Adam Lanza Literally Couldn't Feel Pain

He also took college classes at age 16
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 17, 2012 10:50 AM CST
Shooter Literally Couldn't Feel Pain
This undated photo shows Adam Lanza posing for a group photo of the technology club which appeared in the Newtown High School yearbook.   (AP Photo)

When Adam Lanza shot himself after his massacre on Friday, he probably didn't feel a thing. The alleged shooter suffered from a rare condition that literally caused him to feel no pain, a faculty member at his old high school tells ABC News. The man, an adviser for the tech club, says that if Lanza cut or otherwise hurt himself, "he would not know it or feel it." It's perhaps the strangest of a number of new details emerging about the gunman.

  • Lanza was intelligent enough to attend college classes at age 16, and managed a 3.26 GPA while doing so, the AP reports. "We attributed him being quiet to him being so much younger than the rest of us," one fellow student says. "I assumed he was this super smart kid who was just doing extra course work."
  • But by all accounts, Lanza was always quiet. "Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," one neighbor wrote on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."
  • Lanza also had a standing interest in guns. Both Lanza and his mother often visited a local gun range, ABC reports, though it is unclear if they ever went together.
  • As bad as the shooting was, it could have been worse; Lanza came to the school carrying enough ammunition to kill nearly every student inside, the AP reports.
  • Police today revealed that a second adult survived Lanza's attack, and is currently recuperating in the hospital, NBC News reports. Authorities intend to question the two survivors when their condition improves. "There are many, many witnesses," one police lieutenant said.
Click for more on Lanza—and what his mother reportedly told a former babysitter about him. (More Adam Lanza stories.)

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