LITTLETON, Colo. -- The two teen-age gunmen who went on a murderous rampage at a suburban high school here wanted to kill 500 classmates and neighbors, then hijack a plane and crash it into New York City, authorities said yesterday.
The details were discovered among hundreds of pages of diary entries found in a ledger in the bedroom of Eric Harris, 18. Police say he and Dylan Klebold, 17, apparently planned the attack at Columbine High School more than a year ago.
Yesterday, investigators finished interviewing an acquaintance of Klebold -- an 18-year-old woman who is suspected of buying an assault weapon used in last Tuesday's attack. Twelve students and a teacher were murdered before the gunmen apparently killed themselves.
Steve Davis, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's office, said the young woman has been released. "There is not enough evidence for her to be classified as a suspect," he told reporters yesterday afternoon.
Police have said a gun used in the killings may have been bought by her at traveling gun show. The weapon, a TEC-9 semiautomatic 9 mm pistol, was outlawed by the federal 1994 assault weapons ban, though guns made before the ban can be sold. The other weapons were two sawed-off shotguns and a High-Point 9 mm carbine.
The Jefferson County Coroner's Office said yesterday that toxicology tests on the bodies of the two youths did not show traces of drugs or alcohol. In addition, Davis said that investigators had not found any illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia at their homes.
The parents of one Columbine student said they repeatedly warned local police about Harris' hateful rantings on the Internet, including a statement that he wanted to "kill everyone in Denver."
Randy and Judy Brown said sheriff's investigators ignored their complaints. Yesterday, sheriff's officials acknowledged receiving a warning from the Browns last year. The Browns will be interviewed again, the officials said.
Nearly week after the shootings, residents of this Denver suburb continued to mourn and bury their dead. Four funerals were held yesterday, and a makeshift memorial outside the school continued to grow and covers an area larger than a football field.
One of the largest tributes at the school memorial was for Dave Sanders, a coach and business teacher who lunged across cafeteria tables to knock students out of the way of gunfire. He was hit twice and bled to death in the arms of students more than three hours after the siege began.
Hundreds of cards and poems about Sanders adorn the school memorial site, along with a softball jersey and a request from one of his players: "Put me in coach, I'm ready to play."
More than 2,700 overflowed the Trinity Christian Center where Sander's funeral service was held yesterday. During the service his daughter, Angela, called her father a hero. "You hung on well past the end and saved so many lives," she said.
Six days of mourning and a national memorial service held Sunday has not eased the community's pain.
At another funeral yesterday, 17-year-old Cassie Bernall was hailed as a martyr to her faith. According to witnesses, one of the gunmen demanded to know if she believed in God. "Yes, I believe in God," she said. The gunman then shot her in the head.
Lines of people continued to bring flowers and remembrances to the school memorial yesterday, including a poster by Amorous Grogan, who attends a nearby elementary school.
"Why must people shoot?" the youngster wrote on the poster on behalf of his classmates. "Why must people hit and hurt instead of getting along? I don't know the answers to these questions, although I must ask."
In another tribute to the Littleton victims, trading was halted for one minute at noon yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Police said they are continuing to investigate whether Klebold and Harris had help in distributing more than 30 bombs around the school.
Three male friends of Harris and Klebold have retained lawyers, but police continue to insist they are not suspects. Politicians, including Colorado's governor, have raised the possibility of charging the gunmen's parents for not stopping their children.
Members of a so-called "Trenchcoat Mafia," Harris and Klebold felt they were outcasts at Columbine, who had been bullied and ridiculed by the "jocks" who reportedly ran the school. Harris and Klebold carried out their attack on Hitler's birthday and also targeted blacks.
The Web sites maintained by Harris and his diary show that the attack was in the works for some time -- since March 1998 -- and that it was to have been on a much grander scale.
Davis, the spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, said Harris wrote in his diary that he and "Vodka," his nickname for Klebold, planned to kill hundreds of students. The pair then would carry their rampage into the surrounding neighborhood before hijacking a plane that would be crashed into New York City, Davis said. Other Harris entries have the two young suspects escaping to an island.
It is unknown whether the suspects hoped to carry out those plans. Davis said the evidence has yet to show they planned to hijack a plane. Davis speculated New York was chosen as a target because of "population density."
Davis said investigators believe the killings were over 15 minutes after they began about 11: 15 a.m., and gunfire heard during the 3 1/2-hour siege was most likely police officers laying down "cover fire" as they slowly searched room to room.
Randy Brown, who lives several blocks from the Klebolds, says the tragedy could have been avoided had police taken his concerns seriously a year ago.
In an interview yesterday, the real estate agent said he and his wife, Judy, had filed at least two official complaints about Harris and followed up with six to eight phone calls.
Brown said Harris threatened to vandalize the Browns' car in a conversation with his son, Brooks, 17. The Browns' complaints include everything from Harris setting off firecrackers in the neighborhood to building pipe bombs in his basement, Randy Brown said.
Brown said he turned over 16 pages of Harris' Internet postings, including diagrams of bombs and a threat to "kill everyone in Denver." The diagrams included a bomb that used a propane tank strapped with dynamite, which is similar to a device found in the high school cafeteria.
Brown said he came forward because of public statements by investigators that they had no advance warning of trouble.
"They are incompetent," Brown said of the sheriff's department. "The police did not do their job." A day after his wife warned police about bombs, she saw Harris in a local store reading a firearms periodical, he said.
Brown said he's talked with the Klebolds since the rampage and the family had no idea that their son had been involved with Harris. "They are devastated and do not know how this could have happened," he said.
Davis acknowledged the department received one complaint from the Browns, but he insisted that no details were available.
Later in the day, Sgt. Jim Parr of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said police would interview the Browns again. "I do not want to diminish their anger or their frustration, but what they were talking about happened a year ago, and we have to look at what happened a week ago."
Columbine students are to return to school Thursday at nearby Chatfield High School, sharing the campus but attending evening classes. Columbine will be closed for the remainder of the school year.
Funerals are scheduled through Thursday, making it difficult for residents and students to put the tragedy behind them. They keep coming to the memorial, trying to put into words what they find difficult to say:
"Let us pray then," said one sign left behind, "not only for patience and tolerance, but for the courage and resolve to drive this evil from our community and our nation."