I "bet" with friends very early on that he was an Aspie.
When some reports stated he was "a smart kid, a gamer"
I just said "Yup!" and grinned. Then one of my friends found this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/adam-lanza-an-enigma-who-is-now-identified-as-a-mass-killer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
A Gunman, Recalled as Intelligent and Shy, Who Left Few Footprints in
Life
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER Published: December 14, 2012
He carried a black briefcase to his 10th-grade honors English class,
and sat near the door so he could readily slip in and out. When called
upon, he was intelligent, but nervous and fidgety, spitting his words
out, as if having to speak up were painful.
Pale, tall and scrawny, Adam Lanza walked through high school in
Newtown, Conn., with his hands glued to his sides, the pens in the
pocket of his short-sleeve, button-down shirts among the few things
that his classmates recalled about him.
He did all he could to avoid attention, it seemed.
Until Friday.
The authorities said Mr. Lanza, 20, wearing combat gear, carried out
one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history. He
killed 20 children and six adults at the elementary school, they said.
He then apparently turned his gun on himself. Earlier, the police
said, he also killed his mother.
In his brief adulthood, Mr. Lanza had left few footprints, electronic
or otherwise. He apparently had no Facebook page, unlike his older
brother, Ryan, a Hoboken, N.J., resident who for several hours on
Friday was misidentified in news reports as the perpetrator of the
massacre.
Adam Lanza did not even appear in his high school yearbook, that of
the class of 2010. His spot on the page said, “Camera shy.” Others who
graduated that year said they did not believe he had finished school.
Matt Baier, now a junior at the University of Connecticut, and other
high school classmates recalled how deeply uncomfortable Mr. Lanza was
in social situations.
Several said in separate interviews that it was their understanding
that he had a developmental disorder. They said they had been told
that the disorder was Asperger’s syndrome, which is considered a high
functioning form of autism.
“It’s not like people picked on him for it,” Mr. Baier said. “From
what I saw, people just let him be, and that was that.”
Law enforcement officials said Friday that they were closely examining
whether Mr. Lanza had such a disorder.
One former classmate who said he was familiar with the disorder
described Mr. Lanza as having a “very flat affect,” adding, “If you
looked at him, you couldn’t see any emotions going through his head.”
Others said Mr. Lanza’s evident discomfort prompted giggles from those
who did not understand him.
“You could tell that he felt so uncomfortable about being put on the
spot,” said Olivia DeVivo, also now at the University of Connecticut.
“I think that maybe he wasn’t given the right kind of attention or
help. I think he went so unnoticed that people didn’t even stop to
realize that maybe there’s actually something else going on here —
that maybe he needs to be talking or getting some kind of mental help.
In high school, no one really takes the time to look and think, ‘Why
is he acting this way?’ ”
Ms. DeVivo remembered Mr. Lanza from sixth grade and earlier, talking
about aliens and “blowing things up,” but she chalked this up to the
typical talk of prepubescent boys.
Still, after hearing of the news on Friday, Ms. DeVivo reconnected
with friends from Newtown, and the consensus was stark. “They weren’t
surprised,” she said. “They said he always seemed like he was someone
who was capable of that because he just didn’t really connect with our
high school, and didn’t really connect with our town.”
She added: “I never saw him with anyone. I can’t even think of one
person that was associated with him.”
Mr. Baier, who sat next to Mr. Lanza in the back of their sophomore-
year honors math class, said Mr. Lanza barely said a word all year,
but earned high marks. He said he knew this only from peeking at Mr.
Lanza’s scores when their teacher handed back their tests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/adam-lanza-an-enigma-who-is-now-identified-as-a-mass-killer.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
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Out of view of his classmates, Mr. Lanza’s adolescence seemed to have
been turbulent. In 2006, his older brother graduated high school and
went to Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, leaving him alone with
their parents — whose marriage was apparently coming apart.
In 2008, they divorced after 17 years, court records show. His father,
Peter Lanza, a tax executive for General Electric, moved to Stamford,
and in January 2011 married a woman who is a librarian at the
University of Connecticut.
His mother, Nancy, kept their home in Newtown, a prosperous, hilly
enclave of spacious, newer homes about five miles from the elementary
school. Adam Lanza was thought to have been living in the house, too.
Friends remembered Ms. Lanza as being very involved in her sons’
lives.
“Their mother was very protective, very hands-on,” said Gina McDade,
whose son was a playmate of Ryan Lanza’s and spent much time at his
home, which she described as a two-story Colonial with a pool.
“It was a beautiful home,” Ms. McDade said. “She was a good
housekeeper, better than me. You could tell her kids really came
first.”
Beth Israel, 43, said she and her family lived down the street from
the Lanzas, and her daughter went to school with Adam Lanza. She said
she had not spoken to any members of the family in three years.
“He was a socially awkward kid,” Ms. Israel said. “He always had
issues. He was kind of a loner. I don’t know who his friends were.”
She said she would speak with his mother on occasion, but said the
family was not social.
On Friday, police officers and agents from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation swarmed through the Lanzas’ neighborhood, blocking off
streets and asking residents to leave their homes.
Throughout the afternoon, Ms. Lanza’s surviving son, Ryan, was named
by some news outlets as the killer.
Ryan Lanza’s identification had been found on the body of his underage
brother, leading to the mistaken reports.
Brett Wilshe, a neighbor of Ryan Lanza’s in Hoboken, said he
communicated with him by instant message at 1:15 p.m.
“He said he thought his mom was dead, and he was heading back up to
Connecticut,” Mr. Wilshe said. “He said, ‘It was my brother.’ ”