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Mass Murders Captivated Online User Believed To Be Adam Lanza

In posts on gun message boards and gaming chat rooms, a user who authorities believe was Newtown gunman Adam Lanza showed a technical prowess about weapons and ...

In posts on gun message boards and gaming chat rooms, a user who authorities believe was Newtown gunman Adam Lanza showed a technical prowess about weapons and computers, a “fetish” for a certain bullet and a near-fixation with correcting Wikipedia articles about mass killers.

He would have been 17 years old at the time of the posts, which are being examined by investigative agencies. The posts linked to Lanza reflect his interests and thoughts, publicly revealed for the first time in the killer’s own words.

Although Lanza did not use his name, investigators linked the poster’s user name to Lanza, according to sources familiar with the probe of the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The same user name appears in the Wikipedia edits, discovered by The Courant. A Wikipedia spokesman said the website could not identify the poster, citing privacy policies. Investigators are now looking into whether the same person did the Wikipedia editing.

The Courant, which is not revealing the user name, reviewed several dozen posts written from April 2009 to February 2010.

The poster who authorities suspect is Lanza questions Connecticut’s assault-gun ban, offers a blueprint for his laptop computer and provides YouTube links to a commercial for a laughing doll from the 1970s and for The Rock-afire Explosion, an animatronics band that played in ShowBiz Pizza locations in the 1980s.

In one thread on the website thehighroad.org in October 2009 at 1 a.m., the poster believed to be Lanza asks whether a ban on a certain semiautomatic pistol might extend to other weapons.

Another poster suggests that he ask the Connecticut State Police.

“I always prefer asking through proxy when I can avoid speaking to someone directly. I was just wondering if anyone knew because I have a fetish for .32 ACP,” the poster suspected to be Lanza responds, referring to ammunition.

The posts reveal an intense and well-developed interest in high-capacity weaponry and an almost obsessive attention to details both in the user’s own writing and his editing of articles about mass murder.

To read the full story by Alaine Griffin, click here to go to courant.com.

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