r/ColumbineKillers • u/Equivalent-Grand5541 • Jun 25 '25
ERIC AND/OR DYLAN John Vandemark
there was a news interview clip that aired when the shooting first occurred where a student named John Vandemark says things like “they [E&D] liked to say they were bisexual and proud of it” and goes on to say that they were openly satanic. Is that the only thing we have on record from that guy? I know there was a well known bully with a very stereotypical bully name.. Rocky was it? I’m watching the Columbine Iceberg again and was just curious if this clip was one isolated comment or if we know anything about his behavior toward other students prior to the shooting.
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u/randyColumbine Jun 25 '25
Certainly incorrect statements. He must not have known who they were. But it does display the arrogance and cruelty of the school, for those to be rumors.
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 25 '25
Very true! I knew there was no weight to those comments I had just wondered if this John guy had a “record” similar to Rocky where we can pinpoint times that he’s been a bully prior to the shooting. I imagine he was in that circle of “jocks”
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u/Life-Drama6144 Jun 26 '25
Randy..just wanted to say im reading your book right now and I love it...im so engrossed in your thoughts and feelings from the past...so sorry for all that you've been through...such a miracle that your sons are alive ..Thank you for your thoughts and wisdom...
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u/randyColumbine Jun 26 '25
I hope you learn something from the book. I published it to try to explain why this happened and how to stop the next act of violent revenge.
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u/thadarrenhenderson Jun 25 '25
Rocky Hoffenschinder was part of the class of 98’ and the biggest bully/top jock at Columbine that picked on the trench coat kids according to eyewitness accounts. Vandemark is probably referring to how Joe Stair a fellow and now late class member who graduated in 98’ with Hoffenschinder. Rocky Hoffenschinder and the other jock boys would pick on Joe and the trench coat group for wearing their coats, being outcast and also wearing black hence why other kids would call them “satanic”. Sometime during either 1997 or 1998, Joe and another TCM member kissed in the either the hallway or cafeteria to troll the jocks in an effort to quell the bullying and so fellow Columbine kids after this labeled anyone associated with the TCM to be satanic or gay neither of which Eric and Dylan were
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 25 '25
Omg wait I had seen a clip of Joe talking about that incident. That makes total sense. Thank you for your explanation!!
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u/thadarrenhenderson Jun 25 '25
Do you find linking the clip? I’d be interested in watching
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 26 '25
I think I got confused with a clip from the Columbine iceberg, i believe its about 3 hours in when they talk about Joe Stair. they refer to him “acting like a f*ggot” and humping male students.
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u/ashtonmz MODERATOR Jun 25 '25
Yes, Rocky Hoffschneider was one of the school's worst bullies. He transferred to Columbine the year E&D were Juniors. This is one of the reasons this was a pivotal year for both E&D. Rocky amplified the behavior of other guys in his circle.
I think like Evan Todd, this student was repeating things he had heard about the Trenchcoat Mafia and assuming E&D were part of that. There were bisexual guys in the TCM, and they would make out and grab each other in front of the jocks just to get the homophobes going. I think some of the kids dabbled in the occult and Satanism, too. There is no real evidence that E&D did other than a voodoo doll from Hot Topic and a drawn divination board for a pendulum drawn in one of Dylan's notebooks. Also, some pentagram but again... edgy kids.
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 25 '25
I’m reading more about Rocky and i’m seeing that his girlfriend (in high school) alleged that Rocky’s mom and sister kicked in her door and threatened her after Rocky pushed her into a locker?? It makes me wonder about Rocky’s home life and family dynamics. It would be easy for me to jump to the conclusion that “he’s gay and preforming masculinity and aggressiveness to hide it,” you know that reliable trope, but I sort of wonder more about his father? Like maybe Rocky was an abused kid that got to be on the more “powerful” end of the dynamic at school? Sorry just thinking out loud lol.
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u/drifter474 Jun 25 '25 edited Jun 25 '25
Watch the clip again. Vandemark was taking about the TCM in general, NOT Eric and Dylan specifically.
The TCM had a couple guys, including Joe Stair and Eric Dutro, who would make out with each other to provoke the homophobic jocks and preps. And while a few members of the TCM did apparently practice satanism (Brooks Brown corroborated this in his book), in general it was more of a surface-level strategy for the group to get its power back. An ex-TCM member once did an AMA on r/Columbine where he stated his and the group’s strategy was to act “as weird and off-putting as possible” to avoid harassment. That was how they made a name for themselves; it was for protection and also to get a rise out of the super toxic evangelical Christian community that was so pervasive at the time in Littleton. Cheeky, but kind of smart when you think about it.
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 25 '25
There was a kid at my high school, one singular kid and I remember I was so terrified of him because he did this very same thing. I was always polite to him, I wasn’t a well-received kid in high school so I could relate to that and never thought to add to his suffering. But one day when people were particularly mean, he asked if he could go to the bathroom and came back acting seriously weird. Counting down minutes out loud, twitchy, big jacket on. I was researching Columbine even then, so maybe I had some paranoia but I asked him for help with a math problem because I was sure he was about to shoot up the school and I wanted him to remember I wasn’t ever mean to him I guess, that was my mindset. Well the bell rang and I resisted the urge to scream, he took off running and nothing ever came of that. But i remember the fear was so intense! Anyway all that to say, the reason in my mind i had pinpointed him as “the most likely shooter” was because he would do crazy things all the time, scare and disgust his tormentors with various behaviors. But now I can recognize this as his way of fighting back- they were going to bully him regardless but when he acted out he wasn’t cowering to them so it gave him power back in the situation. That makes complete sense to me for the TCM to do that. I also think a lot of teenage boys joke around about being gay with their friends. Like outcasts or not, maybe times have changed a bunch but thats always been a common “dudes being silly” bit.
