Newtown: An American Tragedy by Matthew Lysiak Read Free Book Online Page B

of disturbing graphics Adam had drawn. The images depicted people in various states of death. The educator brought them to the attention of school officials, who felt the drawings warranted enough concern to bring Nancy in for a parent-teacher conference. She defensively told the faculty by wayof explanation that Adam had Asperger’s syndrome and was struggling to fit in.
    Adam’s time at his new Catholic school lasted just eight weeks. In June 2005, Nancy pulled him out of St. Rose of Lima. She was increasingly at a loss about what to do next and becoming more concerned. At home, she found more death-themed drawings by Adam and images of violence that he had printed out from his computer. Again, desperately searching for help for her troubled son, she consulted an expert in Hartford, Connecticut. Again, she didn’t feel that her concerns were being addressed.
    “If one more person tells me that he is going to grow out of it, I think I’m going to lose my mind,” Nancy confided to a relative. “My son is sick, but no one seems to want to do anything about it.”

CHAPTER 4

THE HIGH SCHOOL YEARS
    A s Adam Lanza was about to enter his first year of high school in the fall of 2006, Nancy felt encouraged. Finally, she believed, she had found an advocate at Newtown High School who would be responsive to her son’s needs and was willing to work with his Asperger’s syndrome and sensory perception disorder.
    “Very encouraged with Newtown High,” Nancy wrote, sending a message to a friend. “Fingers crossed.”
    Nancy had been looking forward to the beginning of the school year. Over the summer her worries about her son’s mental health were compounding. While the other children in Sandy Hook were busy swimming in the pool at Treadwell Memorial Park or cooling off with some homemade ice cream at the Ferris Acres Creamery, Adam continued to isolate himself, spending the vast majority of his summer vacation between the walls of 36 Yogananda Street on his computer or playing video games.
    “It’s so hard to pull him out of his own little world,” Nancy told a friend that summer. “Still searching for that healthy balance of pushing him hard enough while not pushing him too hard.”
    Nancy hoped that a new academic year and a new school environment might snap her son out of his self-imposed solitude. Working with the Newtown High School administration and Richard J. Novia, the head of security, as well as the school’s Tech Club adviser, they devised a program in which Adam would begin in a private classroom. This appealed to Nancy because it would mean Adam would be alone, where it would be quiet and he wouldn’t have to move from room to room, which could set him off. In time, if all went well, Adam would then be folded back into the main building with a mix of special education and honors classes.
    Adam joined the Tech Club, a group of forty students who created robots, built computers, and even ran their own TV show that filmed local sporting events. The instructor, Novia, agreed to take special precautions while Adam was around the equipment. Since Adam didn’t feel physical pain like a normal person because of his sensory perception disorder, whenever Adam was using soldering tools and other potentially dangerous equipment he had to be closely watched.
    From the beginning it was apparent to the class that Adam was a natural in the world of computers. As a sophomore in a class filled with juniors and seniors, he immediately stood out as the only one who could build a computer from scratch. His eyes grew wide and he seemed to go off into his own world as his hands and mind worked fluidly to wire complex circuitry onto the motherboard.
    Novia, who started the Tech Club, saw Adam’s potential andfragility and immediately took the fourteen-year-old under his wing. He worked with him patiently, trying to get him to join the rest of the group.
    “I wanted to help him,” said Novia. “There was this glimmer in his