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Previously on The Secret Sits, we began exploring the lives of many students and faculty from Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have just begun their initial assault on their high school, just in time for one of the school’s lunch breaks. And that is where we find ourselves while we pick up our story today.
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Welcome to The Secret Sits, I’m your host John Dodson. Join us every Thursday as we uncover the Secrets behind the world’s most fascinating true crime cases. You can find all episodes of The Secret Sits for free on Apple Podcast, Spotify or where ever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you are hearing, reach out to us on Instagram and Facebook @The Secret Sits Podcast or on Twitter @SecretSitsPod. Now, on with our story.
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Eric and Dylan’s plan was in motion, or at least they assumed so. The diversion bomb, or at least the largest part of the bomb, the gas tanks, had been moved by a surveyor working in the park. One of the pipe bombs and a spray paint can had detonated, but it only produced a loud bang and a small grass fire. Officials found out about this bomb in the park, just four minutes before the first frantic phone call from Columbine High School.
But Dylan and Eric, had no way of knowing that this distraction had not had the results they planned for. They boys believed that the entire city would be moving all of its responding forces to the park by this time, so they proceeded with the plan. They just needed to wait at their cars until they saw the Commons explode, Places for Act 2.
11:18am, no explosion. The students milled about like it was any other typical day. Many of the students went to their cars and drove away, off to get their Dave’s Deluxe Burgers or their Foot long Subway sandwiches. The boys had to move on to plan B. Eric had been in the prime position, but he moved across the parking lots toward Dylan so that the two could breach the school together. At 11:19am, the two climbed the building’s external steps, from this vantage point they could see both parking lots and all of the exits on just that one side of the building. They opened their duffle bags when they reached the top of the stairs, pulled out their shot guns and strapped them around their bodies, they then pulled out their semiautomatics and yelled, “Go! Go!” and then Eric Harris opened fire.
Eric shot at anyone he could see and Dylan fired a few random shots, but stood by Eric egging him on. Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo were the first two hit, as they sat in the grass eating their lunch, Richard was struck in both of his arms and his torso. Rachel was hit in her chest and head, she died instantly. Just that morning, Rachel had doodled a picture, in it, a pair of eyes crying 13 teardrops dripping on a rose, which was rising out of Columbine, this would be the same number of victims the shooters would kill during the massacre. Richard, lay there, in agonizing pain and played dead. It worked; the boys stopped shooting him. Danny, who had been out smoking, began walking up the dirt path to the stairs along with Lance Kirklin and Sean Graves. The trio saw the gun battle happening, but they assumed it was a paintball gun fight or possibly a senior prank, so they ran toward the shooters hoping to join in on the fun. Danny made it half way up the stairs, Eric turned and fired, the flaming hot bullet tore through Danny’s left knee, as he began to collapse a second bullet entered his chest and then a third tore through his abdomen. Lance, who was coming up the stone staircase just behind Danny, attempted to catch his fallen friend, until he realized that he too had been hit, in his chest, leg, knee and foot. Danny’s death was almost instant and he landed solidly on the steps. Lance fell to the side and landed on the grass, he was hit, but still breathing.
Sean, who’s view was blocked because he was ascending the stairs last, began laughing, he thought everyone was playing, until he felt a shot fly past his neck. And then Sean’s brain caught up on the situation and he turned and attempted to run, but all of the sudden his back hurt and he could no longer feel his legs, he collapsed.
A small group of students were attempting to hide amongst some pine trees, but Eric saw them and began firing. One fell down and played dead, Eric hit another student, but they kept running away, even after being struck with a bullet.
Lance was stumbling in and out of consciousness, when he was somewhat lucid, Lance could feel someone just above him, so he reached up and tugged on the pants legs, crying out for help. “Sure, I’ll help” came a callous response, as one of the shooters aimed and shot him directly in the face.
Dylan walked down the hill toward Sean, who could no longer move his legs. Students in the cafeteria saw Dylan coming and so they ran out and grabbed Sean, they attempted to drag him inside until an adult stopped them and told them it was too dangerous to move an injured person. So, they left Sean at the entrance, propped up against the door. As students rushed out of the building, one stepped on Sean’s back and gave a half-hearted apology. Then a janitor showed up at Sean’s side, he held onto Sean’s hand and told him that he wanted to stay with him, but he needed to help other kids escape first, so he told Sean to play dead, which he did.
Dylan, went to enter the building and stepped right over Sean’s body to do so. By this time the entire building full of students and staff had descended into utter cause. Students hid under lunch tables and ran to find places to hide. Coach Sanders had heard the commotion while he was inside of the faculty lounge and he headed out to see what was going on.
