A subreddit focused on constructive discussion to better understand the events that took place surrounding the mass shooting at Columbine High School on April 20th, 1999.
https://i.imgur.com/rGoevtF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kMjjuKG.jpg
Bill Ockham shared these from his Twitter on r/columbinekillers.
Absolute clearest images to date and they show the periphery of the area where the suicides took place.
Looking under the chair to the left, there appears to be a pool of blood...could this be from the shooters or possibly Patrick Ireland?
Also, lighting in the room confirms to me that this photo was taken at night given the proximity of the windows in the library to the bodies...there doesn’t appear to be any natural sunlight.
As you all may know, we have a strict content policy regarding photos of the shooters and photos of anyone’s bodies. As a team, we unanimously agreed that this can be an exception as it is a cleaned up image that is uncropped and will offer discussion as this is a perspective we haven’t had before.
In watching the swat library video at around the 3:11 mark you can see the chair and blood underneath from a different angle. Given the proximity to table 15, and the library diagram showing his route from there to his escape out the window, it is almost certainly Patrick’s blood.
It still sometimes fails to register with me just how small that library was.
Got interested and watched the video you linked. Got any more of those videos? went through that blog but didn’t see any more
One (unimportant, yet interesting) detail that caught my attention is a dried blood stain on Eric's shirt, on his right sleeve to be exact. It differs from all the other ones (which are comparably much richer in color and thus more ''recent'') and is visible on this infamous still from the cafeteria footage as well. Based on the location of the stain, it might be consistent with him trying to soak up & wipe off the blood from his face using the sleeve of his shirt, after the recoil of the shotgun broke his nose. Bree Pasquale, Evan Todd and Josh Lapp described a noticeable amount of blood from both nostrils, smeared around his nose and mouth, down to the chin area.
I just finished reading Eric's autopsy report again and the medical examiner (what we call them in Canada) noted that Eric had massive fractures to his nose in addition to lacerations. I can see it being big enough, from those descriptions, to make him wipe his nose at some point. I support your theory.
Keep in mind that it's impossible to know how serious was the damage before he shot himself, many of the fractures could have been caused by the shot itself.
The link doesn't work.
The previous link works fine for me, but here you go: https://ibb.co/Rjq1W2h
i’m sure this was visible beforehand, but i never noticed how much dylan bled. that pool is huge and goes from above his head to his elbow.
I guess it does support the theory that he was alive for a bit after the shot.
and to think they just wanted to rip out the carpets and paint fresh walls. this is only them, imagine what the rest of the victims looked like. gosh. they created absolute horror. imagine being the one to walk in on that.
Imagine having to be one of the swat officers/forensic people and walk in on that? See all those teenagers dead like that? Ugh I can’t imagine the bloodbath they walked into
It wouldn’t surprise me if senior members of the SWAT and CSI teams retired afterwards.
i believe some did, i know one published a book but it’s pretty controversial and doesn’t go into much detail on columbine
I think I know who you may be referring to, the head SWAT team guy, Grant Whitus, wrote a book about it...I've read a bit about him and he sounds...um...he sounds like a controversial person himself, ugh.
I could totally be wrong though! =O
I can't believe they even pitched it. It must have been absolutely horrific and to think "we'll just paint it over and rip the carpets" is practically insulting.
Agreed!
cool never noticed the blood on the inside of Dylan’s cap or just how badly Eric’s nose was broken
What you see in this image is the entire structure of Eric skull has been pulverised. You can see the gaps between his right ear and facial tissue in the appearance of the books behind his head. His entire brain was blown out apart from a very small part where the brain stem attaches to the brain.
His whole top of his head seems to be missing
His Brain was found on the library ceiling
excuse me?? I have never heard of this before, but would really appreciate if you could elaborate.. that's crazy
His face looks like it's only attached to the rest of his head by a thin bit of cheek skin. Gross.
Where is his nose in the photo? Or how can you tell? What is the dark rings? Is that his eyes? People say their eyes are open but sunken, I don't see it?
that would be the holes, i believe after he shot himself his eyes fell out too? someone put about how the SWAT people or Paramedics were examining his body and they saw through the top of his head through the holes of where his eyes were
The holes, do you mean the dark rings? I remember reading about seeing thru to his nostrils, I think per the autopsy they said his eyes were intact? I'm not sure tbh! 😱
yeah i think the dark rings are where his eyes were
Is the top of Eric’s head just ...gone?
Yes, he put the barrel of his shotgun to the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The top of his head literally exploded and his face kinda slid down because there was nothing holding it anymore. Yeah, graphic description but that’s what happened.
Is his ear in the photo or no?
Sawed offs are no joke 🤯
The Rampart Range video shows how powerful (to the point of being dangerous) Eric’s shotgun was as well. It really put things into perspective for me about the library massacre.
I'm sorry but that emoji made me gasp
Yes, the shot blew his head open
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Yeah, the force of the blast caused the eye sockets to pop out
Yes.
I wonder what Dylan was thinking when he saw Eric with his head blown off in such a horrific way, assuming that he did actually die before Dylan. He thought people were zombies, except for him and Eric, as they were "God-like." Did reality set in for him?
