we probably can begin to understand adam. >> and in our second story, a town divided over guns. >> when they pass a law that violates the constitution, i will not comply. >> and how the shootings have moved grieving newtown residents to join the debate. >> you have a tremendous power. and the fact that you're from newtown is even more important. >> we cannot be defined as a culture that accepts this. >> things must change. this is the time. >> these two stories in this special edition frontline. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support for frontline is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information is available at macfound.org. additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. and by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from millicent bell, through the millicent and eugene bell foundation. >> it's been a week since the shooting. (bell tolling) for most of the journalists in this newsroom, they've never covered anything that came close to being as horrific as this. it is a singular event in the history of connecticut. (bell tolls) >> narrator: a week after adam lanza massacred 20 children and six adults at sandy hook elementary school, church bells tolled across the state. memorials were erected to the 26 victims. president obama read out 26 names. but there was a 27th person murdered that day-- the gunman's mother, nancy lanza. >> nancy lanza is the person adam was closest to in the world. she was the first person he killed. he shot her four times in the head while she was in bed, and then he went off to sandy hook elementachool. if we can begin to understand adam's relationship with nancy, we probably can begin to understand adam. >> one of the things that josh and i talked about early on when we were given this assignment is the fact that it didn't seem like nancy was ever really mentioned as a victim in this case. we had heard a lot of different things about her through other news outlets. we weren't even sure if they were true. we come to find out later that some of them weren't. >> we knew there was some diagnosis, some... deficit, some social deficiency, and how that complicated their relationship and what it took to bring this kid along, and some... to some degree what happened, those were our marching orders. >> there are going to be many obstacles in reporting the story. the cops aren't saying much, they're still sort of holding back. the family members in this case are very reluctant to talk. >> and adam left very little behind. it's surprising that someone in this era where almost everything makes an imprint can still leave very few imprints along the way. there's been this firestorm of coverage and some of it was right, some of it was wrong. >> people are just worn out from having reporters knocking on their doors, calling their house. they see another reporter and they think, why would i want to talk to you after all we've been through? >> when i found out about the connecticut shootings, i closed the door to my office and just started to shake. >> narrator: from the outset, the question was raised again and again in the media: was nancy a victim or was she to blame? >> are there firearms around your house? >> oh, my goodness, no. having the child that i have i would never own a firearm. i would never have firearms in my house. and i think that's just a responsibility issue. >> narrator: the story begins in kingston, new hampshire. nancy jean champion grew up here, and in 1981 would marry peter lanza. eventually they built this house on the champion family's land. they had a son, ryan, in 1988. and four years later, along came adam. >> the person that we're going to talk to, he described himself as a dear friend. he seems to have been involved with her a lot before she left new hampshire so i think he can tell us about life with adam in the early days. >> narrator: this is the first time that marvin lafontaine has spoken to the media. >> tell me how you first met nancy? >> through the scouts. >> okay, do you remember what year she actually joined the cub scouts with the boys, what year it was? >> '94, '95. >> 1994-95. >> nancy was there for every single meeting with her kids. she never missed one. those kids were everything to her and she was very, very protective over them and i understand that. i was very protective over mine too. >> just in terms of adam, what do you remember seeing? >> just a quiet kid. kept to himself. there was a weirdness about him and nancy warned me once at one of the scout meetings. she said, just so you know, and she said i know you wouldn't do this, but just so you know, don't touch adam. i go, well, i wouldn't touch him. she goes, i don't mean like that but i mean like don't do "at a boy" thing or shake his hand and say "way to go, brother." she said, "he just can't stand that." >> did you ever see a reaction to touching? >> yeah, he'd become upset. usually it would be one of the other kids, you know, one of the kids-- they're kids, you know, they don't care and they touch him and, um, i don't know, he was angry with them. >> narrator: marvin's and nancy's young children were friends through the cub scouts. in this exclusive home video filmed by marvin, nancy helps her brother james, a police officer, set up a demonstration for the scouts. (adam imitating dog bark) >> he sounds like a dog. >> narrator: that's adam, age four and a half, walking towards the camera. >> did she talk about special programs adam was in at school? >> she said he was coded. >> and describe coded to me? >> iep, individual education plan. i