Columbine
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What really happened on April 20, 1999? The Columbine High School massacre left a scar on the American conscience—a day of horror that reshaped national conversations on school safety, violence, and the troubled minds behind mass murder.
Marking its 25th anniversary, this definitive edition revisits the tragedy with fresh urgency. In the years since, Columbine has become a blueprint for a chilling new genre of violence: spectacle murders. Yet much of what we thought we knew about that day was wrong.
Dave Cullen, one of the first journalists on the scene, spent a decade investigating the truth. Drawing on thousands of pages of police records, psychological profiles, and the killers’ own journals and sketches, Cullen dismantles the myths and uncovers the complex, disturbing reality. His investigation reveals not just the path of destruction, but the warning signs, missteps, and media distortions that followed.
But Columbine isn’t just about the killers. It’s also a story of the survivors—the teachers, students, and families who rebuilt their lives in the shadow of trauma, carrying with them quiet strength and resilience.
Gripping, unflinching, and deeply human, Columbine is a landmark in true crime reporting—and essential reading for understanding how one tragedy ignited a national epidemic.