AP source: Suspect killed mother at their home

WASHINGTON (AP) — A law enforcement official says that the 20-year-old suspect in the Connecticut school shootings killed his mother at their home Friday and then drove his mother's car to the school where he went on a deadly rampage.

Adam Lanza's mother, Nancy, was a teacher at the school, said the law enforcement official.

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Adam Lanza's older brother, Ryan, 24, of Hoboken, N.J., was questioned bylaw enforcement in New Jersey and was extremely cooperative, said a second law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation. Ryan Lanza is not believed to have any involvement and is not under arrest or in custody, but investigators were still searching his computers and phone records, said the second official.

Ryan Lanza told law enforcement that his brother was believed to suffer from a personality disorder and be "somewhat autistic" and lived with the mother in Connecticut, the second official added.

Earlier, a law enforcement official mistakenly transposed the brothers' first names.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they official were not authorized to speak publicly about the developing investigation.

The first official said Adam Lanza is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

According to the first official, the suspect drove to the scene of the shootings in his mother's car. Three guns were found at the scene — a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols — and a .223-caliber rifle. The rifle was recovered from the back of a car at the school. The two pistols were recovered from inside the school.

Meanwhile, former Jersey Journal staff writer Brett Wilshe said he has spoken with Ryan Lanza of Hoboken, who told Wilshe the shooter may have had Ryan Lanza's identification.

Ryan Lanza has a Facebook page that posted updates Friday afternoon that read that "it wasn't me" and "I was at work."

One of the officials said earlier Friday that a girlfriend of one of the Lanza brothers and another friend were missing in New Jersey. Subsequently, the third official said police had talked with the girlfriend. One of the friends had to be reached in California, so it took some time.

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Connecticut Shooter Adam Lanza: 'Obviously Not Well'

Good Morning America - Connecticut Shooter Adam Lanza: 'Obviously Not Well' (ABC News)

Adam Lanza of Newtown, Connecticut was a child of the suburbs and a child of divorce who at age 20 still lived with his mother.

This morning he appears to have started his day by shooting his mother Nancy in the face, and then driving to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School armed with at least two handguns and at least one semi-automatic rifle.

There, before turning his gun on himself, he shot and killed 20 children, who President Obama later described as between five and 10 years of age. Six adults were also killed at the school. Nancy Lanza was found dead in her home.

A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."

Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described Nancy as very rigid. "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said one friend.

State and federal authorities believe his mother may have once worked at the elementary school where Adam went on his deadly rampage, although she was not a teacher, according to relatives, perhaps a volunteer.

Nancy and her husband Peter, Adam's father, divorced in 2009. When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."

Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young.

Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young for four years, apparently following in his father's footsteps and carving out a solid niche in the tax practice. He too was interviewed by the FBI. Neither he nor his father is under any suspicion.

"[Ryan] is a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer. Ryan sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day. Video records as well as card swipes at Ernst & Young verified his statement that he had been at the office.

Investigators are looking into whether Adam Lanza was carrying his older brother Ryan's identification at the time of the shooting, which may have caused the confusion. Neither Adam nor Ryan has any known criminal history.

With reporting by Pierre Thomas, Jim Avila, Santina Leuci, Aaron Katersky, Jason Ryan and Jay Shaylor

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Principal among victims in Conn. shooting rampage

This July 2010 photo provided by the Newtown Bee shows Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Eliza Hallabeck) MANDATORY CREDIT: NEWTOWN BEE," title="This July 2010 photo provided by the Newtown Bee shows Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Eliza Hallabeck)

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — The principal at the Connecticut elementary school where a gunman opened fire in a rampage Friday, killing 26 people including 20 children and then himself, was identified as one of the victims.

A well-liked and experienced administrator, Dawn Hochsprung was among those gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary where she had been principal since 2010, said Gerald Stomski, the first selectman of nearby Woodbury. He said police told him of her death.

Hochsprung was a principal in Woodbury schools before taking the job in Newtown, Stomski said. He said people throughout town were mourning her death.

"She had an extremely likable style about her," Stomski said. "She was an extremely charismatic principal while she was here."

She frequently tweeted photos from her job and wrote upbeat tweets about what was going on at the school. Four days before she died, she posted a photo of two kindergarten girls paying for groceries over a toy cash register in a classroom. She called them "kinders" and saw them as "74 new opportunities to inspire lifelong learning!"

More hauntingly, she wrote a letter before the school year outlining new safety measures including locked doors during school hours, several publications reported, and tweeted a photo of students who'd been evacuated from the building during a safety drill earlier in the school year.

"I don't think you could find a more positive place to bring students to every day," she told The Newtown Bee newspaper in 2010 in a story about the hiring of new administrators in the district. She had worked for 12 years as an administrator before coming to Sandy Hook, including six years in nearby Danbury, the newspaper reported.