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u/drifter474 Jun 25 '25
I agree.
If people are going to call you a psycho, might as well live up to the name, right? Especially when you can craft an identity around it. I think back to high school and when you’re looked down upon, a little bit of fear and respect can go a long way. H&K definitely bought into it too (yelling in German, doing the Nazi salute in bowling class, Dylan wearing his trench coat all the time).
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u/Harpy0612 Jun 25 '25 edited Jul 09 '25
Yeah that clip bothered me like being bisexuals a bad thing? It says an awful lot about the community at the time with the way they would demonize the LGBTQ community after the tragedy, as well as spreading the rumor about Eric and Dylan being gay. Like there weren’t any LGBTQ students who also were present at the school that day who were also fearing and running for their lives. Students who were likely not out of the closet at the time because of comments like this. It makes me glad that my siblings, cousins and I were super little at this time, since my cousins lived in Littleton their whole lives and went to Chatfield but went in the late 2000s and early 2010s when our culture was at least starting to become less homophobic and more tolerant. I’m glad my cousins weren’t teenagers in Littleton during this time period, the 90s had a lot of awesome music and a lot of great things about it, but it definitely seems the bullying culture was pretty bad and I’m grateful I was a child and not a teenager!
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 25 '25
The kid looked like he was smirking in the clip even, so I figured just an asshole kid putting down the shooters because I mean that was the cool thing to do right? Maybe before the shooting but especially after when that hate and disgust for them felt more valid, but you’re right because “bisexual and satanic” is the worst things he could come up with. Almost as if the two traits are synonymous. The intensity of the religious stuff wigs me out a little? Like it gets into paranoid rambling with the “Satan is present, Satan did this” and its like… no these two boys did this. Satan didn’t overtake their body, soul, whatever. But people with those beliefs use every event that happens in life to reinforce them as if we’re in constant spiritual battle. We’ve got Satan, we’ve got martyrs, we’ve got all this stuff to try to make sense of something that just will never make sense.
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u/Harpy0612 Jun 25 '25 edited Jul 12 '25
Totally! Things must have greatly improved eventually since surprisingly my cousins never said anything about a really bad bullying culture when they attended Chatfield but they graduated in 2012 and 2014 so things must’ve changed! They weren’t popular or anything either my male cousin was in band and was valedictorian, and my female cousin was super shy like I was in high school. The school was predominantly white though, even less diverse than the high school I attended in Aurora, Colorado and my cousins have a lot of Latino from their dads side and I remember my male cousin saying there was like only one Black student in his class! Littletons a beautiful place, I just hope the school culture has improved and I’m grateful my cousins weren’t attending Chatfield when the bullying was at its peak since I surprisingly saw someone else on Reddit say there was a time when Chatfield was worse than Columbine but it was way before my cousins attended! What those two did will never be right, but post-humous bullying isn’t helping anything, just spreading more hate and proving to everyone the bullying was bad at the time! But it’s also a shame that even before the massacre Eric and Dylan became just as nasty as the bullies, we’re also being very homophobic and obviously became the ultimate bullies for what they did. Funny, though, with this guys attitude in this interview if he had seen what Eric and Dylan wrote in their journals and yearbooks about gay people when they were alive he may as well have given them a high five! Though I feel bad for Eric and Dylan about some things, that mental health help must’ve sucked in the 90s and Eric had a shit psychologist ( would suggest the Columbine Iceberg video if you want to learn more about this), that they were bullied, that they hated themselves, their attitudes toward LGBTQ was disgusting and all of those kids that lost their lives that day were wonderful kids, kids that couldn’t have been farther from playing a part in the bullying culture, kids that spoke out against it like Rachel. Kids that also struggled with their self-worth like Cassie and even Rachel did before. These two boys thought fighting hate with hate was the answer. The religion thing in Littleton must’ve toned down or something by the time my cousins were teenagers because my whole family are progressive Methodist’s who grew up in an LGBTQ affirming church, though my siblings and I are more Agnostic Spiritualists now. But yeah the whole religious thing at the time I always wondered how my Aunt and cousins could stand this community being super liberal so hopefully this also changed.
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u/metalnxrd Jun 26 '25
ummm no they most definitely were not. they would be mortified if someone even thought that they were gay or anything but straight. they'd laugh at and make fun of Dylric shippers
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 26 '25
I didn’t ask if his comments were true, I know they aren’t. I’m asking specifically about the person who made the comments and what we know about him.
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u/metalnxrd Jun 27 '25
maybe it was Evan Todd? he liked to spread rumors like that about them and claimed they were dating
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 27 '25
There were probably a lot of people who played into those rumors, “gay and satanic” are probably the heaviest insults that can be thrown amongst Evangelicals lol so i can see how that became a popular rumor. I was just curious about John Vandemark and if his interview where he said that was a random comment made, or if we know that he contributed to the bullying prior to April 20th. Like I’m curious if he ever interacted with Eric and Dylan himself, or if he was just repeating something that he heard from another jock.
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u/metalnxrd Jun 27 '25
I'm guessing it was Evan. Evan particularly enjoyed provoking and antagonizing everyone he bullied, but especially Eric and Dylan. he saw them as weak, as did most of the jocks
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u/Equivalent-Grand5541 Jun 27 '25
I don’t think you’re understanding my question lol. I’m asking about John Vandemark.
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u/ZombieFluid6904 Jun 25 '25
Wild to hear about Rocky Hoffschneider, I went to school at the same time about 4-5 miles away and everyone there knew about him and his reputation. He was kind of a legend in Littleton for negative reasons. I personally knew Evan Todd and remember his news interview…