One of the most compelling questions after Columbine was, “Who are the parents?” Ten years later, it remains unanswered.
Oprah Winfrey tried to tell us differently this past week. “For the first time ever, a Columbine shooter’s mother tells her story,” proclaimed the cover of O The Oprah Magazine. The November issue, which also touts the story as an “O Exclusive,” carries an essay by Susan Klebold, the mother of 17-year-old Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold. On April 20, 1999, Dylan and 18-year- old Eric Harris killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before taking their own lives.
Klebold’s essay was sad as she recounted her own post-Columbine trauma. “Once, I saw a dead pigeon in a parking lot and nearly became hysterical,” she wrote. “I mistrusted everything — especially my own judgement.”
But this essay was also sad for the lack of new revelations and for the questions it didn’t answer, including two of the most compelling and troubling statements the Klebolds have ever made about their son (statements that in both instances were also recanted).
Some of the stories Klebold told are eerily similar to others that already have been reported. For example, Klebold tells of how Dylan’s voice “sounded sharp” when he said goodbye the morning of the shootings, which has been widely recounted. And Klebold talks of a survey indicating that “83 percent of respondents said that the parents’ failure to teach Dylan and Eric proper values played a major part in the Columbine killings.”
Yet in 2004, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a small piece after speaking with the Klebolds and noted, “(Dylan’s father) Tom had in front of him the poll results, news stories and documents showing that 83 percent of Americans had believed the parents were partly to blame.”
Years later, the Klebolds seem stuck on the same script.
I covered the Columbine shootings from the first hours, and spent the next 10 years researching my book. I uncovered a psychological study of Susan Klebold, and Dylan’s college essays. I read through probably 35,000 pages of police reports. But one Klebold writing I have yet to fathom occurred over one year before Columbine when Eric and Dylan were busted for breaking into a van and sent to a juvenile diversion program. Their parents were required to fill out a questionnaire, and it is unclear which parent actually wrote the answers, but the writing for Dylan’s parents appears feminine. When asked about their son the Klebolds wrote: “Dylan is introverted and has grown up isolated from those who are different in age, culture or other factors. He is often angry or sullen, and behaviors seem disrespectful to others. He seems intolerant of those in authority and intolerant of others.” The parent then crossed out the phrase, “He seems intolerant of those in authority.”
On the day of Columbine police swarmed the Klebold and Harris houses. Among them was Lakewood officer Rollie Inskeep, who spoke with the Klebolds. “When asked about guns or explosives, she (Susan Klebold) stated that Dylan has always been fascinated by explosives and guns,” Inskeep wrote in his report. “She stated that Dylan wore combat-looking boots and that he liked the look that he had established.” Then, a familiar twist. “She then recanted her previous statement,” Inskeep added, “and stated that Dylan did not really talk about explosives and guns but he just likes to have the look of the trench coat and boots.”
I was hoping to read more about those statements in Klebold’s essay. Instead, I read this: “I Will Never Know Why.” That’s the title. And that may be true for Susan Klebold. But at the same time, she may not know what she knows. Her knowledge might help experts figure out the why — or at least a piece of it. If only she’d talk to them. Or us.
Jeff Kass is the author of “Columbine: A True Crime Story; A Victim, the Killers and the Nation’s Search for Answers (Ghost Road Press, April 2009).
