Attack was long planned

Harris diary shows details in motion year before shootings

Charley Able, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 7, 2006 at midnight

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Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold began planning the deaths of fellow students at Columbine High School at least a year before their lethal attack on April 20, 1999.

Among the nearly 1,000 pages of investigative materials released Thursday by Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink is a handwritten diatribe from Harris that recounts the contempt he had for some of his fellow students and contains chilling death threats directed at them.

Touting his own nonconformist ideas, Harris wrote: ". . . I bet most of you (expletive) can't even think that deep, so that is why you must die . . . ." The passage is dated April 21, 1998.

"Before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit for anything at all, especially life, and if you p---ed me off in the past, you will die if I see you," the diary entry for that date continued.

Harris' diary entries spew hate and venom from nearly every page. The pages contain rants against gays, blacks, conformists, athletes, teachers and others and identifies them as targets in what eventually would become a suicidal rampage.

Harris' Oct. 23, 1998, diary page shows he was pondering the dark legacy their attack would leave.

"Someone's bound to say 'what were they thinking?' when we go NBK (Natural-Born Killers) or when were we planning it. I have a goal to destroy as much as possible so I must not get side-tracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy or any of that . . .. I want to kill everyone except 5 people, who I will name later so if you are reading this you are lucky you escaped my rampage because I wanted to kill you."

Gun purchases noted

The diary also includes an entry from Nov. 22, 1998, that recounts a shopping trip to downtown Denver during which the two soon-to-be killers bought the weapons they used at Columbine.

"Today, along with Vodka (Klebold) and someone else who I won't name, we went downtown and purchased the following: a double-barrel 12 ga. shotgun, a pump action 12 ga. shotgun, a 9mm carbine, 250 9mm rounds, 40 shotgun shells, 2 switch blade knives, and a total of 4-10 round clips for the carbine . . .. It's all over now, this capped it off, the point of no return," Harris wrote.

Harris and Klebold also compiled lists of the lethal equipment they planned to use in the attack. They scrawled drawings of combat-ready figures with bandolier holsters and jackets with pockets labeled "clips, knife, propane, shells, slugs."

Weapons inventories, notes accounting for the costs of weapons and a number of drawings that appear to be floor plans of the school also are among the dozens of pages containing the attack strategy and the logistic notes compiled by the two conspirators and seized by investigators.

Other pages from the investigative report detail the firearms practice and bomb testing Klebold and Harris conducted in the months leading up to the rampage.

One document apparently lists the results of detonating various formulas for napalm. The results vary from "in a fix, would do OK" to "good burning, very slick" to "good, but need larger testing and boil."

Planning stepped up

And notes in a day-planner apparently issued to Klebold by the school show the planning became more intense as the April 20 attack date approached.

An April 13 entry details signs the pair would use to communicate during the attack: "Bombing - wave fist; Use bomb - Nap(alm bomb) - wave fingers, Frag(mentation bomb) - stabbing, pointing fingers; Cover fire - open, to and from chest; Cops sighted - wave hand . . . Suicide - point to head w/gun."

The day planner contains no entries for April 16 through April 19, but for April 20 a heavily armed man is portrayed with labeled weapons. The adjacent April 21 entry contains a number of crossed-out items including "bottled gas," "ammo," "our plans" and "clips on straps/holsters." Another entry asks "How will u (sic) get yer (sic) gear in car tom. morning".

The day planner also contains a page noting the year's school holidays, grading periods and final exams. Klebold put an "X" across all the events for May, the month after the killings.

Plans to kill family

One of the most chilling documents released Thursday is an undated, typed account of Harris' concept of the attack that later would claim 15 lives, including those of the two young gunmen.

"NBK. I love it! Sometime in April me and V (Vodka) will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches," Harris wrote.

The account indicates the pair planned to kill a family, whose names were blotted out by the sheriff's office before the latest documents were released.

Harris and Klebold planned to slaughter the family "before anyone is even awake" and then mutilate and desecrate the bodies before setting time bombs that Harris hoped would engulf the house in flames.

At the school about lunch time, Harris wrote, the pair would carry out their vendetta against their classmates, using firebombs, firearms, knives and other weapons to kill as many people as possible before moving into nearby neighborhoods and "torching houses with Molotov cocktails."

"By that time cops will be all over us and we start to kill them too," before either killing themselves, or escaping to Mexico or New Zealand, Harris wrote.

The account also shows Harris was considering hijacking a planeload of bombs and crashing it into New York City if the pair escaped, but could not find a safe haven.

"Just something to cause more devastation," he wrote. "It'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together."

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