I suspect the only reason Eric and Dylan went back to the library was to examine the carnage they'd created. This photo is only the bodies of the shooters, imagine the absolute bloodbath they'd be walking back in on. I suppose the sight of the vast majority of their killings in one place made them feel powerful and destructive
Although I also believe that if Dylan had any common sense at all he wouldn't have looked back at Eric after he heard the shotgun go off. He would've just got on with it
That's true. If he did look, maybe that explains why he shot himself in the temple instead? We'll never truly know!
i think reality set in by the time they made it back to the library. i imagine they walked back quietly without saying a word to each other knowing what was going to have to come next.
I got shivers reading that... I’m sure that walk to the library must have felt like an eternity in silence.
Damn.
and yes I already know that they at one point had a fantasy of going down in a blaze of bullets against the cops or wanted to escape but like I said - after the broken nose, the failed propane bombs and the lack of Inflicting all the violence they wished they had, they knew it was time when the library emptied out and it was quiet. imagine it. the library is somewhat quiet although there is blood and dead bodies of classmates and maybe the fire alarm still potentially sounding off but looking at one another and realizing "this is it. we went through with it and now it's time for the grande finale." I imagine they probably didn't talk much in their final minutes. I imagined it was "unspoken" as I said above.
100%. it was more than likely unspoken in their scheme, whether it was hundreds they killed or just two. they knew they'd eventually have to kill themselves and I think, at the end, when they realized that they didn't inflict half the carnage and violence that they wished they had, that it made the choice "easier" for their final action in the Library.
My guess is that he didn't look. You don't exactly commit suicide with your eyes open. My theory is that they sat down (or knelt down in Dylan's case) to commit suicide together using the Molotov as a timer. Both had their eyes closed at that time. Dylan would have definitely heard Eric do it but I doubt it would register in his brain as an "Omg, my friend is dead" moment. It was just the cue signaling it was Dyl's turn.
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We don't know for sure, but a Molotov was lit around the time of the suicides. The table on which it was found supposedly had Eric's brain matter on it. Have a look at this thread. This suggests that Eric killed himself first, and Dylan lit the Molotov after Eric died. The fire alarm went off at 12.08 due to a small fire caused by the Molotov, and they were both dead by then. We don't know for sure if Eric shot himself first, but he did definitely die instantly. Dylan choked on his blood before dying, so I believe that Eric died first. Dylan might have shot himself moments or minutes after Eric died.
Yikes. I can’t imagine how lonely Dylan felt in that moment. I do really wonder how they felt about the suicides-I get the sense they didn’t consider it all that much cause they were so focused on the rest of it. Were they scared and shaking? Or just like “fuck it”?
I wonder that too! I think Eric was in so much pain after getting hit in the nose when the gun recoiled that he just wanted to get it over with. He originally fantasized about escaping, but that wasn't realistic. So, suicide was the only option to avoid being imprisoned for life. Dylan, on the other hand, wanted to kill himself for 2 years. They planned on getting killed by the cops, and they did shoot at them through the library windows for a bit. For whatever reason, they later abandoned the idea of suicide by cop and decided to just do it themselves. Crazy stuff.
There is a possibility that Dylan was shaking. We know he used both hands to steady the gun.
In July of 2020 I shot myself with my mossberg shockwave 590. Attempting suicide but in a series of events the wad and pellets exited the corner of my mouth and cheek. All I know in the moments leading up to my attempt I couldn't form a thought because I was trying to convince myself I was ready to die. It's like I had a tunnel vision thought process. So much hurricane in my head and finally accepting its okay to die. Very scary but as the time tiks on just talking myself into over And over, I wasn't scared when I finally accepted it but as soon as I tasted gun powder I had instant regret
Best view of his hat I've seen yet too
And Dylan's "WRATH" shirt too. I always found it interesting that the shirts became infamous to the point where copycats will imitate them, and the "Columbiners" will wear them... yet there are barely any pics of them.
Literally all we have are these pics (and back when it was much lower quality), grainy cafeteria footage, and Eric buying the propane. I guess the best view of them we can get is from the Basement tapes during their final goodbye, but I'm not holding my breath for that lol
Zero Hour might have had a lot of influence on the font “Natural Selection” used. We have absolutely no pictures of Eric’s shirt (you can barely make out a letter in these photos) and I’ve noticed depictions of his shirt bare resemblance to the one in that episode.
I was thinking Zero Hour may have played a big role in the shirts becoming well known.
I have noticed a lot of copies of both shirts use an army stencil font. I wonder why that began happening. Was that before Zero Hour and the suicide pics first released?
Dude, I'd go even further and say that Zero Hour definitely played a big, BIG role in romanticizing/glorifying the massacre. The Columbine episode came out only 5 years after the massacre and made E&D look like these charismatic bad boy villains. Casting two good looking and athletic actors definitely didn't help.
The hat always looked kind of odd. Is that blood pooled on the inside? I'm guessing Dylan left his hat on when he shot himself.
