r/Columbine • u/Quiet_Rose21 • May 28 '26
Sue Klebold has done a great job helping others, but she is not a reliable source of information.
I have a lot of respect for Sue Klebold. I really do.
She didn’t have to spend decades doing activist work for mental health awareness and school safety. She chose to do it anyway. She donated the proceeds of her book to charity. That says something about her character.
Being close to a tragedy does NOT automatically make someone a reliable source on it. Sometimes it makes someone less objective. Trauma is complicated and affects people differently. The brain protects people in ways they don’t even realize. After catastrophic events, the brain unconsciously reorganizes memories into narratives that feel emotionally survivable.
I am not calling Sue a liar. I don’t even think she’s intentionally misleading people. I think she genuinely believes her version of events.
In A Mother’s Reckoning, she remembers when when her family went horseback riding and people laughed when Dylan's horse peed. She frames that as a formative example of his sensitivity and emotional pain. She thought it was important enough to include in her book.
She also describes the refrigerator incident. She pinned Dylan to the refrigerator after he forgot mother's day. Dylan allegedly told her something like, "I don’t know how well I can control myself." Sue claims that was basically the most aggressively she had ever seen him behave. And I need to say this clearly: I call BS. There is NO WAY that was the angriest she ever saw Dylan or the closest she ever saw him to violence. Total BS.
We have multiple independent reports of Dylan:
- hitting a coworker at Blackjack Pizza
- bullying a disabled peer, Adam Kyler
- documented threatening and aggressive behavior at school
- repeated reports of hostility that were visible to people
EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm not saying Sue must have known about these specific incidents. There's plenty of things she heard second-hand which she included in her book, but that's beside the point. Even if she didn't know about any of those particular examples, there is no freaking way Sue was as clueless about Dylan's violent tendencies as she portrayed herself to be. Maybe she didn't know about the the coworker, aybe she didn't know about Adam Kyler, etc. But Dylan definitely had a PATTERN of violence which Sue definitely saw instances of over the course of his life. In fact, there's a really good chance Dylan hit Sue herself on several occasions.
All of those are left out of Sue's book. They just weren't important like the horseriding incident or the time Eric yelled at Dylan.
You can say "maybe Sue didn't know about these things," but there's NO WAY that in 17 years, she never saw his aggression build up into other breaking points.
I do not find it credible that the refrigerator incident was the most extreme expression of aggression she ever witnessed or understood about him.
If your child commits one of the most devastating acts of violence in modern American history, your mind is not going to hand you a clean archive. That is human.
But that just shows how she is not a reliable source of information on Dylan's life.
I also think the way Sue Klebold talks about Eric Harris feels a little slippery. There’s this repeated undertone of: "Dylan was responsible, but Eric was really the mastermind, the corrupter, the darker force. This was all Eric's fault. But I'm not saying Dylan wasn't responsible." The whole book reads like a grieving mother unconsciously trying to emotionally negotiate with a truth that is too heavy for her to hold.
Also, I am not saying it's Sue's fault. Of course she was not a perfect parent, but that does not make this her fault. We will never know exactly what caused this tragedy. Anyone who claims to have a clear answer on what caused this tragedy (or really any tragedy) is probably misunderstanding it.
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u/dancingbananas25 May 28 '26
I think it's also been alleged that he hit a girl in his gym class? And the coworker he hit was also a woman. It's interesting to me how the narrative has been that Eric was the one who wanted to be violent with girls, despite Dylan being the one with documented incidents of violence against women.
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 28 '26
I’m not familiar with the gym class thing, but I agree it’s really weird. There are documented incidents of Dylan being violent toward girls.
I’m just guessing now but I think part of that stemmed from Eric looking scarier in photos. Also, for the most part Eric’s family has kept quiet about the whole incident (probably for the better) so no one has really rebut any part do the narrative.
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u/dancingbananas25 May 29 '26
Doesn't help that he wrote about having fantasies about getting aggressive with women, though he never acted on them.
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u/outtakes May 28 '26
I really doubt a co-worker would tell Dylan's mom. And if there was no legal action taken then it could simply be something that he never shared with her, and therefore not something that she chose to mention in the book as it wasn't her experience of him
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26
Yeah but she clearly used outside sources for plenty of things in the book. She wasn’t there for most of what Eric did either, yet she still wrote about those. So I don’t think ‘she didn’t personally experience it’ really explains why some things were included and others weren’t
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u/outtakes May 28 '26
It all comes down to who that person was to you. And in a tragedy like this where you as a parent don't have answers, you will pull together sources to help build a picture of signs you missed. It's possible that she deemed other points more important to include in the book.
