Speaking publicly for the first time, the father of the Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman said he’s sure his son would have killed him too.
“With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat, if he’d had the chance. I don’t question that for a minute,” Peter Lanza told the New Yorker in a profile published Sunday.
“The reason he shot Nancy four times was one for each of us: one for Nancy; one for him; one for Ryan; one for me,” he added, referring to the boy’s mother and brother.
Adam Lanza killed his mother on Dec. 14, 2012 at their home before moving on to the Newtown, Conn. elementary school, where he fatally shot 26 students and staff before killing himself.
Peter Lanza told the magazine that even though he doesn’t think the mass shooting could have been predicted, he remains haunted by thoughts of what he could have done differently as a father. At the time of the shooting, Lanza hadn’t seen his son in two years.
“Any variation on what I did and how my relationship was had to be good, because no outcome could be worse,” he said.
“You can’t get any more evil,” he said of Adam, adding “How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he’s my son? A lot.”
Read the full profile here.
