Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Afterword

“Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”
Afterword
By: Nick Kollerstrom

“No-one has been able to get into the Sandy Hook elementary school to verify if there are any bullet-marks, bloodstains etc” pg. 209

No one! Well, except for the police, EMS personnel, and the parents of the victims. Surely Nick Kollerstrom isn’t seriously surprised that an elementary school where twenty-six people—including twenty children aged five and six—were brutally murdered wasn’t open for public tours… right?

That said, if he’s so eager to see bullet marks and bloodstains (and let’s be honest, he’s not, or he would have looked), he can flip through Detective Arthur Walkley’s crime scene photos. They’re all conveniently detailed in the report:

• Bullet marks/damage: Pages 54-61, 404-431, 448-454, 513, 622-624, 626-630
• Blood evidence: Pages 71, 73, 365, 386, 392, 393, 428, 457, 473, 475, 495, 622-624, 626, 627, 636, 643, 663, 665

Happy reading, Nick.

“Perhaps a shootout DID NOT ACTUALLY HAPPEN THERE, it was just an illusion. Kids heard bangs, that’s all we can say.” pg. 209

No, that’s absolutely not “all we can say” because we know that the children who escaped from classroom 10 not only heard “bangs,” but actually saw Adam Lanza (though many described him differently, as children often do) shoot and kill their teacher, Victoria Soto, as well as their classmates. Their interviews are included throughout Book 5 of the final report. Here’s an excerpt from one such interview (Source: Book 5, 00198959.pdf):

[Redacted] stated he is a [redacted] class, which according to [redacted] is just several doors down from the principal’s office. He said that had just finished writing class when he heard loud shooting coming from the hall. After a few moments, the classroom door opened and a “bad man” entered the room and started shooting everyone in class.

[Redacted] said the shooter was dressed in “army clothes” and was firing a “bazooka”. He thought the shooter had dark skin and a beard.

[Redacted] said he saw his teacher [redacted] get shot and said she was “dead”. He also said he saw at least two of his classmates get shot and referred to them as “dead” as well.

Natalie Hammond, who was shot in the hallway along with Dawn Hochsprung and Mary Sherlach, also came face-to-face with the shooter. Her multiple statements to police are also found in Book 5 of the final report.

Additionally, school secretary Nancy Cox saw the shooter through the office window that overlooked the lobby. Here’s an excerpt from her statement (Source: Book 5, 00007937.pdf):

Around 9:35 I heard a louse noise, which sounded like glass breaking. I thought one of the glass casings in the hallway had fallen over. I was going to call the school custodian, but then I heard it again and looked up. When I looked up from the desk through the office glass window that looks out to the lobby I saw a man standing in the lobby facing down the primary wing (hallway) to the 1st grade and 2nd grade classrooms. The man appeared white and was wearing a soft rim type hat, sunglasses (dark), and he was holding a rifle type gun with a long barrel.

And then there are the 911 recordings, where we can hear the gunshots ourselves. No need to rely solely on children hearing “bangs.”

Kollerstrom is correct about one thing, though: a “shootout” didn’t occur at Sandy Hook Elementary. But a shooting most certainly did, and the difference isn’t just semantic—it’s enormous.

“The Mail Online 6 January shows this image, subtitled: ‘Chaotic scenes at the school as police work to secure the area and bodies are carried out of the school.’ But look carefully, no bodies are here, only some duffle bags–and some are doubting whether this is the school car-park.” pg. 210

This is the image Kollerstrom is referring to:

The absence of bodies at this triage area has been addressed repeatedly, so let’s skip that and focus on the equally absurd claim that this isn’t Sandy Hook Elementary School.

First, logically (there’s that word again), what possible benefit would there be in staging this photo anywhere other than the school itself—especially if, as Fetzer claims, the school had been available for four years? Staging it elsewhere would only create unnecessary complications. Like much of this book, the claim doesn’t make a shred of sense.

Second, anyone who truly doubts that this photo was taken in the parking lot of Sandy Hook Elementary is just being willfully ignorant. Using helicopter footage from Channel 12 taken that day, it’s painfully obvious that the image shows the same location:

“The Sandy Hook Elementary School was in an up-market area of Connecticut, shown by the large majority of its children being from Jewish families. It would have had high-security equipment including CCTV cameras. We have as yet not been shown images from the time of the crime (curiously vague, but said to have been three minutes around 9:45 on 14 December).” pg. 210

It’s pretty bizarre to claim that the majority of children in Newtown are from Jewish families, especially when sources like Sterling’s Best Places say otherwise—but okay, sure… let’s roll with that for a moment.

As for the security system, this claim is ancient history, addressed way back in Chapter Five. The reality (still) is that the system installed at Sandy Hook in 2006 did not have recording capabilities. So, any rumored footage allegedly showing the events at the school simply doesn’t exist—and never could have.

“There are no images of a ‘crime scene’ with bullet-marks in walls or through windows.” pg. 210

There are at least fifty such images. Scroll up.