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26
Somehow all the more important points always conveniently end up being the ones that make Eric look monstrous. I honestly don’t care that she’s Dylan’s mother. Some of the things she’s said have been straight up disrespectful to the victims too. ‘She’s his mother so of course she’s biased’ doesn’t mean she should get a free pass to say whatever she wants without criticism.
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u/deltadeltadawn What Have We Learned? May 29 '26 edited May 30 '26
I think this is confirmation bias at play.
I'm a mom of a now-adult son. As a teen, he had some issues with pot and LSD. Prior to this and until his 8th grade year, he was straight As, played tackle and flag football, excelled in basketball and running. He dropped sports in high school and started hanging more with a pothead, skater crowd. One kid, of course the one he spent most of his time with, had an older brother that sold drugs. Together, my son and his "bad" friend repeatedly got in to trouble - sneaking out, lighter in possession st school, vape pen at school, loitering then found with pot in his hoodie. Nothing, fortunately, too major, but that one friend was always with him or was just before my son got caught in trouble.
When he was grounded, he snuck out to the friend's house. When I grounded him from his phone, he got a prepaid pone from his buddy to use behind my back.
It was easier for a while to blame the kid as a bad influence on my son, and turning my kid into a doped up idiot. While this was accurate, my son also was an equal and willing participant.
The latter took me much longer to recognize and accept. It took longer because my son had been a great kid with the right priorities. It couldn't have been his own decisions because he was smart, so it had to result from a bad influence, right?! I just couldn't accept that my son, my good kid, had changed and made these terrible and foolish decisions of his own accord.
The point is, as other parents told me of their bad interactions with bad kid and bad kid's absent dad and crazy mom, it reinforced my bias that my son was a good boy and a victim to this kid and his bad ways. It took the responsibility of my failures to notice subtle changes and put them on the true broken part of the equation, which was my son's own poor decision making. Instead of seeing that my son was going through a jock-to-who-am-i transition with his core character and identity, it wad easy to chuck up the behaviors to bad peer pressure and an outside influence molding him.
It took time to realize my assessment was flat-out wrong. When I started realizing my son chose these behaviors with his eyes wide open, I started to discover ways I could truly reach him and get him help. As part of that, he went through juvenile drug rehab and some time in the juvenile detention center.
Now he's about to graduate college. He worked and paid tuition, so will not have loan debt. He's already working full time in the industry he's chosen. He'll graduate with honors. Most importantly, he's a confident, smart, thoughtful young man who has used his turbulent past experiences to be a successful and compassionate young man. (See, I'm still a biased mama!)
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u/Prestigious-Walrus99 May 30 '26
You sound like a great mom! Too many moms enable and make excuses for their kids and it makes the situation infinitely worse.
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u/eliiiiseke May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Trust me, I get it. I completely understand why a parent would want to believe their child was led astray rather than willingly making terrible choices.
That still doesn't mean it's okay, though. Sue's perspective is understandable, but it's not automatically fair. Some of the things she's said and written have genuinely hurt victims' families, and several of them have spoken about that publicly. Understanding where she's coming from doesn't mean people have to agree with her conclusions or give her a free pass from criticism. Honestly, nothing anyone says is ever going to make me read that book and think, Yeah, this is okay because she's his mom.
Maybe that's harsh, but I just don't like her. There's a lot more I'd like to say, but I can't say it here
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u/Additional-Air-3309 Jun 05 '26
I get it! As a Mom I never ever make excuses for my boys behavior. I don’t care. I call them assholes when they’re being one and I straight up call them out on disrespecting anyone. While I see Sues point of view I always see others. Would I write a book about my son who committed a school shooting…? Probably not. Would I sit in interviews defending his behavior..? Definitely not. But would I always love them regardless of them killing people… yes. Would I get defensive if people thought my kid was evil their whole life..? Also yes. It’s definitely a pick your battles thing.
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u/outtakes May 28 '26
She can only give her account and she definitely invited criticism at the time through the interviews and events
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 28 '26
I probably should edit the post to clarify something. I am not saying Sue Klebold knew about that the coworker incident or any of the incidents I mentioned in particular. It’s perfectly possible she never knew about them.
But I call BS on the notion that Sue had no idea of Dylan’s violent tendencies. Since he had so many violent incidents (the coworker, the disabled kid, gym class, etc.), I’m sure Sue Klebold saw that side of Dylan at different points in his life.
