Contents
The Columbine Guide is organized into seven sections, indicated in the nav bar, to the right. Each section is outlined lower on this page. A final section lists material not available here--because it has either not been released, or is in bad taste.


Navigation
  • The sections are listed in the vertical nav bar at the top of the side column on every page. The white-boxed item there indicates your current location.
  • Each section has several detail pages for pictures, scans, etc. The nav bar will return you to the main page for each section.

Warning on the myths
Two warnings is in order before you proceed to the main contents:
  1. MYTHS: Most of what you "know" about Columbine is probably wrong. Within six months of Columbine, virtually all reporters on the case--including me--accepted that we had gotten most of the basics wrong (mostly by a lot of assumptions, and jumping to conclusions based on fragmentary evidence). This makes researching Columbine problematic: google the early coverage, and you'll get all the myths. Dig up later material, and much of it was based on the bad early stuff. The myths are self-propagating.

    The good news: lots of clean material is out there. It has been identified. You just need to know which is good, which is bogus, and which has bits of each. The Media Reporting section sorts much of that out for you. But you will be wise to set aside most of what you've read, and start with a clean slate.
  2. CONTRADICATIONS: In total, the journals, videos and other writing present a crisp portrait of each killer. But beware of quotes out of context. Eric and Dylan were teenagers. They rambled, contradicted themselves and changed their minds as the plan developed. I link to lots of evidence on this site, and for many items, I provide some analysis, so you can see how it fits into the larger picture without reading it all.














SECTIONS OF THE COLUMBINE GUIDE:
GUIDE HOME
This page.

JOURNALS/WRITING
Eric & Dylan's writings & drawings
This includes the most revealing written material Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left, including their journals, sketches, diagrams, Eric's website, Dylan's creative writing story essentially describing what they were about to do, and their 1998 yearbooks (where they wrote about the Columbine attack in each others' books).
Nearly a thousand pages of the killers' writings were released, and I sifted through it all to point you to the best stuff, and indexed it and uploaded the best stuff for you to get it quickly.

VIDEO
The killers, Survivors, and interviews with me
Warning: This section is graphic and can be traumatic. Exercise caution.
There is video of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in the Columbine cafeteria, Patrick Ireland tumbling out the library window, and helicopter shots from April 20. Links to transcribed passages from The Basement Tapes are included both here and in the Killers/Plan section.

VICTIMS/RESOURCES
Resources for parents, teachers, students, victims, etc.
No graphic photos in this section! This is a trauma-free zone. (For pix of victims on April 20, see the Killers/Attack section.)
This section provides two things:
  1. Info on the victims, including profiles on each of the thirteen killed at Columbine, passages from the lawsuits, video footage,  results of the Danny Rohrbough inquiry, links to memorial sites.
  1. A resource package on trauma, PTSD, identifying potential shooters, and psychopaths. It includes a link to Dr. Frank Ochberg's excellent "PTSD 101" article, designed for the layman, and the FBI's report on identifying threats.

KILLERS/ATTACK
Pix, bios, profiles, bombs, guns, crime-scene, plans, schedules, etc.
Warning: This section is graphic and can be traumatic. Exercise caution.
This section has two parts:
  1. KILLERS: All the basics on Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold, including photos, capsule bios, autopsy reports, and links to longer published profiles.
  2. PLAN / ATTACK: Everything about Eric and Dylan's plan and attack on Columbine, including pictures and descriptions of the bombs, the guns, knives, photos from the attack and of the crime scene, Eric's sketches of their battle gear, schedules, budgets, plans, etc. Graphic/traumatic photos of victims and survivors from April 20 are included here, in order to keep the Victims / Resources section trauma free. Links to transcribed passages from The Basement Tapes are included both here and in the Video section.

ALL EVIDNCE/REPORTS
Police & DA evidence & all official reports
This is a massive section, in several parts:
  1. Official government reports on Columbine & school shooters, including the ones by the Jeffco sheriff, FBI, Secret Service, CDC, a grand jury investigation, etc.  
  2. All of the released evidence, including all police reports, the DA's Diversion files on the killers (with session notes), 911 tapes, videos made by the killers, their journals and daytimers, all the search warrants, autopsies, field notes, photographs,  a grand jury investigation, etc. These total well nearly 30,000 pages, so I provide an overview, highlights, links to scans of 11,000 pages of them, and several indexes, so you can find your needles in this enormous haystack.
  3. Information on obtaining your own copies of this evidence. (Most of the interesting stuff is on the web, but a few important selections and a great deal of detail is not, such as audio of 911 calls, the search warrants (the book of them is nearly two inches thick), thousands of pages of supplemental reports, etc. You can also get your own copies of anything released from Jeffco for a modest fee. 

MEDIA REPORTING
The good & the bad
This section is being redone and is not currently up. It will contain:
Millions of words were published on Columbine. Most of it is wrong. Some of it is excellent. I point you to the best Columbine stuff out there, including Time's December 1999 cover story, and several pieces in Westword and the Rocky Mountain News. (Avoid the early Denver Post coverage!) A handful of pieces summarize what happened and why quite well, and are a great starting point.

MISC
Sites, books, indexes, etc.
This section is being redone and is not currently up. It will contain:
  1. SCHOOL PIX, ETC: These include interior and exterior shots of Columbine High, photos I took over the years.
  2. COMMENTS: : You can now discuss Columbine at my Discussion Board on Facebook.

NOT HERE
Items you won't find in The Columbine Guide:
  1. Video of The Basement Tapes. Long, representative passages have been transcribed and published, and I provide quite a bit of that. But the videos have not been released. You will not find them anywhere.
  2. The "Nixon" microcassette tape that Eric Harris recorded the night before the massacre. It has not been released. A few lines from it were transcribed, and appear in my book. Lead Investigator Kate Battan told me there is nothing else significant on it. She has generally been straight with me.
  3. Testimony by Eric and Dylan's parents. As a final settlement with five holdout families, Wayne & Kathy Harris, and Tom & Sue Klebold answered questions in a deposition that lasted several days. It was a closed session, and the plaintiffs gained entry by agreeing to a gag order. In April 2007, a federal judge ruled that the transcripts would be sealed for another 20 years, then released. Only the small audience in that room knows what the parents divulged, and there have been no leaks. I'll post them in 2027.
  4. Crime-scene photos of Eric and Dylan's bodies. These were never officially released, but leaked. They are graphic and horrific. You can easily google them, but I won't post them here. The ones that appear at the top of most searches are legit. That's really how they died. I've gone through diagrams and talked through the details at length with Battan and other investigators. We know how they died. I describe it in the book, but I'm going to forego that here.
Just about everything else that's been gathered is available, and I'll try to point you to most of it here.

The Columbine Guide was formerly known as The Columbine Almanac and The Columbine Navigator. If you're looking for either of those, you're here.

Columbine site ow up in test mode.
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