Adults tried to take control of the panicked crowed and told everyone to run, Coach Sanders directed the kids to follow him up the giant stone stairway in the commons, up to the second floor. There were 488 people who followed Sanders to the second floor, he stood there directing them to the left, take a left and go down the corridor, there is an exit to the east, away from the Senior parking lot.
Students entered the choir room and shouted, “There’s a gun!” But a few doors down the hall in science room 3, a chemistry test was being administered and the teacher instructed the students to stay seated and concentrate on their tests.
Coach Dave Sanders stayed there, at the top of the stairs, until every one of the 488 kids had passed by him, as the last of the horde made it up the stone stairs, Dylan Klebold entered the cafeteria. Dylan could clearly see all of the students at the tail end of the escaping group, he rose his rifle toward them and then just swept it across the room in a giant arc, once again failing to fire a shot. At this point Dylan has only fired his weapon a few times. Dylan then turned and stepped back over Sean, still playing dead in the doorway and rejoined Eric at the top of the outdoor stairs.
Dylan was definitely not participating as much as his best friend Eric. Eric was still at the top of the stairs, shooting and hurling pipe bombs at any targets he could see. A junior girl named Anne Marie Hochhalter started to make a run for it, Eric hit her once with a bullet, but she continued running, until Eric’s second bullet struck her and she collapsed. Another student grabbed Anne Marie and drug her out of Eric’s sight, but then dropped her hand and continued escaping themselves. Just as this hero ducked behind a car in the Senior lot, a pipe bomb exploded precisely where he had pulled Anne Marie from just seconds before.
The two now realized that all of their easy outdoor targets had dispersed, one last group of students were running toward a chain-link fence which bordered the soccer field, they were too far away to hit with any accuracy, but Dylan fired a couple of shots at the students, bringing the total of his fired bullets up to 5.
The time was now 11:23am, just four minutes in.
Deputy Gardner was radioed by the custodian the moment he had finished changing out the tapes and he observed the commotion out of the windows. At this exact same time the very first 911 call came in. Gardner drove around the building and as he turned the corner, he could hear the gunshots ring out and then a flurry of calls came over his radio from dispatch.
At this point half of the Columbine student body was experiencing the most chaotic thing that would ever happen to them during their lifetimes. But the other half, sat in class, wholly unaware that anything was amiss. As Coach Dave Sanders ushered kids to safety a part-time teacher named Patti Nielson was conducting hall duty just one floor above Sanders. Sanders’ students reached the floor Patti was working on and they ran down the hallway to the exit door, but Patti was in the next corridor over and she never even heard the students during their harrowing escape. Patti did see a student through a glass panel in the door, who appeared to be holding a gun, but Patti thought it was just a prop for a student film project, so she began hastily walking down the hallway to confront the teenager. A junior who was also in the hall at the time, Brian, followed Patti, wanting to watch the confrontation.
The doors where a set of double doors, which acted as a sort of air lock. Patti Nielson pulled open the first set of glass doors and just as she reached for the second set of door handles, Eric Harris turned toward her and raised the gun. He fired and struck the glass, this caused the bullet to miss Patti and Brian, but shattered glass hit both of them relentlessly. Patti Nielson screamed and she and Brian hit the floor as the glass shards tore into their backs. The two crawled through the open space to the second set of doors and once through them, they stood and ran, they ran to the library, where Patti knew there was a phone.
The library sat just around the corner and it took up most of the south hallway, with one wall made entirely of glass. As Patti and Brian ran to the library doors, she could see all of the students diligently working on assignments, she ran inside and shouted, “There’s a kid with a gun.” She ordered all of the kids to get down and hide, and she reached for the phone, she dialed 911. Patti Nielson had expected Eric to follow her and Brian right to the library, but he did not show up.
[Patti Nielson 911 Call]
Deputy Gardner had pulled his patrol car into the senior lot with the lights and siren on, which had distracted Eric from following Patti and Brian. He opened fire on the officer, he fired 10 rounds at the patrol car, every shot missed its target and Dylan, once again did not fire any rounds. Eric’s rifle suddenly jammed and as he attempted to clear the chamber, Dylan went back inside of the building. Deputy Gardner fired a few rounds at Eric but, Eric ran inside of the building.
The time was now 11:24 – five minutes into the fray. Now with both boys inside of the building, Eric and Dylan headed off in the direction of the library.
Just as Patti Nielson had run into the library, Coach Sanders ran past the library door, still attempting to get kids out of harm’s way. Sanders motioned for the kids in the library to stay where they were and to stay quiet. He ushered another student down the hallway, where the beloved coach and the student encountered Eric and Dylan, the murderous pair were walking down the north hallway. Coach Sanders turned to run with the student who was with him, but Eric and Dylan raised their weapons and fired at the pair. Coach Sanders slammed into a set of lockers and then collapsed onto the carpet as the teen he was assisting made a break for it. The student ran into a science classroom and told all of those hold up in the room to hide.
