Inside a Mass Murderer's Mind

(3 of 3)

As these factors accumulate, killers in the making remain surprisingly cool, all the while strolling toward the edge. That is what makes mass murder especially chilling. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned the Columbine assault for months, buying guns, practicing their aim, even designing their own shabby bombs that were intended to blow up the building. Cho bought the first of the two pistols he used in his killings on March 13, then bought the second just days before the murders — decorously observing the 30-day waiting period the state of Virginia requires between handgun purchases.

Throughout the slow, deliberate smolder that leads up to the shootings, all mass killers also tend to disengage from the people around them. More and more of their emotional energy becomes consumed with planning their assault and, tellingly, with what often appears to be a newfound fascination with firearms and other weapons. "The quiet is the problem," says Welner. "The anger and rage just get bigger and bigger and seep into a fantasy life, and the person becomes increasingly alienated and isolated and contemptuous."

The fully annealed killer who emerges from this process is a cold and deliberate thing. The time he's spent rehearsing his carnage is a big part of what causes the actual execution of it to appear so disciplined and free of emotion — or even pleasure. That, however, does not mean that mass murder is conducted entirely without feeling. For the killer, the powerlessness that came from a sense of victimization has been replaced by its perfect opposite — a heady experience that may produce an implacable serenity on the one hand, or the eerily jocular banter that surveillance tapes picked up between Harris and Klebold in Columbine on the other. Making the gunman calmer still is the fact that he has long since convinced himself that the world brought the carnage on itself. Because nobody is exempt from membership in that world, nobody's exempt from the line of fire either. "You forced me into a corner. The decision was yours," were among the most disturbing lines in the suicide videos that Cho left behind, but they may also have been the least original.

However long it takes the killing to play out, when the crime is finally over, the shooter almost never expects to survive. Indeed, he typically doesn't want to. Achieving the state of nihilistic certainty that's necessary to commit the killings is one thing; crossing back to the world of the living afterward may be well-nigh impossible. "They are both homicidal and suicidal," says Pollack. "After the attack they are simply waiting for the next step, which they assume is the police shooting them." Most killers don't wait even that long, taking their own lives before whatever killing room they have barricaded themselves inside can be stormed.

If there is a hopeful lesson to be drawn from this week's tragedy, it's that people planning mass murder sometimes seem to recognize the dark place they're headed toward and, even as they're cooking up their carnage, send out warning signals. The federal school study after Columbine found that in more than 75% of cases, at least one person had knowledge of the killer's plans. In 40% of cases, that knowledge actually included detailed descriptions of precisely where and when the attacks would happen. Klebold and Harris went so far as to post their lethal ruminations on the Web. The key, Pollack insists, is for friends and family members to be alert to these and other cues and to act on them — fast. "Connection, connection, connection," he says. "It's through these connections that people in authority, when they hear certain things, can provide the appropriate help."

The larger culture can help as well — particularly the media. It may be uncomfortable for any journalist to admit it, but the flood-the-zone coverage that usually follows mass murders simply confirms a potential killer's belief that what he sees as his small and inconsequential life can end on a large and monstrous chord, even if he won't be around to enjoy the transformation. "We glorify and revere these seemingly powerful people who take life," says Kaye. "Meanwhile, I bet you couldn't tell me the name of even one of Ted Bundy's victims."

Sadly, Kaye's indictment is well founded. But he's also right in his choice of words. People like Cho are indeed only seemingly powerful. In an open culture with cheap and plentiful guns, any fool can kill a lot of people. For all the loss and suffering such a shooting sparks, it is in fact a weak and furtive act, one that masquerades as a gesture of sublime power but is really an act of confusion and cowardice. The very purpose of the murders, Welner explains, is to give the shooter the last word. Unfortunately, what he says when he at last has that chance to be heard is: "I surrender."

With reporting by Barbara Kiviat, Alice Park and Carolyn Sayre/New York