“There is no reason to suppose that the 20-year old autistic Adam Lanza had any expertise or practice in using guns” pg. 210

There’s no need to “suppose” anything when we have:

• Numerous photographs of firearms, firearm literature, and ammunition from inside the Lanza household (see: Sec_4_Primary_Scene.pdf, available as part of the final report).
• Sign-in sheets from shooting ranges showing the signatures of Nancy and Adam Lanza:

• Eyewitness statements (including from an NRA instructor and retired law enforcement) placing Adam and his mother at shooting ranges:

• Online postings from Adam, detailing his extensive knowledge of firearms.
• A statement from family friend Marvin Lafontaine, who recalls Nancy Lanza bringing five-year-old Adam to his house to shoot high-powered air rifles (Source: Book 7, 00196017.pdf).
• A lengthy statement from Adam’s father, Peter Lanza, detailing the family’s history with firearms. (For anyone interested, it’s document 00006579.pdf in Book 7 of the final report). Anyone who (mistakenly) doubts that Adam was familiar with firearms should start here.

“The car allegedly driven by him to the school turned out to belong to a shady felon, with FBI ties.” pg. 210

Nope! Here’s the TL;DR version:

The two communications in bold above are what have caused the erstwhile conspiracy theorists to get their knickers in a twist. They claim that, together, the comments constitute ‘clear evidence’ that Christopher Rodia owned Nancy Lanza’s car. But, taken in context, i.e. that both communications are part of a continuum of Connecticut State police communications on the morning of the SH shooting that include State Police responses to the shooting AND things like traffic stops by police who are NOT involved with the response to the SH shooting, and that both types of communications are naturally interspersed…well the rational conclusion then is that Rodia was just one of several people who were stopped in their cars by a CT. State police officer somewhere nowhere near Sandy Hook school.

The fact that Adam’s Honda Civic was purchased for him by his mother and remained registered under her name is mentioned repeatedly in the final report, including in the search and seizure warrant found in Book One, 0026454.pdf:

Additionally, photos of the car parked in the Lanza driveway, taken in August 2010, were recovered from one of Adam’s hard drives:

Since the car is a 2010 model and these photos confirm it was already in the Lanzas’ possession by August of that year (notably without plates), it’s reasonable to conclude that Nancy Lanza purchased the car new for her son. The Tarrytown Honda badge seen on the car in the driveway matches the one visible in the crime scene photos, confirming that this is the same black 2010 Honda Civic found at the school:

So, no, the car wasn’t owned by a “shady felon with FBI ties.” It was owned by Nancy Lanza and used by Adam. Simple as that.

“The story of the rifle used–the Coroner averred that all injuries had been made with the rifle, then it was found to have been placed in the back of a car outside the school–can never make any sense.” pg. 211

It doesn’t make any sense because it’s not true. The only weapon found in the Civic was a shotgun, which was moved to the trunk after it was initially discovered in the car’s back seat:

The rifle stayed with Adam.

“On the day of the event, starting at 9.00 am, a FEMA exercise ‘Planning for the Needs of Children in Disasters’ took place in Connecticut not far from Sandy Hook. “ pgs. 211-212

As already covered in Chapter Five, Planning for the Needs of Children in Disasters—which took place about 30 minutes outside of Newtown—is a classroom course (not a “drill” or an “exercise”) focusing on assisting children during natural disasters. It has absolutely nothing to do with school shootings or anything remotely similar.

“7. Film pre-announcement of the event…  The 2000 film ‘The Sandy Hook Lingerie Party Massacre’ has the killer strike in the aftermath of a hurricane.” pg. 213

I don’t have much to say about this one, but I wanted to include it because it’s just so stupid. For the record, there’s also a Sandy Hook in New Jersey—which is, unsurprisingly, where this ridiculous movie takes place.

“On December 19 the Connecticut State Police assigned individual personnel to each of the 26 families who lost a loved one at Sandy Hook Elementary. ‘The families have requested no press interviews,’ State Police assert on their behalf” pg. 214

As documented in Chapter One, numerous families spoke to the press. This is a strange claim to make, considering how much mileage this book has squeezed out of Robbie Parker’s December 15th press conference alone.

“The Mother has been hyped as an Apocalypse-expecting gun-toting food-storing freak (as a prelude to demonising gun-owners in America, the whole point of this exercise).” pg. 214

By who, exactly? Unsurprisingly, there’s absolutely no source for these claims. If Nancy Lanza was a prepper, she was a particularly lousy one, as the crime scene photos from the Lanza household offer zero evidence of any doomsday stockpiling.

“The security forces averred that they had removed the bodies from the school in the middle of the night: had they?” pg. 216

Who exactly are “the security forces”? Because this isn’t true. Photos clearly show a truck from the medical examiner’s office pulling a large refrigerated trailer as it left Sandy Hook in broad daylight on December 15th:

It’s obvious the photo was taken early on the 15th, as the “Everyone Must Check In” sign had not yet been placed at the firehouse, the makeshift memorial had just started to take shape, and frost was still visible on the ground.

Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Wayne Carver confirmed that the last of the bodies were removed from the school by 10:30 PM on the 14th—hardly “the middle of the night.”

Next: Appendix A: “The FEMA Manual For The Sandy Hook Drill”