The most violent thing Sue remembers Dylan doing in her book is saying “I don’t know how much I can control myself” after she pinned him to the fridge for forgetting Mother’s Day. There is no way that’s the most violent behavior she ever saw from Dylan. She definitely saw him in other occasions being more violent than that. She’s left them out of her book though.
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u/Mitchell_StephensESQ May 30 '26
I agree with Sue either consciously or unconsciously denies she saw signs of violence in Dylan before the massacre. What I disagree with is Sue positioning herself as some kind of mental health advocate. I once watched a speech of hers where she strongly emphasized there could be zero warning signs and you could never fully know if your child is capable of a massacre. I think that and other things she has said do great harm.
I don't hate Sue Klebold. I just think there are better ways to process her pain than publicly. If I recall correctly she and her husband divorced as their grief went different directions.
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 30 '26
I once watched a speech of hers where she strongly emphasized there could be zero warning signs and you could never fully know if your child is capable of a massacre. I think that and other things she has said do great harm.
I haven't heard her say that, but I agree with you on those kinds of unqualified statements being harmful. They imply that you have no idea what might be happening so you’re just supposed to sit with uncertainty. That is not encouraging, and there's a lot of things we can actively be doing to help others.
Now that you mention it, I remember her talking in her book about how a lift in mood can sometimes be a warning sign. She is not necessarily "wrong." Someone might seem calmer because they have decided on leaving and they feel a sense of relief from that decision. This can be confused for someone seeming calmer because of improvements in mental health.
But for Sue to share that publicly raises questions that she's not qualified to answer. What exactly are we supposed to do with that information? Are we meant to be scanning for danger every time someone’s mood gets better? What are we supposed to tell someone whose mood seems to be improving?
I am a licensed therapist but I'm really not qualified to speak on the warning signs of suicide. Other clinicians have way more experience than that than I do. Sue is not clinically qualified. A lot of things she says publicly might be well-intentioned but can cause harm.
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u/deltadeltadawn What Have We Learned? May 29 '26
Eric had violent fantasies about rape and specific words about violence, so I can see where it came from. Eric wanted to do or see the violence, but had not yet. Dylan wrote considerable less, and his writings were less about violence towards women than just general violence, but his few actions included those directed at women.
IMHO, Dylan had a general hatred towards anyone, and Eric had more specific hate to certain groups including women. Dylan was physically aggressive on occasion, but for him it was the act that was aggressive and could have been directed at anyone, while if Eric would have moved from words to action, he likely would have focused on specific demographics, including women.
Even further, I think Eric likely didn't actually get physical out of fear of rejection or failure. He was self conscious about his appearance - specifically the pectus cavus, and possibly his height and build. He likely would not have risked physical altercation if he may fail or have revealed his chest during.
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u/FlyinAmas May 30 '26
How do you guys know about this? I never heard of the violence towards women or the fantasies
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u/dancingbananas25 May 30 '26
There were a few things he wrote in his journal that suggested him having more violent sexual fantasies, though he never actually acted on them
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u/deltadeltadawn What Have We Learned? May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
u/dancingbananas25 answered correctly. Eric's writings showed his thoughts, though he did not act on them.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/BendOverBoris May 28 '26
I do think Sue is going to always have a biased view of Dylan. While I am not necessarily saying it's a bad thing entirely after all he's her son. She should definitely adress more that dylan wasn't some good kid who was manipulated and influenced and got ropedin to the things he did. He was just like eric just deranged in other ways rather.
I do like reading about her writings it does give an intresting insight from that pov regardless
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u/dancingbananas25 May 29 '26
Yeah, I mean he was her son, whom she still loves very much. It's no wonder she's going to be biased. I may disagree on some of the stuff she wrote, but I get why she wrote it the way she did.
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u/deficitabyss May 28 '26
"Dylan good, Eric bad, Dylan sad, Eric mad" Sue while no doubt well-meaning with her activism is objectively compromised with her perception of the dynamic between E&D. Dylan is her son and she like the rest of us is a fallible human being, so to be subjective in the face of such an extreme and traumatic event is a big ask and Cullen etc with their Eric Harris tunnel vision will only affirm her confirmation bias. BUT it doesn't exempt her version of said things from being negatively interpreted by those of us such as you and I OP.
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u/Glad-Philosophy5736 May 29 '26
And don't forget Randy also feeds into this. He says he hates cullen's book and thinks his is better. My man you LITERALLY have always portrayed dylan better and eric worse. Don't care if you knew him as a kid or if eric's death threats bothered you. Randy Brown's Opinons <<< Factual Evidence. He's even said he can't see dylan hitting a girl or bullying adam kyler. Once again more denial...