But Coach Sanders had not been killed, Eric had hit the man twice, one shot hit his back and the other went through the teacher’s neck, exiting through his teeth. Dylan Klebold then slowly walked over to the devastatingly injured man and tossed a pipe bomb next to him. The pair then turned and made their way back toward the library. But Coach Sanders had a will to live, he had a family at home, he had daughters and grandchildren that he yearned to see again. The Coach began crawling toward the science classrooms, another teacher immerged and assisted getting the coach into a classroom where 30 students had been hiding. The group quickly realized that the man was in terrible shape and needed help expeditiously. A student named Aaron Hancey was known to have first aid training, he was an Eagle Scout after all, but he was sequestered in a different classroom in the science area of the school. Despite the riskiness of the situation happening around them, another teacher went to retrieve Aaron Hancey from the other classroom to come and help the dying man, who had attempted to save so many others. A fellow student named Kevin Starkey and a teacher called Teresa Miller began administering first aid to Coach Sanders. They used shirts from other students in the room to try to stem the flow of blood from his wounds, and then when it seemed that help was not coming, the students took the photos from Coach Sanders wallet and held them up for him, so he could see his family one more time, this was also done to keep him cognizant and awake, an attempt to stave off impending doom.
“Is this your wife?” they asked as they held up a photo
“Yes”
“What’s your wife’s name?”
“Linda”
Aaron and Kevin said, “these people love you; this is why you need to stay alive.”
But eventually the heroic young boys lost the struggle to keep Dave conscious and he said, “I’m not going to make it, tell my girls I love them.”
The kids in the school were now inundating the 911 dispatch with calls, so many in fact that some kids could not even get through. Some kids began calling the local TV stations and the local anchors began interviewing them live on air in real time.
“Did it look like they were shooting at specific people?” one anchor asked. “They were just shooting. They didn’t care who they shot at; they were just shooting and then they threw a grenade or something that blew up.”
[911 Calls and News Calls]
And with all of these calls, also came conflicting, yet true reports. There were shooters in the parking lot, true, there were shooters in the commons, also true; there were shooters in upstairs hallways, also true, but what those on the outside had yet to understand was that all of these true eyewitness accounts were of the same two boys.
The next police to arrive on the scene was Deputy Paul Smoker, who arrived on his motorcycle unit. Smoker joined Deputy Gardner behind his squad car and the two volleyed several shots back and forth with Eric from behind a door frame. At this time police protocol preached containment, the officers on scene broke into groups and spread out to cover as many of the 25 exit doors as they could, but no one moved to breach the building. If a person needed to evacuate the police would lay down suppressive fire, even though they had no contact from the gunmen.
Every agency in the area was responding to the incident, and the police had even commandeered a Loomis Fargo armored truck which had been in the area. The problem was that nobody seemed to be in charge. Some police wanted to take the building, but in the end, they maintained their perimeter. The last gunplay between Eric and officers took place at 11:26am, but officers would not attempt to advance on the building until 12:00pm.
Danny’s stepsister was still in the building and she and some friends were about to head out to play some softball, when Mr. D saw them. Just as Mr. D started running to the girls, Eric and Dylan rounded a corner and fired shots at the girls. Luckily, the bullets missed and ended up shattering the glass trophy case. But Mr. D ran towards the gunfire and the girls, yelling at them to get back. The brave man ran with the girls down the hall, they ended up at a locked door to the gym. Mr. D pulled out his set of keys, but it was like a warden’s key ring and he did not know which one opened this lock. Frank DeAngelis was frantically attempting to open the lock, but it was like a real-life horror movie, until at last he finally picked the correct key and the door thrust open. The group chose a door across the gym, which turned out to be a storage room and Mr. D unlocked this door and shepherded the girls inside. He told them, “You are going to be fine; I’m not going to let anything happen to you. But I need to get us out of here. I’m going to shut the door behind me. You don’t open the door for anyone!” He then had the idea that the group should come up with a code word if everything was safe, the girls bickered over what the word should be, prompting a laugh from Mr. D and then the girls, the tension of their horrific situation was broken for just a moment in time, if they did not make it out of this alive, this would be the last thing they would laugh about.
After leaving the girls, Mr. D opened a door which led outside, there he saw a deputy who ordered him to leave the building. Mr. D protested, but to no avail, he wanted to stay to help, but it was too dangerous. Instead, he took up the task of helping those who had already made it out of the building alive.
President Bill Clinton immediately gave a speech on television.
[Pres Clinton Speech]
Next week, On the Secret Sits, Eric and Dylan enter the library, and all hell breaks loose.
End of Episode 2: Columbine – Shots Fired