could see it was bringing her down. she didn't know what to do and, um, there's a lot of counseling help available but not all of it's good and she was very particular about who she would bring him to. she often didn't trust, you know, the intentions of some counselors, that maybe they didn't know what they were doing or they didn't understand the situation enough to help. >> narrator: children with disabilities are entitled to an individualized education program, known as an iep. for nancy, it would be the first of many efforts over the next decade and a half to keep a struggling adam on track. >> and then they decide to go to connecticut. >> it was her husband's idea, and she didn't want to go at first. >> was it because he got the job at ge? is that what it was? >> yeah, he got the job. he made a lot of money, he was very successful. the good thing is that she said she thought the schools in connecticut were better. there was more stuff there to help him versus new hampshire, and she was very pleased about that. >> narrator: it was 1998 when peter's job took the family to the affluent suburb of newtown. they settled into the spacious home where nancy and adam would spend the rest of their lives. nancy and marvin kept in touch by e-mail. >> friday, may 21, 1999, nancy writes to marvin: "adam is in two plays next week. ryan was in one last night. it has been so cute to watch them rehearse. adam has taken it very seriously... even practicing facial expressions in the mirror!" the e-mails at one point do turn a little dark. she does talk about how she was ailing. she doesn't specify what her disease is, but on thursday, july 1, 1999, she writes: "my diagnosis was not good. there isn't a fancy name for my problem, just a genetically flawed autoimmune system. when it happened to my grandfather, it was so quick that nothing could be done. six weeks. it's like living on top of a time bomb. i have told very few people"-- and she highlights "very" in all caps-- "and have not told even some people in my family to try to save people from unnecessary worry." narrator: it has been reported nancy had multiple sclerosis, but frontline and the hartford courant were unable to confirm. >> wednesday, march 31, 1999, nancy writes: "ryan's and adam's birthdays are coming up. ryan is having an "old friend" party and a "new friend" party. adam is having only a "new friend" party, but he has 26 new friends! adam is doing well here, and seems to enjoy the new school." what an adorable class, huh? and where's your son? wait, don't tell me. i'm gonna guess, i'm gonna guess. there. >> no, that's adam. >> oh, that's adam? >> yeah. >> narrator: the new school adam was so fond of was sandy hook elementary school. he was six years old and in the first grade. wendy wipprecht's son miles, who is autistic, was in adam's class at sandy hook. and was invited to his "new friend's" birthday party. wendy now has parkinson's. >> adam had his sixth birthday party and invited a group of kids to go. that's where i remember talking with nancy. nancy was concerned about adam. he was shy, a little withdrawn, quiet. she was worried that perhaps he had some kind of neurobiological condition. >> wendy, were there any support groups? >>oh, sure. >> did you ever participate in any? >> sure. did you ever hear whether nancy did? >> none of the ones that i was in, but she was talking about sending adam to st. rose because classes were smaller and she thought he might do better there. >> did she say why she thought he needed... >> i think it was his shyness and uncomfortableness, i guess, in large social situations. a class of 20 people is a lot for a six-year-old to handle. >> so did he not have a one-on- one aide like miles did? >> no. he may not have been diagnosed with anything at the time. what can pass inspection at six often is not going to pass inspection, say, at nine. but at whatever age, even if you're merely suspicious, it's a kind of awful thing to have to deal with. >> so nancy, she sort of did it on her own. what do you think that would have been like for you to do it on your own? >> oh, impossible. >> narrator: soon after moving to newtown, tensions develop between nancy and her husband peter. in her e-mails to marvin lafontaine, she described him working 16-hour days and growing distant. >> (on phone): this is alaine griffin calling from the hartford courant. >> narrator: the hartford courant has made repeated attempts to reach peter lanza. >> it's probably tough to talk to the media, but we were hoping to get in touch with you because we feel you can help us to correct what has been reported out there in terms of this story. we have reached out to multiple family members. there wasn't anybody that wanted to go on the record and speak with us but we developed along the line was a family member who was willing to give us an e-mail that gave us some really good information about adam that had not been out there before. we learned through this e-mail that while peter and nancy did get divorced in 2009, peter actually had been out of the house in 2001. >> peter lanza continued to support his family financially. >> narrator: the e-mail also said that adam as a young boy had been diagnosed with sensory integration disorder-- a not widely accepted diagnosis involving difficulties processing and reacting to stimuli. later, in middle school, the family member said adam would receive another diagnosis: asperger's, a form of autism that interferes with social interan. >> i want to talk a little bit about the middle school years. because isn't this when we start