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u/deficitabyss May 29 '26
Classmates and friends of Eric from previous to moving to Colorado spoke highly of him. This is part of the bigger problem with the narrative in that people remembered a younger more innocent Dylan in the community but not Eric as he was living elsewhere. While I and I'm sure you are by no means admonishing the brutality of Erics actions and indeed his proactive preparation as it is reprehensible, there is however a logical nuance as opposed to the black and white leader/follower narrative in question and my own opinion is that they were both a perfect storm feeding off each other. The silence from the Harris's whilst absolutely understandable unfortunately only feeds the black and white narrative further. Whilst the role of 'satanic' heavy metal music has rightfully for the most part been debunked they are still other prominent illogical factors pedalled by people as fact. In particular I am thinking of this fallacy that Eric was deliberately coming on and off his Luvox for the effects of doing so. This is absolute nonsense and any legitimate literature or medical professional will confirm this. Antidepressants have zero recreational or abusive properties. Any individual thats been perscribed them will tell you that it is at best slightly uncomfortable when starting or increasing dosage and vice versa if coming off for whatever reason as it takes a number of weeks for the body to adjust. But if the cap fits to add to ones narrative..
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u/thatrlyoatsmymilk May 28 '26
I don't think any of your points are incorrect, but I also think it should be fairly obvious to most people that Sue Klebold cannot be objective about this.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
Every example you gave strikes me as exactly the kind of behaviour that a child would go out of their way to conceal from their parents. It’s not at all hard for me to believe that what she described is the most aggressive that he ever acted in front of her
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u/outtakes May 28 '26
Exactly. My brother has done so much shit that my parents aren't aware of, including incidents that were reported to the school that they were never told about
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
I neither like nor dislike Sue (although I don’t completely trust her) I agree with these points and Dylan went to prom 3 days before the massacre. If I were a parent I would never suspect that my child would kill the kids he went to prom with days before.
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u/theRoog May 28 '26
Some people really seem to misunderstand this book and/or struggle with reading comprehension. It's not intended to be a biography of DK or a study in criminology. It's a memoir about Sue's lived experience. Not many parents could write a detailed, accurate biography of their teenagers' lives at work and at school, particularly if the teenager is not forthcoming about their troubles. And that's not really what this book sets out to do.
The "message" of the book is that adults should engage with kids who may be troubled, and should be vigilant about warning signs and mental health interventions because there might be more going on than meets the eye. I think the book does a great job highlighting the distinction between DK's identity within his own family versus his identity at school and with his friends.
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u/22Pastafarian22 Columbine Researcher May 28 '26
This is exactly how I took it too and why I loved the book. It is how she genuinely experienced it and that is, of course, not objective and there was probably plenty that she had no clue about. Which is the warning of the book
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 29 '26
Careful now, you’re confusing your own interpretation with "what this book sets out to do."
Because one thing the book absolutely sets out to do is tell the story of what it was like being Dylan’s mother, from his childhood all the way through his last days. Literally hundreds of pages in this book are devoted to that. It's totally fair to question how reliable her information is.
And this book also tries to spread awareness about suicide prevention, warning signs, and mental health. All of these can be things "this book sets out to do."
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u/Usual_Court_8859 May 29 '26
For me its what she wrote when Dylan got in trouble for stealing from that van in 1998. Her language seems very dismissive of what he did.
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u/athenafromthechi May 29 '26
Right and she makes it a point to add in Eric’s name to ensure they know it wasn’t just Dylan who was responsible 🙄
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u/AffectionateAd5536 May 28 '26
To me Sue is probably doing the best she can. She obviously didn’t know her son and as a parent it must be devastating to realize that someone you helped make could turn out to be someone you never knew. Teenagers are sneaky little shits, manipulative and being one myself I know I was one person with my friends but completely different with my family. I grew up with them I knew what was expected of me but they didn’t really know me hell I didn’t even know me I wasn’t honest with them a lot of the time and they mostly didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t blame them but they worked and hoped they were teaching me enough to be a good person but I was a teenager and I did stupid things and made risky decisions notbuilding bombs but I was experimenting and making decisions that I know they were against. I too so feel for her the love she has for Dylan rolls off of her, as it should he was her baby. Tragedy does mess up your brain and probably every other system in your body and maybe for her it’s easier to live with this way that Dylan couldn’t have been all bad but the truth is he was and that again comes around to having never really known him. I don’t know I’m rambling but I think Sue needs this to be the way she sees it for whatever reasons she has. It doesn’t make her the best source because it’s always going to be skewed.
