Lanza Destroyed Harddrive, Cut Ties with Dad Before Shooting

Killer covered tracks prior to massacre

Before Adam Lanza, 20, opened gunfire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. killing 20 first-grade kids, six adult school officials and then himself, he destroyed his computer hard drive. The FBI’s computer-analysis response team is still trying to put its pieces back together. According to the Hartford Courant, Lanza had used the computer to play a violent videogame in which life-like characters participate in bloody battle scenes, but there is currently no other evidence of what else he did with it. Still, a law-enforcement said, "The kid knew what he was doing. This was a planned event. There is no question about it.”

Adam also killed his mother Nancy at their home, shooting her four times in the head while she was likely sleeping, but the relationship with his father hasn't been as widely reported on. Peter Lanza, a successful finance executive at GE, separated from Nancy in 2001, but still saw Adam every week. In 2009, the Lanzas officially divorced and, by 2010, Peter was dating a new woman, whom he later married. Adam cut his dad off then, and Peter hadn't seen or heard from him since, despite fully supporting them with monthly payments of more than $289,000 in alimony and also volunteering to pay for Adam's college, car and medical insurance. When a local reporter showed up at his Peter's doorstep to break the news, "his expression twisted from patient, to surprise, to horror. It was the first time that he considered a loved one could be involved," said Maggie Hogan of the Stamford Advocate. (Daily Beast, Today)

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