Skepticality #109 - Columbine - Interview: Dave Cullen

On April 20, 1999, two boys left an indelible stamp on American society when they carried out their plan to kill as many of their high school classmates as they could. The very word "Columbine" has come to represent a specific brand of unthinkable horror: when children make a calculated decision to murder their teachers and peers.

In the chaos and aftermath of that April day, legends and misinformation quickly proliferated. A great deal of what was reported about Columbine was simply not true.

Author Dave Cullen has spent the last ten years of his journalistic career studying the lives of the residents of Littleton Colorado as they were before, during, and after this shattering event. Cullen's seminal book on the subject, Columbine, delves deep into the psyches of the killers, the victims, and their families — to set the record straight not only about what really happened on that fateful day, but why.