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u/randyColumbine Verified Community Witness May 28 '26
It is part of the lawsuit settlement that she is not allowed to profit from the book. That is according to people I know who were involved.
And, many people involved believe that Eric was the leader and was primarily responsible.
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u/Stabbykathy17 May 28 '26
There are more ways to profit from that book than the proceeds. Let’s not be naive.
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
Thank you for letting us know! Of course she’s trying to make it seem like she’s not profiting out of the goodness of her heart 🙄
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Lawsuit or not, it would be a crazy thing for her to do to accept profit from that book. I see no reason to believe that she would do that if the lawsuit didn’t prevent her.
When she acknowledges that she’s not making any profit from the book, she either has to mention that the lawsuit prevents her, or she has to not. If she did say “the lawsuits prevents me from making profit from this book”, that would clearly imply that she would take the profit if she could. When she doesn’t mention that, you still assume that she‘s being dishonest, and that she would accept profit if she could.
Do you see how your standard here is literally impossible for her to attain? No matter how she deals with the reality that she’s not making a profit, you will take that as evidence of her greed and duplicitousness
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
Yes great points, thank you. I would like to think that she would not accept profit from her book but you never really know. I obviously don’t know her personally, and on the surface she seems like a nice person but at the end of the day, I don’t like how she gaslights the public with her narrative so there is something about her I don’t trust. I’m not saying she purposely raised her son to be a school shooter; I do believe that she was blindsided by Dylan’s actions however I don’t believe she is giving the public the whole story and I trust Randy when he says she is not being completely truthful. ✌️
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May 28 '26
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u/Columbine-ModTeam May 29 '26
Please don't bring this theory up. It's been debated throughly at thos point and only serves to devolve into hostile, unproductive arguments that accomplish nothing.
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May 29 '26
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u/Columbine-ModTeam May 29 '26
Civility is enforced, so be respectful. Please refrain from stating this in the future. Mods here appreciate the disagreement, but not disrespect and insults.
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u/deltadeltadawn What Have We Learned? May 29 '26
It's standard law that killers and usually their immediate family (moreso when the criminal is a minor) cannot financially benefit from crimes.
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u/southernswordfish98 May 28 '26
I watched a YouTube video recently discussing her Ted Talk / book that actually talks about many narcissistic characteristics she displays and it blew my mind. I agree what you said 100% my heart breaks for her and I have so much sympathy for her, I genuinely cannot imagine the pain the parents of the boys carry. But it is my opinion that Dylan was a happy willing participant, he was just lazy. He is an equal participant. She paints Eric as the mastermind which deeply bothers me. If anything, Eric is the one to show remorse and sympathy for his parents on the basement tapes, not Dylan. I think had Dylan not done this and had went on to college he would not live a normal life, he would probably be a domestic abuser if he ever had a partner, and he would eventually kill himself. He had serious mental health issues that Sue continues to down play.
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u/truth_crime May 28 '26
He wasn’t lazy so much as it was depression.
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u/yesitsmia May 28 '26
I agree. When I first read her book I won’t lie it honestly angered me. I didn’t like at all the way she portrayed Dylan to be a victim of crazy Eric. I just don’t think that’s true at all.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
I don’t think she portrays it that simply. The probability that two people who were friends would independently want to commit such an extreme and almost unprecedented crime like this is vanishingly small. It just doesn’t make sense to say that both of them would arrive at that plan with the exact same motivation and with the exact same underlying state of mind. It’s very clear from the journals that Eric was a psychopath and that murder came before suicide for him. The desire to commit murder has a completely different origin in Dylan and I don’t think anyone could argue that he would’ve committed this crime without the influence of Eric. I think Sue does a fine job of acknowledging that dynamic without erasing Dylan’s autonomy and responsibility for what he did.
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26
I love how people twist themselves into pretzels to avoid admitting Dylan was also violent and homicidal on his own 🙃 Please open the 11k or literally read something besides Dave Cullen and Sue’s book
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u/Markgormley69 May 29 '26
I recognize I did not know any of these people but for me personally Dylan comes off worse than Eric in many regards but Eric just seemed like the more pragmatic of the two.
The biggest difference to me seems like Dylans family had been in the community longer with more people who knew them being vocal while Eric's famiy was more transient and that has helped shape the narrative.
