Details begin to emerge about gunman’s family
12/18/2012STAMFORD, Conn. — The parents of Adam Lanza, identified by police as the gunman in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage because their relationship had “broken down irretrievably,” court records show.
Nancy Lanza had no income at the time the marriage was legally dissolved, in September, 2009.
Her ex-husband, Peter Lanza, made an annual salary of nearly $445,000 as an executive at General Electric and agreed to pay annual alimony of $240,000. That was scheduled to increase for cost-of-living considerations and Ms. Lanza was scheduled to receive $289,800 in 2012, court records show.
In interviews, people who knew Ms. Lanza say she was devoted to her troubled younger son, who was extremely bright but socially awkward and — until Friday — was not known as potentially violent.
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Police say Adam Lanza fatally shot his mother at their home in Newtown, Conn., on Friday morning before driving to the school where the attack was carried out.
Newtown police had no previous contact with Adam Lanza or concerns about him, state police Lt. Paul Vance said Monday.
The Associated Press reported that Lanza took classes at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury when he was 16 and 17 but stopped after the summer of 2009, about the time his parents’ divorce became final.
No details have emerged about whether he enrolled at another school or worked somewhere after leaving Western Connecticut State.
But his mother recently had been considering moving him to Washington state, said Mark Tambascio, a restaurant proprietor and close family friend, because she had discovered a school she thought would be good for him.