Amid the ammunition and gun manuals investigators found in Newtown shooter Adam Lanza’s home were journals and drawings experts say could provide the most useful clues to why he killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, says the Hartford Courant. “The journals may explain a lot about Adam Lanza, such as what made him mad or what made him happy, and when things didn’t go his way in school or at home, how did he deal with that?” said forensic psychologist Stanton Samenow, author of “Inside the Criminal Mind.” “Even if the journals don’t have any details about how he planned this massacre, they can explain a lot about how he saw himself and, just as importantly, how he saw others.”
Four boxes of Lanza’s writings, drawings, personal memorabilia, books, family photos, school papers, and a military-style uniform were shipped to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. “He just didn’t decide a day before to do this,” said a former FBI profiler, Mary Ellen O’Toole. “There had to be anger and hatred building for awhile. He exhibited an amazing amount of callousness, firing away while children were screaming. You don’t get that overnight.” O’Toole spent years analyzing school shooters. She said Lanza and the others share many of the same traits — they were loners who had trouble in school; they rarely had criminal records but often had family issues.