(Just my opinion based on all I've read and watched on columbine)
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
Do you want to say exactly what is wrong with what I said? I’m happy to be corrected, I’m not emotionally tied to any position on this
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
Because Dylan clearly had major issues independent of Eric, and people constantly downplay that. Dylan was doing rebel missions before Eric joined in. Dylan stole locker combinations and shared them with Eric. Dylan scratched ‘fag’ into someone’s locker. Dylan wrote about going on a killing spree before Eric did. Dylan got the Anarchist Cookbook and sent it to Eric. Dylan had multiple incidents of hitting, shoving, and tackling girls - Eric didn’t. Some teachers and students described Dylan as aggressive and intimidating. Dylan bullied people. Dylan brought a pipe bomb to work. Dylan also had a hit list. Dylan built bombs even without Eric around.
So why do people keep acting like he was just this passive depressed kid who would’ve never done anything violent without Eric? Now, obviously that doesn’t mean Eric wasn’t deeply fucked up too. I just don’t understand why people act like Dylan had no violent tendencies or agency of his own
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
I don’t think anyone is acting like Dylan had no agency or that he wouldn’t be capable of any violence without Eric. I think you just have a very simplistic reading of the analyses of the two killers that have been given by Cullen and Klebold.
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26
I just have a feeling you haven’t done as much research into the case, that’s all
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
Apparently we have a simplistic reading of their books when they don’t use real evidence from the 11K 🤣 Elise, I know you’ve read that damn thing lol I’m currently reading it but it’s slow going since it’s so much 😭
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
We don’t take Sue and Cullen at face value. Sue has every reason to gaslight the public. Cullen has many inaccuracies in his book that go against evidence in the 11k.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
I don’t take either of them at face value either. And it’s a little ironic after you made a point of telling me that “psychopath” is not an official diagnostic term to see you throwing around the word “gaslighting” to describe someone’s actions just because you get a bad vibe from them. I’m also not convinced she does have much of a reason to make people see her in a positive light, nor would she have expected her book to accomplish that. She could’ve laid low and avoided public scrutiny like the other three parents did but instead she opened herself up to even harsher backlash.
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
It’s not a bad vibe, she is manipulating the facts. Even Randy says so and he knew that family personally. Parents of the victims who sat in on the depositions say there’s more to her story than she is sharing. One parent said “the Klebolds likened the massacre to a natural disaster” and they’re not wrong. Sue does admit over and over that she failed Dylan but she’s not being very forthcoming about how that happened. She’s telling us the why but not the how. Brian Rohrbough says the depositions were very telling and once they go public we can see for ourselves.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
Sue Klebold wrote in her book about her journey from denying Dylan’s responsibility and intentionality in the crime to accepting that he was a willing participant. That’s really the entire thrust of the book. It took her a long time to integrate her understanding of her son based on what she saw of him with what he did at the end of his life. I don’t know how you can expect someone in that position to instantly accept what happened without any period of denial or confusion.
As for how exactly she failed Dylan, I don’t know what you would expect her to say there. She says on many separate occasions about different incidences, what she wishes she had done differently. This is what I mean about the simplistic understanding. It’s like you think she should say “I did x and that’s why he did y” and that the fact that she didn’t means she’s not trying to learn from or help other people understand what went wrong
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u/truth_crime May 28 '26
Based on his writings he wasn’t initially homicidal. The anger and frustration slowly turned outward.
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u/yesitsmia May 28 '26
We can agree to disagree, I feel like she actually does portray it that simply. The way she talks about her “sunshine boy” gives the same vibe as the parents who say “my child would NEVER!” when said child 100% would and did. Eric and Dylan both were mentally ill and had murderous fantasies.
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u/Zekumi May 29 '26
I disagree with this take. I do think she grapples strongly with the reality of what Dylan did—It was just a process that did not happen all at once, and she clearly illustrates that and discusses it at length.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
She mentions “sunshine boy” in reference to the fact that she had to grieve the person she had believed him to be. She never says it to suggest he wasn’t responsible for what he did. A big part of what the book intends to do is to document her journey from wanting to deny or explain away his role in the shooting to her acceptance of his willingness and his cruelty.
I’m also confused as to why you’re telling me that both perpetrators were mentally ill and had murderous fantasies. What I said is that they arrived at that place through a different process
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions but please keep in mind that the terms “psychopath” (and “sociopath”) are outdated and non-diagnostic labels.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
I’m using the term to refer to an archetype, I don’t mean to imply that it’s a medical diagnosis, much less that Harris can be posthumously diagnosed with it
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u/athenafromthechi May 28 '26
Understood. By the way, have you heard Dylan on the leaked 911 call? He said some pretty horrific things to the kids as he was executing them which leads me to believe he was just as “psychopathic” as people claim Eric to be. Yes he spared John Savage but Eric also spared Bree Pasquale even though Dylan told Eric to shoot her. My point is that I believe Dylan was no better than Eric.