Connecticut school shooting suspect was honours student who lived in prosperous neighbourhood

WASHINGTON - He was an honours student who lived in a prosperous neighbourhood with his mother, a well-liked woman who enjoyed hosting dice games and decorating the house for the holidays.

Now Adam Lanza is suspected of killing his mother and then gunning down more than two dozen people, 20 of them children, at a Connecticut grade school before taking his own life.

The 20-year-old may have suffered from a personality disorder, law enforcement officials said.

Investigators were trying to learn as much as possible about Lanza and questioned his older brother, who is not believed to have any involvement in the rampage.

Lanza killed his mother at their home before driving her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School and — armed with at least two handguns — carried out the massacre, officials said.

A third weapon, a .223-calibre rifle, was found in the car, and more guns were recovered during the investigation.

So far, authorities have not spoken publicly of any possible motive. They found no note or manifesto, and Lanza had no criminal history.

Witnesses said the shooter didn't utter a word.

Lanza's aunt said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it.

Marsha Lanza, of Crystal Lake, Ill., said she was close with Adam Lanza's mother and sent her a Facebook message Friday morning asking how she was doing. Nancy Lanza never responded.

Marsha Lanza described Nancy Lanza as a good mother and kind-hearted.

If her son had needed counselling, "Nancy wasn't one to deny reality," she told The Associated Press late Friday.

Marsha Lanza said her husband saw Adam as recently as June and recalled nothing out of the ordinary about him.

Catherine Urso, who was attending a vigil Friday evening in Newtown, Conn., said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style.

"He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths," she said.

Adam Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held "LAN parties" — short for local area network — in which students would gather at a member's home, hook up their computers into a small network and play games.

Gloria Milas, whose son Joshua was in the club with Lanza, hosted one of the parties once.

She recalled a school meeting in 2008 organized by the gunman's mother to try to save the job of the club's adviser. At the meeting, Milas said, Adam Lanza's brother Ryan said a few words in support of the adviser, who he said had taken his brother under his wing.

"My brother has always been a nerd," Ryan Lanza said then, according to Milas. "He still wears a pocket protector."

Joshua Milas, who graduated from Newtown High School in 2009, said Adam Lanza was generally a happy person but that he hadn't seen him in a few years.

"We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart," Joshua Milas said. "He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius."

Lanza and his mother, Nancy, lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown, a prosperous community of 27,000 people about 60 miles northeast of New York City.

A grandmother of the suspect — who is also the mother of Nancy Lanza — was too distraught to speak when reached by phone at her home in Brooksville, Fla.

"I just don't know, and I can't make a comment right now," Dorothy Hanson, 78, said in a shaky voice as she started to cry. She said she hadn't heard anything official about her daughter and grandsons. She declined to comment further and hung up.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said investigators believe Lanza attended the school several years ago but appeared to have no recent connection to the place.

At least one parent said Lanza's mother was a substitute teacher there. But her name did not appear on a staff list. And the law enforcement official said investigators were unable to establish any connection so far between her and the school.

Adam Lanza's older brother, now 24 and living in Hoboken, N.J., was being questioned, a law enforcement official said. He told authorities that his brother was believed to suffer from a personality disorder, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the unfolding investigation.

The official did not elaborate, and it was unclear exactly what type of disorder he might have had.

Ryan Lanza had been extremely co-operative and was not under arrest or in custody, but investigators were still searching his computers and phone records. Ryan Lanza told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, said he sent him a Facebook message Friday asking what was going on and if he was OK. According to Wilshe, Lanza's reply was something along the lines of: "It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God."

Adam Lanza attended Newtown High School, and several local news clippings from recent years mention his name among the school's honour roll students.

Lanza's parents filed for divorce in 2008, according to court records. His father, Peter Lanza, lives in Stamford, Conn., according to public records, and he reportedly works as a tax director for General Electric.

A neighbour in Newtown, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from monthly get-togethers theneighbourhood women had a few years back for games of bunco, a dice game.

"She was a very nice lady," Cullens said. "She was just like all the rest of us in the neighbourhood, just a regular person."

Cullens recalled that Lanza liked to garden and to make her house look nice for the holidays. Lanza joked, though, that no one noticed because the house was out of view, up a hill, she said.

Sandeep Kapur, who lives two doors down from the Lanza family in Newtown, said he did not know them and was unaware of any disturbances at the Lanza house in the three years that he and his family have been in the neighbourhood.

He described the area as a subdivision of well-tended, 15-year-old homes on lots of an acre or more, where many people work at companies like General Electric, Pepsi and IBM. Some are doctors, and his next-door neighbour is a bank CEO, said Kapur, a project manager at an information technology firm.

"The neighbourhood's great. We have young kids, and they have lots of friends," he said. "If you drive past this neighbourhood, it gives you a really warm feeling."

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Keyser reported from Chicago.

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