text: Reporter: Thank you for meeting with me. I know you don’t see many visitors. **Prisoner: I’ve read your work before. I like how you write.** Reporter: I appreciate that. **Prisoner: I liked your oped last week.** Reporter: About the Medicare reform bill? **Prisoner: Yes, that one.** Reporter: Is that why you agreed to speak with me? Because I might tell your story sympathetically? **Prisoner: My story deserves no sympathy.** Reporter: So why did you agree to this? **Prisoner: I like the way you write.** **** Reporter: Let me tell you why I’m here. The reason I wanted to talk to you is that you are very different from shooters who came before you. **Prisoner: No, I’m not.** Reporter: You’re not a disturbed loner - **Prisoner: I am disturbed. I’m pretty lonely.** Reporter: Fair enough. But you weren’t always.. **Prisoner: No, I wasn’t.** Reporter: You’re not a radical, you’re not a religious fanatic. You’re a data analyst living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. You have no history of addiction, criminality, financial duress, zealousness, mental illness - **Prisoner: -- well, I’m not sure -** Reporter: -- no *longstanding* history of mental illness. Home, bought and paid for, decent nest egg, wife, family - **Prisoner: -- family... -** Reporter: -- family, dog, lots of friends. You could be anyone. **Prisoner: And yet, here you are with me.** Reporter: You could be anyone, but such an act of terrorism, it seems to me - **Prisoner: I’m not a terrorist.** Reporter: You’re not a terrorist? **Prisoner: No, I’m not.** Reporter: Maybe we’re getting too deep too quickly. Why don’t we take a breath. **** Reporter: Let’s start with your family. You have 2 children - **Prisoner: -- had -** Reporter: I’m sorry, you had 2 children. Your elder, Sam, is 12 now? **Prisoner: 13** Reporter: Yes, 13. I apologize. She’s a rising eighth grader at Washington Junior? Tell me about her. **Prisoner: Sam is 13. She’s the light of my life. She loves piano and books and writing stories about aliens and superheroes.** Reporter: She sounds wonderful. **Prisoner: She does well in school. She used to do better, but she’s doing fine, all things considered. I think they’d classify her as gifted if not for... Her favorite singer is Cat Stevens, and her current dream is to plant a million trees.** Reporter: How is she doing nowadays? **Prisoner: Not great.** Reporter: Isn’t that to be expected? Didn’t you expect that? **Prisoner: Of course I did.** Reporter: Of course. I’m sorry. We’ll come back to Sam. **** Reporter: Your second child, your son, Chris, is two years younger than Sam? **Prisoner: Was.** Reporter: Yes, was. Chris was 7 when it happened? **Prisoner: 7. Chris was 7.** Reporter: He was 7, finishing up 2nd grade. **Prisoner: Yes. He and Sam were both at the same school then.** Reporter: Lincoln Elementary. **Prisoner: Yes, Lincoln. She was 9, he was 7.** Reporter: So tell me about Chris. **Prisoner: What is there left to say? Every minute of his life has been dissected by every news outlet and web sleuth.** Reporter: But don’t you want to tell me about him? **Prisoner: No, I don’t think so.** Reporter: OK, but you can tell the world about him, about what he meant to you. **Prisoner: He’s gone.** Reporter: You can honor his memory - **Prisoner: He’s gone. There is no one left to honor -** Reporter: OK, OK, let’s - **Prisoner: ... there is no one left to honor, and pretending that we somehow keep his spirit alive when no matter how many stories we share or tears we shed, nothing we do can do him any good -- that’s what dishonors his memory.** Reporter: OK. OK. **** Reporter: Chris was one of 47 children killed in what was then the deadliest school mass shooting in this country’s history. **Prisoner: Yes. He was the 3rd child killed that day.** Reporter: The whole world is sorry for your loss. **Prisoner: Thank you. Chris was killed for no reason, but he was killed** ***third*** **because he began sobbing after the shooting began. 7 year olds cry, but Chris was more sensitive than most. He used to cry when he was going to bed. Said he would miss us while he slept. Whenever he did that, we used to tell him that it was time for him to grow up... It was something we were working on.** Reporter: To see what he must have seen... **Prisoner: It was too much.** **** Reporter: After mass shooting events, especially of younger children, other parents have gone on to create advocacy groups, support networks. Why haven’t you channeled your anger into something productive like they have? **Prisoner: I thought about it. I tried for a few months. To get involved. To speak out. But I just stopped.** Reporter: What happened? Why did you stop? **Prisoner: I kept asking myself, why is it on me?** Reporter: What do you mean? **Prisoner: Why is it on me? It was my family that was ripped apart, literally flesh from bone. My son was unrecognizable. I am unrecognizable. Some days I still find it hard to find the will to inhale, and it’s on me to make this a better world? Why does any of this fall on me?** Reporter: You’re right. It shouldn’t be on you. But you didn’t end up doing nothing, did you? **Prisoner: No, I did something.** **** Reporter: Earlier, I said that Chris was murdered in what was then the nation’s largest mass school shooting because that record has since been surpassed. **Prisoner: Yes.** Reporter: By the time you were captured, 54 children had died or sustained the injuries that would later kill them. And you didn’t choose a random school. You chose Sidwell Friends, DC’s most elite private school. **Prisoner: I did.** Reporter: A school that counts among its students children of politicians and dignitaries. You chose an outdoor assembly where students would be gathered closely and could be attacked from a distance. Of your victims, 6 were children of Congressmen, 2 of Senators, and 1 the grandson of a Supreme Court Justice. **Prisoner: Yes.** Reporter: These are people who make the laws that govern, among others, access to high capacity firearms like the ones you used last January. **Prisoner: Like the ones used on my son.