Harris, Klebold apologize, brag in videos made days, minutes before attack on Columbine

By Dan Luzadder,
Kevin Vaughan and Karen Abbott
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writers

A half-hour before they launched the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold took a couple of minutes to say goodbye.

It was just before 11 a.m. on April 20. They clicked on the video camera one last time in Harris' suburban home.

"I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any crap," the 18-year-old Harris says. "To everyone I love, I'm really sorry about all this.

"I know my mom and dad will be just f------ shocked beyond belief."

Klebold, 17, takes a moment to record a message to his mom and dad.

"Just know I'm going to a better place," he says. "I didn't like life too much, and I know I'll be happy wherever the f--- I go."

While the teen-agers express remorse in some tapes, they spew plans for mass murder in others.

"The most deaths in U.S. history," Klebold says.

Harris, Klebold videos shock investigators But tapes by gunmen don't explain motives By Dan Luzadder Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer The rambling home videos made by Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shocked investigators but did little to explain the pair's motives. "This doesn't solve anything for us," said Jefferson County sheriff's Sgt. Randy West, second in command of the Columbine investigation. "It just hurts some people who were probably not aware of some of these things." Detectives in the biggest criminal case in Colorado history said Sunday they found the tapes disturbing. They have viewed them more than a dozen times, looking for insights into the attack. John Kiekbusch, head of the Columbine investigation, said Sunday he had never seen anything like the tapes -- made before a crime was committed. "It's a fairly unique thing," he said. "They way the two of them interact is discomforting to watch." He said investigators are disappointed that the contents of the videos became public Sunday because the details help the two killers fulfill their ultimate goal: notoriety. "This was their legacy," said Kiekbusch, law enforcement chief for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. "This is exactly what they wanted." He said he fears the details will hurt a community already battered by the Columbine tragedy. But he said once Time magazine revealed details of the tapes Sunday, officials could not legally deny access to other media. Kiekbusch said the tapes made it "abundantly clear that no one else was involved in the attack on Columbine." "The pride they took in being able to conceal what they were doing is obvious," Kiekbusch said of Harris and Klebold. West said some of the tapes, viewed by detectives after the killings, left some investigators in tears.

As Klebold says this, Harris kisses the gun he's cradling in his arms. He has nicknamed it "Arlene" after a character in the Doom video game.

"Hopefully," Harris adds.

"We're hoping," Klebold says. "We're hoping.

"I hope we kill 250 of you."

The chilling messages were in a series of videotapes that Jefferson County sheriff's investigators found in Harris' home the day of the shootings at Columbine High School that killed 12 students and one teacher. Harris and Klebold then took their own lives.

The tapes, made in Harris' home in the weeks before the attack on the school, were reviewed Sunday by the Denver Rocky Mountain News.

Undersheriff John Dunaway allowed the News to watch the tapes after Time magazine released a story Sunday containing excerpts from the films.

The existence of the tapes had come to light Nov. 12, when sheriff's Detective Kate Battan, the lead investigator, read excerpts during the sentencing of Mark Manes, 22, who sold the killers one of their guns.

Harris and Klebold made the home videos on several occasions -- the first slightly more than a month before they carried out their attack.

The tapes contain profane language and racial slurs.

In one segment, Harris and Klebold spend more than an hour discussing their hatred for humanity and their fellow students, whom they vowed to kill. They name some of the classmates they hope to murder, although it isn't clear whether any of those students were killed or wounded.

The March 15 tape, filmed in the basement of Harris' home using a stationary camera, captures images of the two boys lounging in recliners.

It was after 1 a.m. They sip Jack Daniel's from a quart bottle as they talk.

"I'm going to kill you all," Klebold says.

A moment later, Harris raises his sawed-off pump shotgun and points it at the camera.

As the tape rolls, Harris' parents, Wayne and Kathy Harris, sleep upstairs.

A couple times, Klebold warns his friend to talk more softly.

"You guys will all die, and it will be f------ soon," Harris says. "I hope you get an idea of what we're implying here. You all need to die. We need to die, too.

"We need to f------ kick-start the revolution here."

The disturbing images shocked investigators.

"You look at it, and it's like little kids playing army," said sheriff's Division Chief John Kiekbusch, who headed the investigation. "But then you think of the terror that went with it, and it's sickening."

At one point in their March 15 tape, the teen-age killers end their conversation to take a video tour of Harris' room, where their arsenal was stored.

