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Diary Shows Colorado Rampage Well Planned- Police
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By Michael Ellis
LITTLETON, Colo. (Reuters) - A diary recovered from the home of one of two teens responsible for the Columbine High School massacre showed they planned the bloody rampage for a year and that the attack was timed to coincide with Adolf Hitler's birthday.
``They were going for a big kill ... They also talked about how they wanted to burn the school down,'' Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone told reporters.
He said the diary contained detailed plans. It also showed that they had been stockpiling bombs for a considerable period of time.
``The diary goes back one year. The timeline stretches to the day this all happened,'' Stone said. He said the handwritten diary contained detailed notes and plans, and described the intent to carry out the deadly attack on April 20, the 110th anniversary of Hitler's birth.
``It was very intentional, the timing of this thing. They've been building bombs for a considerable period of time,'' Stone said.
He declined to say whether the diary came from the home of Eric Harris, 18, or Dylan Klebold, 17, the two seniors who shot and killed 12 fellow students and a popular teacher Tuesday before taking their own lives.
Stone described that weapon parts, and other materials were clearly visible in one of the suspect's bedrooms. He did not say which suspect he was referring to.
Police were also investigating a note reported Saturday in a copyright story in the Denver Rocky Mountain News purportedly written by Harris that blamed the attack on parents, teachers, and ``your children who have ridiculed me'' and threatened ''more extensive death to come'' giving on April 26 -- Monday -- as the date.
A police spokesman, however, said the note was likely a hoax.
Meanwhile 150 investigators were examining about 2,000 pieces of evidence pointing to wider involvement in the attack at Columbine High School, the site of the worst school shooting in U.S. history.
As police continued their probe into the shooting a burial service was held for Rachel Scott, a popular 17-year-old who wanted to be an actress.
Students at Columbine High School have said Harris and Klebold belonged to an outcast clique called the ``Trench Coat Mafia'' that was mocked, especially by athletes.
Investigators earlier this week confiscated journals and computer equipment from the homes of the gunmen.
Police Thursday found another bomb in the school kitchen area and other pipe bombs found earlier had been rigged with timing devices, prompting speculation that another such device could be set for Monday.
Police were pressing on with their questioning, said Davis, who added that the parents of the suspects had hired lawyers.
Sheriff John Stone said he firmly believed ``there are other people involved in this.''
``I have been concerned all along there was too much weaponry, too many bombs, placed in there for it being physically possible for two people to carry in that morning,'' he said.
``And the fact that they came out with guns blazing. You can't come out with guns blazing when you've got more guns than you can carry,'' he said.
Police were reluctant to discuss potential suspects for fear that they would flee. ``We have to be extremely careful with the information that we release. We don't want to tip our hand to any potential suspect or suspects,'' Sheriff's spokesman Steve Davis said.
Initially, suspicion about a third participant in the shooting came up because witnesses talked about two men in trench coats and a third in a white shirt.
Davis said one of the suspects may have taken his black coat off because his body was found clad in a white T-shirt. ''Maybe the trench coat was shed at some point early on,'' he said.
Davis also denied reports that keys to the school were found on the bodies of the gunmen.
President Clinton Saturday urged Americans to end the ''culture of violence'' that spawned the massacre and called on Congress to tighten the nation's gun laws.
In his weekly radio address to the nation, Clinton said it was ``time for all Americans to ask what we can do -- as individuals and as a nation -- to turn more young people from the path of violence.''
His concerns were echoed in the Republican response, delivered by Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, who warned that the deadly assault that claimed 15 lives was a warning that America's youth was being poisoned by ``a virus loose within our culture.''