Posted on 10/10/2009 4:18:47 PM PDT by real saxophonist
Dylan Klebold's mom speaks in "O" magazine
"No inkling" of plans for Columbine massacre
By The Denver Post
Posted: 10/10/2009
Susan Klebold wrote an essay in the November issue of O magazine. (Denver Post file photo )An essay by the mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold says she had "no inkling" of her son's inner turmoil, and her examination of his journals has prompted her to learn about suicide in an effort to understand the school shooting.
The essay by Susan Klebold, which appears in the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, explores her son's role in the 1999 massacre where he and co-conspirator Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher and left two dozen wounded before killing themselves.
Neither family has spoken at length in the aftermath of what at the time marked the most deadly school shooting in U.S. history. Pending litigation contributed to the silence for several years, but even with the lawsuits resolved, repeated requests for interviews have been turned down.
In a news release, Oprah Winfrey also noted that Susan Klebold had declined interview requests but then, several months ago, agreed to write about her personal experience. The magazine released a few advance excerpts.
"From the writings Dylan left behind, criminal psychologists have concluded that he was depressed and suicidal," Susan Klebold wrote in one passage. "When I first saw copied pages of these writings, they broke my heart. I'd had no inkling of the battle Dylan was waging in his mind."
She added: "Dylan's participation in the massacre was impossible for me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death. Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide."
Susan Klebold received no payment for the essay, said a magazine spokesperson, but hoped to "raise suicide awareness and to generate support for organizations such as The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the American Association of Suicidology."
A spokesperson for the Klebolds' attorney, Gary Lozow, would not field questions and said that the Klebold family would have no further comment.
The magazine hits newsstands on Tuesday.
In another passage, Susan Klebold recounted the early morning before the violence began:
"Early on April 20, I was getting dressed for work when I heard Dylan bound down the stairs and open the front door. Wondering why he was in such a hurry when he could have slept another 20 minutes, I poked my head out of the bedroom. 'Dyl?' All he said was 'Bye.' The front door slammed, and his car sped down the driveway. His voice had sounded sharp. I figured he was mad because he'd had to get up early to give someone a lift to class. I had no idea that I had just heard his voice for the last time."
Another excerpt describes her struggle to come to grips with the tragedy.
"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused," she wrote. "I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son's schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love."
Working moms.
Susan lebold had her HAIR DONE the DAY AFTER!! I will NEVER forget that!! What a SHALLOW....EMPTY person.
You have got to be kidding me
Awwwwww, it must have been some exclusive beauty shop and she’d been on their waiting list for months. They bumped her up on the list out of sympathy. Or sumfin.
There is some weird justification and denial going on in her mind to this day obviously. This wasn’t about ‘suicide’. If he had just offed himself, the world would have been better off. No, this is about mass murder.
It’s like if Ted Bundy’s parents were going on about how he had low self esteem or something. It’s retarded. She’s basically still thinking that in some way, he was a victim.
What a pickle of a nickname... “Dyl”. (dill)
I guess he was expecting the school to get promptly stormed and that was when he was planning to shoot himself after his and his friend’s raid of mysterious vengeance. But the fuzz cowered outside for hours.
No, Dylan entered the school with the intention of making other people die there!
What happened to Dylan is directly related to the lack of communication he had with his parents, IMO.
What happened to the old fashion idea that parents get up and make breakfast for their kids....
..go over homework, tests....check on after school activities.
That's what I did...
...This woman lost touch with her child a long time ago.
Bookmarked
Maybe she could have caught this when his school essays began to get bizarre. Seems she was viewing him as a low maintenance pet, like a cat.
I think he WAS a victim. ...Of demonic possession.
I’m not that familiar with the Columbine thing but isn’t this the kid who had a bunch of assault rifles in his room, was on the internet with a bunch of other bum kids and they all wore black trenchcoats?
According to michael moore, it had something to do with his dad working at a missile facility. Even though it was a commercial rocket one.
With one 'trophy' child - if Dylan had shared a bedroom with a brother, the brother would have talked to Mom n Dad. Or possibly, Dylan wouldn't have been so messed up in the first place.
I read the issue of SWAT magazine that immediately followed the massacre and it is a HILARIOUSLY EXTREME example of rationalization —SWAT couldn’t enter the structure and do ANNNNYTHING because of the alarms and spraying water from the sprinkler system....blah, blah, blah....
Basically these guys just lived to walk around acting tough but when there was the TINIEST chance they could get injured or killed, well, that was a TOTALLY different story.
They just cowered outside patiently —for hours— while kids were getting killed, and then for very well afterwards. They were unwilling to face any danger AT ALL.
Have you ever had a friend you knew very well suddenly start taking PROZAC? It is JEKYL AND AND HYDE scary, and every member of that family was saturated WITH IT EVERY DAY. Those were PROZAC murderers to whom every idea was fine as they felt no remorse for ANYTHING!!!
Changed what you believed in what direction???
Learning should be redemptive and growthful!
Cops have no duty to protect any adult or child. That’s just how it is. Everyone is on their own, but many have this illusion that a 911 can save you.
Demonic possession is unlikely (but not impossible) to happen to somebody unless he has in turn delved into the occult in some way. There normally would be other signs of this kind of infatuation. Wonder what this pickle kid’s room looked like.
...sounds like her son had everything....money, hi-tech toys, nice neighborhood, upscale house, etc....
....but no parental influence....no moral clarity...no sound structure.
And his mom still doesn't get it.
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