Klebold carries the camera as Harris shows off pipe bombs, guns and ammunition.

Sitting on the floor beneath some magazines is a white plastic box filled with pipe bombs and ammunition -- shotgun shells and two boxes of 9 mm bullets. The boys talk about a coffee can full of gunpowder.

Harris opens a drawer on his desk and pulls out a black, two-bell alarm clock and talks about using it to construct a bomb. He opens a black plastic box full of carbon-dioxide cartridges wrapped with duct tape, fuses protruding from the end of each.

The tape held buckshot against the homemade grenades.

Harris opens another desk drawer, revealing a piece of the handle of one of their sawed-off shotguns.

Then he pulls out a black-handled combat knife in a sheath, a swastika scratched into the surface. Hanging on a wall is a 50-foot coil of green fuse.

Harris opens a CD box, showing off a receipt from Green Mountain Guns for 13 10-round clips for a 9 mm carbine rifle the two later carried into Columbine.

Then he pulls a CD case from a bookshelf. Behind it is hidden several large pipe bombs.

The two brag about hiding their tools of death -- and about the close calls along the way.

Harris shows off a black tackle box with his bomb-making equipment inside.

The boys talk openly about concocting their plan under the noses of unsuspecting parents and friends. They talk about the day Harris' parents found the tackle box -- and took only the pipe bombs out of it.

They mention the time a clerk from Green Mountain Guns called his home. Wayne Harris answered the phone.

The clips are in, the clerk said.

Wayne Harris told the clerk he hadn't ordered any clips for a gun. But Harris said his father never asked whether the caller had the right phone number.

Had someone asked questions, April 20 might have been just another day, the boys say.

"We wouldn't be able to do what we're going to do," Klebold says.

Klebold recalls the time his parents walked into his bedroom while he was trying on his trench coat to see if it would conceal the shotgun underneath it.

"They didn't even know it was there," Klebold says.

Harris recounts the day he was carrying a gym bag he called his "terrorist bag" through his house. His mother saw the butt of a gun sticking out of the zipper, but she assumed it was nothing more sinister than his BB gun.

At one point, Klebold backs out of the room and pretends to be Harris' mother.

Harris waves at the camera.

"Hi, mom," he says.

The killers' parents were frequent topics of some sections of the tapes.

"My parents are the best f------ parents I have ever known," Harris says. "My dad is great. I wish I was a f------ sociopath so I didn't have any remorse, but I do.

"This is going to tear them apart," he says. "They will never forget it."

Then, addressing his parents directly, Harris adds:

"There is nothing you guys could have done to prevent any of this."

Klebold says he could imagine his parents' guilt: "If only we could have reached them sooner, or found this tape."

Harris adds: "If only we would have searched their room. If only we would have asked the right questions."

Harris talks about his mother being thoughtful, bringing him candy and Slim Jims.

"I really am sorry about all this," he says.

Then Klebold speaks.

"They gave me my f------ life," Klebold says of his parents. "It's up to me what I do with it."

Harris shrugs.

"My parents might have made some mistakes that they weren't really aware of."

Klebold talks about his parents and how they tought him self-reliance.

"I appreciate that," he says.

But just as they worry about the toll their rampage will take on their parents, they say they hope any survivors will go insane.

"I hope people have flashbacks," Harris says.

They speak at length about all the people who had wronged them.

"You've given us s--- for years," Klebold says. "You're f------ going to pay for all the s---.

"We don't give a s--- because we're going to die doing it."

They dream of the large bombs that they plan to detonate against unsuspecting students in the school cafeteria.

And they hoped that one day Hollywood directors would fight for the right to tell their story.

But they say they can't decide whether Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino should direct the film, according to an excerpt cited by Time.

The tapes previously had been a closely held secret part of the sheriff's investigation.

The final report of the eight-month probe is expected to be released next month.

But even then, sheriff's officials have said they expected to withhold the tapes and other key evidence from public view, citing the ongoing investigation and fears that they would hurt the families of those killed and wounded at Columbine.

The last tape, made a short time before Harris and Klebold headed to Columbine, begins with Harris speaking, saying goodbye to his parents.

"It's what we had to do," Klebold cuts in.

The killers then offer the contents of their rooms to two of their friends.

"That's it," Harris finally says. "Sorry. Goodbye."

Then Klebold sticks his face into the frame.

"Goodbye."

Additional reporting by staff writer Lynn Bartels.