On a spring day in Littleton, Colorado, 17-year-old Rachel Joy Scott was sitting outside on the grass of Columbine High School with a friend, enjoying her lunch. It was April 20, 1999, a day that would soon turn tragic. Without warning, two fellow students, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, began an assault on the school. Rachel was their first victim, shot four times by Eric Harris. She was fatally wounded by a shot to her left temple.
Her friend, Richard Castaldo, was also shot multiple times but survived his injuries.
The two assailants, Harris and Klebold, continued their deadly rampage, moving from outside the school to within its walls, where they would claim the lives of 12 other innocent people and injure more than 20 others. The attack, which Harris and Klebold had been planning for about a year, was intended to be a large-scale bombing, but the primary devices failed to detonate. The shooters then proceeded with a coordinated armed assault, using a small arsenal of firearms.
The massacre ended when Harris and Klebold took their own lives in the school library, the same location where they had murdered ten of their victims. Because the perpetrators died by suicide at the scene, no arrests were ever made in connection with the murders at Columbine High School. The motive behind their horrific actions has been the subject of much speculation, with theories ranging from retaliation for bullying to a fascination with Goth culture and violent video games. However, subsequent investigations suggest that Harris and Klebold chose their victims at random. In the aftermath of the tragedy, two individuals who had supplied a gun to the shooters were sentenced to prison.
