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Harris, who with his friend Dylan Klebold gunned down a dozen fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves in an April 20 attack at their high school in Littleton, Colo., was a former middle school classmate of Abi Tenebaum and Jessica Sapel’s in Plattsburgh, N.Y. Although there have been reports that Harris and Klebold chose the date because it was Hitler's birthday and singled out a black student and athletes as victims for their savage attack, both teenagers said that when Harris lived in Plattsburgh, he never showed signs of any hatred toward those groups.

Harris was also an active athlete who played Little League in the town. Tenebaum said that Harris associated with "preps," but said he wasn’t "an annoying prick."

Sapel can’t imagine how this gentle middle schooler turned into a trench coat-toting criminal, but she thinks Harris began having problems after his family moved from New York to Colorado during their seventh-grade year. "It didn’t happen to him here (in Plattsburgh)," Sapel said. "None of us can imagine what happened."

Sarah Davis 🥛𝅗𝅥 ̥̥̥̟ 🥛🪡

Eric and I were in 6th grade when we first met, and I was so awkward then. And he was really quiet. We have an Air Force base in Plattsburgh, New York. So he was an Air Force base kid. I wouldn’t say we were close friends right away. But we became friends, and he was like a nice quiet kid. So he was one of my first boyfriends—well, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it was like a 6th grade boyfriend.

"He was a shy kid, but he was a good kid," she recalled. "I never knew him to do anything wrong when he was here. We were in the same group of kids, and we always hung out together, both inside and out of school."

"It’s kind of funny to think back about things we did together. Like we went to the Clinton County Fair with two other kids. I don’t like certain rides very much. They were all about to go on one, and he came running out so I didn’t have to be by myself. He was just a sweetheart. He was a nice kid. I mean, he had friends. It wasn’t like he was a loner then. Maybe he was out in Colorado—actually I guess he was, ‘cause they wrote and talked about that in the media. But when he was in Plattsburgh, he wasn’t like that.

When we first kept in touch, we wrote letters. I have some of them, and it’s funny to look back and read them, because some of them are really silly. He said things like, 'I don’t want to see other girls.' And we also talked on the phone. There was a time when we lost touch for a little bit, but not that long. Then we got into the Internet.

It was every couple of weeks we’d e-mail or talk, and it was always a good thing. I’m a very quiet and not a very emotional person and tend to listen. He tried to be open and get me to talk about things that were going on in my life. I really liked that about him. He was compassionate.

Sarah said she seldom saw the anger that was building up inside Harris, though he let her know that he wasn’t happy in Littleton. "When he first moved there, he didn’t like it at all," she said. "I don’t remember if it was because he didn’t have any friends or if he didn’t like the environment." The Eric Harris she knew did not like violence, Sarah said.

"Obviously, things changed," she said. "If he had stayed here, I don’t think this ever would have happened."

The day of the shooting, I was outside playing street hockey with my friends. I was 18 then. My mom came to the door and said, 'There was another school shooting.' And your heart kind of drops. I later came inside with my friends. We were watching TV, flipping through the channels, and saw the school shooting thing. On the bottom of the TV, it says where they are, Littleton, Colorado. I just sat there and couldn’t move at first. Then I got up and I went in my room. I shut the door and I started bawling. It was awful. And then my mom came down and asked, 'What’s wrong?' And I couldn’t even get the words out. I finally told her, 'Littleton. Eric lives in Littleton. That’s where the school shooting was, and I’m really worried about him.'

When her friends left, Sarah went online to see if Harris might be online as well. He was not. She tried calling his house several times, but there was no answer.

The next morning I went to my softball practice and I didn’t take my sunglasses off. My eyes were beet red from crying the whole night. When I got home, my dad came out and his eyes were all puffy. He said, 'I have bad news. Your friend Eric was one of the shooters.' I pretty much broke down there in the driveway.

The tape stops again, and when it starts, Eric Harris is alone in a moving car. The camera seems to be mounted on the car’s dashboard. It’s dark out, and there are raindrops on the window. At one point he passes a street sign that reads "Federal." There’s music playing loudly, making it hard at times to understand what Eric is saying. At one point he mentions "The Black Jack Crew," specifically mentioning "Jason" and "Chris."

