We know who carried out the massacre at Columbine. Still, law enforcement collected every scrap of crime scene evidence. For those who are crime scene buffs, here you’ll see some of what was collected.
In March of 2004 the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, five whole years after the massacre, and under pressure to be more transparent, finally put on display all the evidence that was collected from the Columbine investigation. One evening they put the materials on display for just the parents of the victims; the next day they were on display for the public. Those were the only two public displays.
The new Sheriff wanted to demonstrate that everything they had was being made available. It was pretty overwhelming. There were two large rooms full of materials–everything from propane tanks to bomb and bullet fragments, the infamous trench coats the killers wore, shot-by-shot (literally) diagrams of the crime scene, bullet casings, videos, and much more. We could look but obviously could not touch. Written volumes of reports were displayed but could not be read. Some materials are closed by court order.
It was a tough evening for the victims’ parents. In some evidence areas there was just silence as parents struggled with what they saw. Here are some representative photos–but certainly not all that was on display.
It was very eerie to see the infamous “1 bleeding to death” sign that was placed by students in a classroom window to tell the authorities about heroic teacher Dave Sanders’ condition.
Dave Sanders’ condition in one of the school rooms.
Especially difficult to view were the diagrams of the library, showing how and where they found everything. How painful it was to see the positions of the victims, and how overwhelmingly painful to see how and where Daniel’s body was found under table 9, yet also reaffirming to see the location of the chair that he defiantly pushed at the shooter who killed him.
Daniel Mauser Memorial Website 