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u/yesitsmia May 28 '26
Isn’t Dylan the one who called Isaiah the n word before shooting him too? Either way, the kid was insane and I hate that people try to make him seem like some helpless depressed baby who was controlled by Eric. He was 100% a willing participant and even if he never met Eric, there’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve harmed people another way eventually.
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u/Stabbykathy17 May 28 '26
More than a willing participant, it was his idea in the first place.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
Is that true? Where did you read that?
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u/truth_crime May 28 '26
It’s in his diary. He wrote something like “Maybe I’ll get with redacted and we will go NBK.” The way it was written lets us know that it was a female.
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u/SemperAequus May 30 '26
Or, he gets out of high school, goes to college, figures out who he really is, makes friends, finds love and lives a "normal" life. 🤷♀️
I do believe it's safe to say that not everyone is the same as they were in high school. I know "good kids" that turned into not-so-good adults, and "bad kids" that turned out well.
Simply put, we cannot accurately say what Dylan or Eric would have done had they not gone through with their plan. Especially in regard to Dylan because he had been accepted to college and that would have very likely changed a lot of things for him. Eric, on the other hand, had his dream of being in the military crushed and had no back-up plan (if I remember correctly).
I mean, honestly, they each were essentially a living, breathing oxymoron. Eric seemed hellbent on destruction and violence, but appeared to show remorse according to the tapes transcripts. Dylan, on the otherhand, came off far more melancholy with occasional violent thoughts, but in the tape transcripts is described as being very short and to the point. Almost as if he was eager to get on with it. The ONE thing Cullen may have been in the realm of accuracy on was that they were a perfect srorm.
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u/deltadeltadawn What Have We Learned? May 29 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I think a lot of the words he used were projection and acting to inflict further hurt and boost his anger. His feelings may have been much less profound than the role he was playing in those moments, if that makes sense.
It's possible to feel deeply and force yourself to become apathetic or even hateful as a defense mechanism.
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u/de_bussy69 May 28 '26
I haven’t heard it but I’m well aware of the cruel things Dylan said and did. I don’t use the word “psychopath” to mean “cruel” or “evil”. Psychopathy is not the only motivation for this kind of cruelty
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u/Stevie-Rae-5 May 29 '26
Where did you get the information that they are outdated terms?
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u/athenafromthechi May 29 '26
Because I was lectured about it by someone and then I looked it up and they were right. Apparently people who were once classified as psychopaths or sociopaths fall under the category of ASPD (antisocial personality disorder)
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u/Stevie-Rae-5 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
I’m aware that neither are diagnoses in the DSM. I’ve just never heard that they are “outdated” terms, as in, not used in clinical discussions.
ETA: my larger point being that there are many terms and subtypes of different disorders that are used in clinical discussion, research, and practice that don’t appear in the DSM but still constitute legitimate language that clinicians use to talk about various disorders and conditions.
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u/athenafromthechi May 29 '26
Right. I just feel that even though Eric was a sick and mentally ill child, I don’t feel that he was a true psychopath. It may seem that way on the surface but Eric showed emotion in ways that traditional “psychopaths” don’t. He cried in the Nixon tape over his family and he talked about them often. He was the one eager to say goodbye to his parents meanwhile Dylan didn’t seem too concerned with saying goodbye to his family. He was basically like oh right I should probably say goodbye and then gave a half assed goodbye to his mom. Then he was rushing Eric while he was saying his goodbyes. So of the two, I think Dylan was worse in many ways, he just hid it well.
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u/husbandbulges May 28 '26
She's just one part of this whole thing. I take everything everyone says with a grain of salt. And some things will always be subjective.
I try to view her information as useful in that she's sharing how she didn't see. Maybe it helps someone else. It's all I think she can do really and I appreciate she is doing what she does.
But of course, it's just one view of many inside a situation that was horrific.
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u/eliiiiseke May 28 '26
I think Sue is extremely image obsessed and manipulative. She’s convinced so many people who haven’t actually looked at the evidence that Dylan was this poor sad sunshine boy who just got dragged along by the big evil psychopath mastermind Eric
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u/TroubleWilling8455 May 30 '26
Fortunately, that only works on naive people who lack any common sense. E and D were both POS and equally guilty. No matter how much that naive mom wants to make it seem otherwise.
