Suspects' neighbors stunned by shootings

Tuesday's brutal high school slayings come as a shock to many

By Sandra Fish
Camera Staff Writer

DENVER — Racist outcasts or the boys next door?

Both stereotypes were used to portray Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold Wednesday.

The truth about the two 17-year-olds who massacred their fellow students at Columbine High School probably lies somewhere in between.

It died when they turned their weapons on themselves to end Tuesday's slaughter.

Police offered the basics:

Eric David Harris, born April 4, 1981, 5 foot 9 inches, 140 pounds.

Dylan Bennett Klebold, born Sept. 11, 1981, 6 foot 3 inches, 180 pounds.

In January 1998, the two were arrested together for first-degree criminal trespass after breaking into a car. They entered a plea bargain and finished a juvenile diversion program — essentially probation — in February, Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas said.

Klebold's father contacted the district attorney's office through an intermediary Tuesday asking if it would help for him to come to Columbine during the standoff. Thomas said he sent a message back that since they had no contact with the young men, the father's assistance wasn't needed. Thomas said he had no idea how Klebold knew to call about the incident.

Beyond that, the picture painted by fellow students, neighbors and law enforcement is blurry.

In last year's Columbine yearbook, they posed as members of the "Trench Coat Mafia."

"He was always wearing that black coat and he had a chain wallet, a chain hanging down to his knees," said Sean Kennedy, 12, who sometimes played roller hockey with Harris. "We knew him just as a hockey player. He's been really nice to us."

Despite the dark clothes, Sean said Harris wasn't all that unusual looking — no dyed hair or makeup common among many teens these days.

"They didn't look like other people," one Columbine student said. "They didn't dress or act like other people."

Not everyone agreed that the rest of the school ostracized members of the so-called Trench Coat Mafia. "It's really not a gang," said senior Nick Baumgart, 17.

"It's kind of been blown up by the media. They were just a loose group of kids who felt they were outsiders."

The district attorney offered a similar caution, saying, "A lot of kids wear black clothes and Doc Martens so I don't want to make more of that than there is."

Tuesday, Harris, Klebold and another friend missed their 6:30 a.m. bowling class at Englewood's AMF Belleview Lanes.

"You always kind of noticed them," said 17-year-old John Hause, demonstrating the Nazi stiff-armed salute the two shooting suspects would give after a particularly good roll.

A look at their neighborhoods revealed what should have been the boys next door — if you lived in an upper-middle class neighborhood.

Wednesday, the shutters and curtains were closed on the slate-blue and tan brick, two-story home at the end of a cul de sac in southern Littleton. Two empty garbage cans sat near a Toyota four-wheel drive pickup in the driveway. Two women dressed in black emerged from the house and drove away in a Nissan Pathfinder shortly after noon.

Eric Harris lived there with his parents, Wayne and Katherine Harris, and an older brother, Kevin, 21.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican reports that Eric Harris lived on the U.S. Air Force base in Plattsburgh for most of 1993 to 1996. There he played Little League baseball, went to birthday parties, fit in well at Stafford Middle School and was part of the school crowd.

Kyle Ross, a Plattsburgh High School senior, first saw his former friend's picture on the television news Wednesday morning.

"My mouth just dropped," Ross said of his former social studies classmate. "He was a typical kid. He didn't seem anything like what is portrayed (about him) on TV," Ross told the newspaper.

Harris' father, Major Wayne Harris, was a pilot at the Air Force base in northeastern New York near the Canadian border.

"I don't really know them at all," said Debbie Wilde, who lives two doors away. "They're not real sociable. We don't see them outside a lot. Eric, I wouldn't know him. I couldn't even have told you what he looked like until yesterday.

"He never caused any problems with anyone here."

But Sean said his neighbor changed recently.

"Two or three months ago he just became a bat," Sean said. "He stayed inside his garage all the time."

Wilde's husband had noticed the black BMW driven by Klebold in the Harris drive. The BMW was there Saturday, she said, when neighborhood kids said they heard glass breaking and power saws from the garage.

West of Harris' house in the foothills, the Klebold home and a guest house are nestled among the red rock outcropping of the Deer Creek Mesa neighborhood near Ken Caryl Ranch Open Space. A locked, coded gate bars entry to the drive.

A sign on the fence outside the house was addressed to Klebold's parents, Susan and Thomas Klebold. Susan Klebold is assistant director to an employment project for the Colorado Community College Occupation Educational System, which oversees the state's community colleges.

The sign read, "Sue and Tom, We (heart) you. We're here for you. CALL US." Nineteen people had signed their first names.

Deer Creek neighbors didn't want to discuss the Klebolds.

"We know them and we're pretty upset," said one woman as three teenage girls played on a trampoline sunk into the yard. "We have teenage girls. They're upset."

Said another neighbor: "We know them well. It's a tragedy. They're good people."

Columbine student Chris Logan, 18, said he was friends with Klebold until their sophomore year, when the shooting suspect "kind of went his own way."

"But I didn't think he had something up his sleeve," Logan said.

An Arapahoe Sheriff Bomb Squad truck left the Klebold residence around 1 p.m. Wednesday, although law enforcement officials remained at the house.

Wilde said police arrived at the Harris home early Tuesday afternoon, breaking into the house. They later returned and evacuated the neighborhood for about an hour as they searched for bombs. Police remained at the home late into the night, she said.

"He was just fine. I don't know what happened," Sean Kennedy said. "It's just freaky to me, this guy living right here."

Camera Staff Writers Heather Morgan, Matt Sebastian, Pam Regensberg, Jason Gewirtz and Camera wire services contributed to this report.