'It's a terrible place,' governor says after seeing bloodied school

By Dan Luzadder, John Sanko and Karen Abbott
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers

Time stood still in the Columbine High School library, where most of the deaths occurred in Tuesday's rampage.

"It's a terrible place," said a shaken Gov. Bill Owens on Friday. He toured the bloodied, battered school Thursday.

"It was really eerie," Owens said. "Computer screens were still on. TVs were on. Everything was just like they left it.

One girl's half-finished application to the University of Colorado was on a table in the library. Nearby was her "to do" list, including a Tuesday class assignment to write "my life story." Owens said he did not know the girl's condition Friday, and he didn't name her.

In a corner, "one small boy had huddled into a fetal position, and was shot this way," he said, pointing, "through the neck."

Another boy, John Tomlin, was working on his math over the lunch hour when he died. Owens shook his head.

"Do you remember ever taking your lunch hour to do your math in the library?" he said. "I don't think I ever did. But that was what he was doing."

Blood marked the place in the hallway where teacher Dave Sanders fell, fatally wounded, as he tried to save students from the gunmen. "There was a bloody palm print on the floor, and next to it the print of his knuckles as he went down," Owens said. "Then there was a trail of blood 200 feet down the hallway to the classroom where the kids took him in."

The aftermath in the cafeteria made Sanders' heroism more evident than ever. The teacher alerted hundreds of students to the gunmen before he was shot trying to warn still more.

Owens said the tremendous heat from a bomb melted the ceiling tiles.

"Of all that happened in the cafeteria, and no one was killed, it's just incredible," Owens said. "I think the reason is because of what the teacher had done."

In a science classroom, the governor was struck by how defenseless the students were.

"In that room the students had turned desks on their sides to hide behind," he said. "Of course, they had nothing to fight back with."

Owens said he understands why the investigation has been time-consuming.

"The cafeteria is nothing but knapsacks," he said. "They're on the floor, they're on the tables, they're where the kids left them when they fled. There's milk and food on the tables."