Eric: "You guys are very cool. Sorry, dudes. I had to do what I had to do. Bob is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met in my life, except for being an alcoholic." Eric says he’s going to miss Bob. "It’s a weird feeling knowing you’re going to be dead in two and a half weeks."

Eric says he can’t decide if they should do it before or after prom. At the end of this section of the tape, Harris says he wishes he could have re-visited Michigan and "old friends." He falls silent then and appears to start crying, wiping a tear from the left side of his face. He shuts the camera off.

The stars finally aligned for a formal sit down with police on October 25, six months after Columbine. The Harrises, their attorneys, and a private investigator met with Kiekbusch, Sheriff John Stone, undersheriff John Dunaway, lead Columbine investigator Kate Battan, and District Attorney Dave Thomas. Thomas also recalls sheriffs Sgt. Randy West attending.

The Harrises gave a history of Eric's life up until Columbine, Dave Thomas says. His account begins to fill in some of the details the sheriff's office will not discuss.

The approximately two-hour meeting took place at the law offices of Harris attorneys Ben Colkitt and Abe Hutt; Thomas sat next to Wayne Harris at the conference table.

“ I could have asked questions, and I may have asked one or two, but by and large the questioning was done by the sheriff's department, and most of it with the Harrises wasn't question and answer anyway, ” Thomas says. “ they [ The Harrises ] basically narrated for a couple of hours. ”

Wayne and Katherine Harris (brother Kevin Harris was not there) came across as “ a pretty normal, suburban family who obviously cared about their son, cared about their family, thought they did things the right way, ” said Thomas.

He thought they were more cautious than the Klebolds. Wayne looked to be controlling his emotions, possibly owing to his military background. Nothing struck Thomas as inappropriate in the way the Harrises acted.

The Harris attorneys did not make any remarks. But Thomas looked to see if they coached, or impeded, their clients. He says they did not. “there was no humor” he says of the mood in the room. “There was no lightness at all. It was just a very somber occasion. We were introduced and basically the Harrises did virtually all of the talking.”

The Harrises, apparently, had thought through the presentation of Eric's life they would give, but it did not seem canned, according to Thomas. Katherine Harris talked more than her husband.

“ They had a lot of photos with them, ” Thomas said. “ They passed them around and let us look at them and I think at least the sense that I got is that they were very passionate about wanting us to understand that this was a young man not unlike most young men. That he wasn't some diabolical monster, or that he had been causing trouble throughout his life and was somehow, was a bad seed, so to speak. That's the impression I got. Lots of family photos, and birthday parties, and soccer pictures, and places they'd lived, photographs of places they'd lived. “

“ And I think we were; I think all of our position was we were very respectful of just wanting to listen and let them say whatever they wanted to say. I remember very few questions being asked. They just narrated mostly, cause I think all of us viewed it as a starting point. We were just getting started with what ultimately might be a series of interviews. It just hasn't happened that way, but nobody seemed to be in a big rush or in a big hurry: 'Well, let's get on to what happened when he got to high school, and what happened the weekend before [ Columbine ]. Nobody did that. Everybody was very patient. ”

But the story stopped at Columbine High. “ And I think primarily it stopped because we were getting into current events and they were... they and their lawyers were a little bit unsure of whether...how and whether they wanted to proceed so, plus we'd been going for a couple of hours, ” Thomas said.

“ It was, I think during parts of it, very emotional. I mean they were very distraught. I think both the Harrises expressed dismay at how this... how their son could have been involved in this. I would describe them as agonized. Physically, they appeared to really to be in agony over all this. ”

Wayne Harris groaned whenever events at Columbine were mentioned. “ It was just like complete disbelief, ” Thomas said.

Katherine Harris, Thomas believes, cried at one point. “ Obviously, in conflict about, I think, some mixed feelings, ” he said. “ I mean, she obviously loved her son a great deal but obviously was pretty much aware of what he'd done but very conflicted over, How could this be?' I mean, How could he have done these things? ”

— columbine: a true crime story by jeff kass     𓏼  𓈒۫   ♪