to hear about adam having problems that go beyond just the diagnosis of sensory integration? >> we were told around middle school... the middle school years. >> right. there was the initial diagnosis, and then the diagnosis of asperger's. >> and that goes to... social isolation, inability to communicate with others. but there's nothing, there's nothing that connects asperger's to the kind of violence we saw at... >> absolutely nothing by itself, absolutely nothing. >> family members have told us that when middle school came upon adam and the whole idea of changing classes and being in the hallways, that was too much for him. >> why? do we know why? >> the noise and the chaos disrupted him, is what we were told. >> so she moves him out of the public school system and into st. rose of lima? >> she didn't move him into parochial school right away. initially she had this special program set up for him. he was under the supervision of newtown schools, but he would do some of his work offsite and at home. and then he would later return to the school when the rest of the students weren't there. >> okay. and after st. rose of lima, though, back to newtown high school, which is a big school. so why if movement and, and people being around him are a problem is he back at newtown high? >> i don't know. >> we don't know? >> narrator: changing schools again, adam arrives at newtown high school in 2006 and receives special education help. though painfully shy and awkward, he joins the school technology club at the urging of the club's advisor, richard novia. >> i knew him for about four years, between the middle school and the high school. i identified him as a person who would be likely to be bullied or picked on and that's when i began to interact with his mother. how was it that she was dealing with him and what could i do? >> and what did she say about that? >> she was failing at bringing him out of his little world. and i said that i think i can help him. >> what was her reaction to that? >> she didn't think it would work. >> how often do you recall nancy being on campus on a weekly basis? >> there were periods of time where i think i saw her two or three times a week, and then you'd have a good month or two and i'd see her once. >> why would she typically be there on a two or three...? >> adam had episodes, it was the best way i can describe them to you... uh, where he would completely withdraw. he would become accustomed to certain things and when you try to raise that level or bar, he would pull back. >> you mean a change? >> yeah. he would avoid the crowds in the halls. people rushing to the cafeteria, rushing to get to classes-- that would make him nervous. where he felt fearful of other people. but over time i was able to get closer and closer to him to a point where i felt i could sit next to him and he wouldn't pull away. he wouldn't withdraw. >> did nancy acknowledge that and let you know that she recognized that? >> yes, she saw it working. >> did you get a sense that in his development he was at a crossroad? >> i think adam had come a long ways. there's a picture out there that shows him standing up with the other kids. there's this funny little face on him. he's not quite smiling. i was there when those pictures were taken and i can tell you that to have adam stand for that picture proves there was success. so the problem happens after. he goes backwards. >> narrator: these photographs were obtained exclusively by frontline. news reports to the contrary, nancy never spoke of disagreements with the school and believed adam would grow up to be a functional adult, according to the family member's email. the relative went on to describe adam as brilliant, saying he played the saxophone and studied mandarin chinese. and yet, in 2008 nancy removes him from newtown high. >> when you left for other pursuits in july of 2008, did you learn that nancy took adam out of high school? >> yes. >> why do you think she pulled him out? >> i don't know. i've pondered this issue for a long time, i've often wondered if she felt one of his main support networks was no longer there. i don't know. >> so you don't feel like you're in a position to know whether that was a good idea or a bad idea? >> it was a bad idea either way. you have a boy who was receiving a tremendous amount of support. suddenly when she pulls him out of there, he loses all those support groups. that's where he would have fallen farther and farther into his problems because he didn't have the mental health support group that he once had. >> richard, when it was observed that adam in high school was playing violent video games, did anyone try to dissuade him? >> a lot of kids were playing violent video games. adam had shown at that point early on some high interest in the violent aspect of those games. >> you know that first hand? >> i remember that he would love to... he would opt to sit on the computer playing games like that rather than to go play ddr, which is dance dance revolution. >> you would remember what game he may have played? >> my best of my recollection, and some people have said there are other games too, but it was world of warcraft at that time. there's a lot better games now. >> did it ever come to your attention that nancy was into shooting sports? >> no, that shocked me to hear that nancy would have had anything to do with guns. >> what we understand is that she did shoot with ryan and adam at a range. >> yes, that was a mistake. >> why, richard? >> i have a child who loves to do the hot rod driving simulator on the tv, playing the video games. i sh