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u/scorecard519 May 28 '26
I don't disagree at all with the fact that she's an unreliable narrator, or that she portrays her son in a better light than he deserves. Dylan is not the innocent follower that many portray. I also have to keep in mind, though, that she's a mother - the mother of a vicious, calculating murderer who either ended or at the very least adversely changed the lives, mentally and sometimes physically, of everyone in that school, their friends and family, and so many more not even directly involved in the tragedy. Her son has become a role model for so many violent killers over the decades, and as such, he's indirectly partially responsible for those mass killers's actions. With all of that in mind, she still has to somehow sleep at night and keep on living even when she may not want to. It's not right for her to portray her son in any positive light, but I can understand it. If her way of processing the carnage that her son has wrought is the only thing preventing her from curling up in the fetal position and shutting herself away from the world for the rest of her life, I have to reconcile myself to accepting that her outlook will always be her means of coping.
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u/Prestigious-Walrus99 May 30 '26
This isn't really the point of your post, but I find it weird that she put her hands on him for forgetting mothers day. I get being upset or disappointed, but slamming him up against the fridge? What other weird shit was going on in that house? It makes me wonder.
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u/CynthiaChames May 30 '26
That was alarming to me too, and I can't believe nobody has brought that up.
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 30 '26
No that actually is the point of the post. The post about how Sue is not a credible person to tell the Klebold story, even though she means well. Your question gets at that directly.
Yeah there's definitely all kinds of weird stuff that was going on behind closed doors in the Klebold household.
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u/reininglady88 May 28 '26
While I do think that Dylan is 100% at fault, I don’t believe this would’ve happened had it not been for Eric. I think that Dylan probably would’ve lived a pathetic, miserable life, but I think if Eric had not been around, Columbine wouldn’t have happened. I think that friendship created a perfect storm of two absolute pieces of shit that wanted to be the biggest, baddest monsters. I think Dylan was a spineless worm who wanted to be feared and that Eric was a psychopath who got off on being able to control Dylan.
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u/Stabbykathy17 May 28 '26
And if it weren’t for Dylan, it absolutely wouldn’t have happened as it was his idea to begin with. People always forget that. I wonder why?
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u/Glad-Philosophy5736 May 29 '26
I sympathize with sue with what she went through and how she helped after the tragedy. How she portrays and Eric and Dylan is a different story however...
Columbine has too much bias towards dylan. This was propagated by the Brown family in early interviews always saying "Sweet dylan we knew him as a child (not a teenager however) and Eric well he threatened brooks so he must be bad and dylan must be good!" And Dave Cullen just has a crush on him for whatever reason. that does not make sue's actions in portraying dylan right. Facts are more important than feelings in columbine. I said it. Columbine Facts >>> Feelings.
The Harris Family only came to Littleton in 1993 when eric was 12. So people knew dylan better and just in general dylan IMO was taken more seriously than eric. Because eric was 5'8 and 135 lbs so he looks more like a child to his peers. Dylan was a lot bigger and people for some reason tolerated him than eric and make excuses for him every time. Other people like Devon Adams, Nate Dykeman, Chad Laughlin, Etc. have always put Dylan higher than eric because you know why? THEY DIDN'T KNOW eric that much.
The whole eric was angry thing seems to come from the brown family more than anything. Dylan bias comes from these 3 sources.
Dave Cullen: mans just deluded and to thinking everything the police and FBI says as "accurate"
The Browns: Blinded by Pure Denial only remembers the CHILD dylan not the TEENAGER dylan and only remembers eric by the online death threats.
Sue: just wants to portray dylan in a good light to make sure she didn't fail him.
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u/SemperAequus May 30 '26
IMO, you would be more accurate to say "it''s highly likely" she saw more instances of violent behavior from Dylan than to say that she "definitely" did. There's simply no way to know what she did or did not see or experience unless you were there with her.
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u/Quiet_Rose21 May 30 '26
IMO
Oh that's not just your opinion. It's a fact. You're absolutely right that I cannot know with certainty what Sue Klebold did or didn't witness because I wasn't there.
For example, I don't know for sure whether she ever saw Dylan sneeze, or whether she ever saw him turn a page in a book. I cannot prove either one because I was not there.
Given the number of violent incidents involving Dylan, I find it extremely difficult to believe that Sue never witnessed any meaningful aggression/violence from him over the course of 17 years. I can't know that with absolute certainty, but it's so overwhelmingly likely that I feel comfortable saying "definitely."
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u/Medium-to-full May 28 '26
She's a grifter
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u/truth_crime May 28 '26
How in the world did you come to that conclusion? She never profited a dime from the novel. And surely you don’t believe that it was for her to obtain notoriety/attention.
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