Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, spoke to the New Yorker in a series of interviews for a piece called, "The Reckoning: The Father of the Sandy Hook Killer Searches for Answers."
In December 2012, Adam Lanza killed 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, as well as taking his own life and his mother's. It was one of the deadliest mass shootings in United States history. This is the first time that Peter Lanza has spoken publicly about his son.
"How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he's my son? A lot." said Lanza. "You can't get any more evil."
Peter does not believe that Adam's Asperger's syndrome was related to the shootings. "Asperger’s makes people unusual, but it doesn’t make people like this,” he said in the interview.
The New Yorkerpiece by Andrew Solomon focuses largely on the Lanza family's struggle to deal with their son's problems. “With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat, if he’d had the chance,” said Lanza.
By breaking his silence, Peter hopes to prevent a similar incident from happening again. "I want people to be afraid of the fact that this could happen to them. It's real" said Lanza. “It doesn’t have to be understood to be real.”
