Bernall family's book chronicles years before her death at Columbine

By Charlie Brennan
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

LITTLETON -- Cassie Bernall talked with a friend about killing her mother, father and a teacher -- just two years before she was shot to death in the Columbine High School rampage.

That is among the revelations contained in the slim but compelling She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall, published today by Plough Publishing House and written by Cassie's mother, Misty Bernall, with help from her husband, Brad.

The title refers to 17-year-old Cassie's final moments before dying by gunfire in the Columbine library April 20. Equally engrossing, however, is the book's candid discussion of the Bernall family's trials beginning Dec. 20, 1996.

That's the day Misty Bernall stumbled upon a cache of letters in Cassie's bedroom which revealed her child was following a girlfriend -- identified in the book only as "Mona" -- in a downward emotional spiral into violent fantasy and frank discussions of murder and self-loathing.

Cassie's friend's letters carried depictions of headstones for "Ma and Pa Bernall," advice such as "we need to murder your parents ... kill me with your parents, then kill yourself ... "

Those violent rants were directed to Cassie, from "Mona." After Cassie was confronted by her parents about Mona's letters, Misty Bernall writes, "we later found out -- both through the girl's mother and by Cassie's own admission -- she too had written similar ones."

The book also reports that another friend of Cassie told Misty Bernall that during that same period late in 1996, Cassie and Mona "were actually planning the death of one of their teachers."

"The easy road would have been to ignore it," Misty Bernall said.

Instead, the Bernalls took several swift, decisive steps.

They pulled Cassie from the public school she was attending -- not Columbine. They alerted Mona's parents, reported the content of the letters to the Jefferson County Sheriff's department and enrolled Cassie in a private Christian school.

"I did not feel safe," Misty Bernall said Thursday, while discussing She Said Yes with Brad Bernall at her side.

"Cassie used to say, 'But Mom, we didn't mean it.' Well, I told her, 'You might not have meant it, but that person who you told could have thought you meant it, and followed through on it.'

Relatively few of the 140 pages in She Said Yes discuss the Columbine tragedy; much of it is devoted to the slow and often difficult transformation Cassie embarked on, from deeply troubled teen-ager to earnest young Christian.

According to some fellow students who survived the carnage in the Columbine library, one of the two gunmen asked Cassie if she believed in God. "Yes," she answered. The gunman asked, "Why?" -- then pulled the trigger.

"We know that Cassie said 'Yes' to God every day of her life -- and sometimes it wasn't that easy," Misty Bernall said.

Readers are offered a window into the teen-ager's heart and mind through numerous writings discovered by her parents among Cassie's belongings after her death. Not all are uplifting.

In an undated letter to a good friend, long after her spiritual awakening, Cassie wrote: "Family life sucks, to say the least."

But also found in Cassie's room after Columbine, on a bright pink slip of paper in Cassie's writing: "I will die for my God."

Cassie's parents see a moral in her life: "We would hope that people will see that no matter how dark things were, how helpless or hopeless we were, we were able to pull Cassie out of trouble.

"And they can, too. It's a book of encouragement."

To reach Plough Publishing, call 1-800-521-8011.