"I Am Adam Lanza's Mother"; Inside the Violent Mind
O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everyone. You're watching a special edition of STARTING POINT. We're coming to you this morning from Newtown, Connecticut. "I am Adam Lanza's mother," that's a line from a blog post that has now gone viral. The author is Liza Long and she writes about the difficulties of living with a teenage son who is mentally ill.</s>LIZA LONG, BLOGGER, "THE ANARCHIST SOCCER MOM": Sometimes for no apparent reason he will turn into this absolute raging, I don't know how to describe it. You'd have to see it to believe it. I stopped and said to myself, you know, this isn't normal. I have to face up to the fact that I have a sick son and we need help.</s>O'BRIEN: Liza tells CNN that she loves her son, but that, quote, "terrifies me." There are many questions that are still unanswered about the Newtown school tragedy this morning, the biggest of course is why and maybe that will never be answered. Why did the suspected shooter have first graders in an elementary school in his sights? Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us a research on previous mass murderers, giving us a possible window inside the violent mind.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first thing you notice when you look around Newtown, everyone has that questioning look, why? What did we miss, if anything? No answers yet, just hindsight. (on camera): To try and make some sense of the tragedy here in Newtown, Connecticut, medical investigators often look for evidence of patterns, not talking about looking at clothing styles or musical preferences or even lifestyle, but rather looking for evidence of specific plans, could get some clue as to what was happening in the person's mind and in their brain. (voice-over): It's hard to know because thankfully there are relatively few tragedies like this one, but a close look at ten of the most analyzed mass murder cases in history provide some remarkable insight. According to this research published in the "Journal Aggression and Violent Behavior," doctors typically start by placing these killers into three categories, traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic. In 2005, a 16-year-old killed nine people at a school in Minnesota. A look into his past revealed an abused boy with an awful family history. The shooter had been previously traumatized. The Virginia Tech shooter killed 32 people, six were murdered in Arizona and 12 lives were taken in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. In each case, the killers showed signs of psychotic behavior, severe delusions and paranoia. Thirteen people were shot and killed in Columbine, Colorado. One of the murderers was later discovered to be a textbook psychopath and we now know he even laughed while gunning down his victims. Looking back, none of them had snapped. They had all left clues, pieced together after it was too late, hindsight. (on camera): We still don't know much about the shooter who lived in this home, but there is something else to consider, what medications, if any, he was on, and specifically I'm talking about antidepressants. If you look at the studies on other shootings like this that have happened, medications like this were a common factor. I want to be clear, I'm not saying that antidepressants can't be effective, but people seem to agree there is a vulnerable time when someone starts these medications and when someone stops could lead to increased impulsivity, decreased judgment, and making someone out of touch. (voice-over): None of this is an excuse and it's never one thing. None of these behaviors will fully predict or explain why, but soon again there will be hindsight that might just help prevent another tragedy. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Newtown, Connecticut.</s>O'BRIEN: After several mass shootings in a few short years, the Newtown massacre might be the tipping point for Washington to ask. We are going to talk this morning with Arizona Congressman Ron Barber who took over Gabby Giffords' seat after the Tucson shooting. And we might actually be closer to a deal on the fiscal cliff, believe it or not. We'll tell you why President Obama's new proposal could be the compromise Republicans are looking for. That's ahead.