** Reporter: Yes. You chose the same models that were used against your son. **Prisoner: I did.** Reporter: Do you think these weapons should be outlawed? **Prisoner: Of course I do.** Reporter: And yet you chose to use them. **Prisoner: They’re not illegal.** **** Reporter: Earlier, you claimed that you’re not a terrorist, but it seems pretty clear that you were targeting the lawmakers who made it possible for mass shooters to procure the weapons that killed your son. And who then made it possible for you to procure those same weapons. **Prisoner: I did target them, but I’m not a terrorist.** Reporter: How is this not terrorism? **Prisoner: Because nothing will change.** Reporter: Did you think that if these people felt what you feel, that they would change their minds? **Prisoner: Nothing ever changes.** **** Reporter: As you might be aware, one of the victim’s fathers, a congressman, has publicly switched his stance on gun control. It’s been reported that 1 other is considering changing his as well. Does that give you hope? **Prisoner: How much hope do you think they have?** Reporter: Then do you believe that what you did could be taken as a warning to lawmakers and politicians? **Prisoner: It shouldn’t be. What I did was entirely predictable. A certainty.** Reporter: And why does that matter? **Prisoner: Because a warning is a threat. An eventuality just is.** Reporter: Then do you believe that what you did is a call to action for copycats to keep doing what you did until they change their minds? **Prisoner: The next mass shooter will be a mass shooter regardless of my actions.** Reporter: But they might not otherwise target the children of lawmakers as you did. **Prisoner: My victims are not the last children of lawmakers to die like this.** Reporter: So if not a warning, if not a terrorist act, was it an act of revenge? **Prisoner: No, it wasn’t revenge. Revenge could have been enough, but I honestly didn’t care about revenge. I didn’t see the point in it.** Reporter: So why? **Prisoner: Because this is the world now.** Reporter: What do you mean by that? **Prisoner: This is the world we have now. The world we’ve allowed, the world we’ve designed. And this is what happens in this world.** Reporter: It doesn’t sound like you take a lot of responsibility for what you did. **Prisoner: This is the world they created. I’m just an agent of that world. I was bound to happen, so I let me happen.** **** Reporter: Let’s talk about the children, the ones you killed. These kids did nothing wrong - **Prisoner: My kid did nothing wrong.** Reporter: -- nothing other than to be born to politicians you disagree with. **Prisoner: Some of those politicians I agree with.** Reporter: When you entered the room, when you looked into their frightened eyes, didn’t you know that you were doing something terribly wrong? Evil? **Prisoner: Of course** Reporter: What did you feel? **Prisoner: Compassion, sorrow, shame, disgust.** Reporter: And yet you went ahead **Prisoner: Yes** Reporter: Why? **Prisoner: There is no logic to losing my child -- or any child -- in such an unnatural way, in such a preventable way, a sacrifice to nothing. There is no rational response to irrationality. I went ahead because in a senseless world, there are only senseless actions.** **** Reporter: Have you ever thought about what Chris would have wanted? **Prisoner: Of course.** Reporter: Would he have wanted this? **Prisoner: He would not have wanted this. He would be horrified.** Reporter: So then why did you do it? **Prisoner: My son is dead.** Reporter: Even if he wouldn’t have wanted this? **Prisoner: My son is dead. He doesn’t want anything.** Reporter: But don’t you sully his memory by doing such a terrible thing? **Prisoner: What I do now means nothing to him.** **** Reporter: There is still Sam. **Prisoner: Yes, Sam.** Reporter: She suffers from losing her brother, but she also suffers from knowing what you did and losing her father. **Prisoner: What I did to her was unforgivable.** Reporter: Why didn’t that stop you? **Prisoner: I used to tell my kids a story about the mathematics of love. When I met their mother, she filled my whole heart with love, edge to edge, 100%. But then when Sam came into the world, even though my heart was already completely full, I instantly loved her too with my whole heart, edge to edge, 100%. And when Chris was born, my heart was filled yet again, and I loved him with the entirety of heart, just as I did his sister and his mother. Each of them occupied 100% of my heart, edge to edge, and I could not love each of them any more than I did. Only love works like this.** Reporter: That’s a lovely sentiment, but doesn’t that mean that Sam still fills your heart? **Prisoner: It means that when Chris was killed, my heart was destroyed completely. My love for Sam is unending, but so is the absoluteness of the void. I am simultaneously full of love and incapable of love.** Reporter: I don’t understand. I might follow your logic, however tortured it may be, but when it leads you to a course of action that forces you to re-traumatize and then abandon your daughter, how could it possibly make sense? **Prisoner: She understands. She will understand. She will never forgive me, but she’ll make it through.** Reporter: For her sake, I hope you’re right. **Prisoner: I wish I could have been different for her.** **** Reporter: Let me ask you about your wife. **Prisoner: I think I’m done now.** Reporter: I’m sorry? **Prisoner: My wife isn’t my wife anymore. She won’t talk to me.** Reporter: I know. **Prisoner: I’m done. I’m tired. I’m ready to go back to my cell.** Reporter: I have just a few more questions for you before you - **Prisoner: -- Hello? Can I be done here?** \[Guard enters the room and unshackles the prisoner from the table.\] Reporter: Please, just five more minutes. What happened with your wife in the aftermath of your son’s death? Did you seek counseling? What was your relationship with Sam after Lincoln? I want to understand - **Prisoner \[exiting the room\]: I’m actually easy to understand. I could be anyone.