Does anyone know if the white balls near Eric’s head a blood pool could possibly be his eyeballs?
No, they are still intact. The autopsy report described Eric's eyes.
https://www.columbine-guide.com/columbine-autopsies-harris-klebold
Oh thank you I wasn’t sure!
Nope. He still has both of his eyes on him. Look closer in his eye sockets. Both have an eye in them.
These are 2 of the clearest versions of these photos I've ever seen. That being said, even as clear as these are I really have to try very hard to convince myself I can see any part of Dylans TEC-9. I know the reports say it was under his leg and people say they can see his hand around or at least on the grip etc but I can see that only if I make myself believe that's what it is. If I had no SWAT testimony or whatever and someone just showed me these photos I would have to say I just don't see it. Even magnified I'd have doubt.
I'm pretty new to this case again after almost 2 decades. Do you mind sharing what the significance of the TEC-9 is in relation to Dylan's hand?
It was one of the guns used in the massacre and I’m pretty sure he used it to commit suicide
The pool of blood around Dylan appears even bigger than that around Eric, which seems strange given their injuries. Could that be due to a sustained heartbeat/pulse following the self inflicted gunshot?
It's also likely that most of Eric's blood from the shotgun blast ended up above him and all over the walls behind him.
You can see an explosive trajectory upwards from where he was sitting (on the bookcase) then kind of a wiping pattern from where he slid down.
Dylan bled to death. Most of Eric’s head and blood was probably on the ceiling
Eric died instantly. Dylan lingered. It had something to do with the manner that they shot themselves.
At this scene, the leading cause of death is blood loss — if a bullet damages critical blood vessels and there is not enough time to stop the bleeding, the person will bleed to death or form a rapidly expanding blood clot that critically compresses vital brain tissue. So after the shot, the blood pressure dropped, and the heart pumped even more blood (more enormous puddle). So even if the person appears dead, it isn't necessarily the case.
Keep in mind, even fatal head wounds do not necessarily even render unconsciousness immediately. The person is maybe fully functional for 10–15 minutes before laying down to die. The lighter the round, the more likely this will happen.
Annectdote: Abraham Lincoln, shot in the back of his head, lived nine hours.
Annecteote: Australian cricketer Phil Hughes on live tv fell immediately unconscious from a cricket ball striking him in the neck and died shortly after. I am not convinced that Dylan would be conscious at the time leading up to his brain death. The round would have had the effect of seriously affecting the brain matter
Based off dylan’s wounds I would say he wasn’t conscious and that any gargling and breathing from were his body’s last functionings in response to a headshot.
Are there actual reports of Dylan having agonal perimortem activity? Or is it all purely speculative due to the volume of blood around him?
Oh man... that must have been a long agonizing death.
As for Dylan, I would give him max 30 sec of conciousness. But from shot till complete death anything from 2min-15min.
So much blood.
Yeah he released two angles of the pictures definitely the highest quality I seen
Just for the sake of wonder, these boys were merely 18 years old in age. Shocking to know how minds that young can be infuriated with hate.
This is the clearest version of the image I saw. The police images were hazy and low in contrast. Nonetheless, it's horrific.
Graphic statement:It's very disgusting to describe but it always chills me that Dylan's and Eric's bodies look like plastic/wax figures.
I disagree on your graphic statement there. To me they look surprisingly fresh for apparently having died many hours before this picture was taken. You can even see there's still a pink hue to their ears and fingers.
This was after they were checked for Bombs? Just asking because if you shot yourself with a 12 ga. I just think the odds of the weapon ending up under your right leg seems nearly impossible? Thoughts?
Yes, they were searched for explosives by SWAT members before the crime scene investigators took this photo. It’s allowed because securing a scene is what police do even if it means disturbing evidence. But only when lives are in danger. If they had unstable bombs then a case would (and was) made and it’s a call made in the moment.
Is your name from the simpsons episode lmao
Yes it was as evidenced by the blood streaks on Dylan's face which indicate he died face down.
People have been selling t-shirts with these images on Ebay. I don't know what kind of person needs to buy them, but I have reported the listing several times to no avail. Now it comes up as an item i might be interested in.
Oh my
A luxury fashion brand know as Fuck the Population sold these too. They retail for around 600$ apparently.
Anyone have a link to the second pic?
eric’s eyes 🤢
Those aren't eyeballs. That's just the sockets of his facial tissue. Dunno where the eyeballs are, could be behind the facial tissue there or blown out.
I don't know about you but I'm seeing both of his eyeballs on the photo. One seems to have popped out a bit further than the other but both of his eye sockets seem to still have an eyeball each.
There doesn't seem to have been enough force in the shot to pop them out completely.
I think one of his eyeballs is in the pool of blood and the other barely hanging in his eye socket. Check out the white spots
Someone on here posted autopsy sketches of Eric and on that his eyes were both intact. I’m not sure if that was verified though. The small white stuff next to him could also be a piece of skull.
Eyes intact according to autopsy
Ohhh fair enough, I haven’t read the autopsy so I must be talking out of my ass
The nerves that hold the eyes in place are relatively strong. Will check autopsy