putting himself out there, making sure there's no students, like so he could put them to safety. By now, the sounds inside Columbine had changed. No more normal hallway noise. No more classroom chatter, only alarms, sirens outside, running footsteps, and somewhere in the building, gunfire was getting closer. Then students inside the library heard something else. The sound of footsteps coming towards their doors.

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And suddenly everyone hiding beneath those tables realized the shooters were coming inside.

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Okay. I'm glad that's the end of part one, because this is getting too much.

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It is building.

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Jesus. And that is where we're leaving part one.

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A normal Tuesday morning that turned into something that no one inside Columbine High School was prepared for.

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And in the next part of the story, the violence moves into the library.

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A room filled with students hiding beneath tables trying to stay silent. While gunfire echoed closer and closer.

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And for many of them, those next few moments would become the most terrifying moments of their lives.

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If you've been listening with us through this episode, thank you.

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And if you want to support Veil of Echoes, one of the biggest ways you can help is by leaving a rating or written review on Apple or Spotify.

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And this Friday, we step away from Columbine and into a story that should not have been possible.

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A young woman was found dead inside her home in West Virginia in 1897.

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But according to her mother, she didn't stay dead.

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The Green Briar Ghost. Until next time, keep your ears open.

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And the veil closed.