Survivor Susan Klebold Tells Her Story
Susan Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters who went on to take his own life, speaks publicly about her son for the first time in the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.
In 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in suburban Denver. Twenty-one people were injured before Klebold and Harris killed themselves.
In her essay, Susan Klebold wrote that she didn't know her son was suicidal until she read his journals after his death:
"Dylan's participation in the massacre was impossible for me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death. Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide."
Klebold decided to speak out after 10 years to use her story to raise awareness about suicide, depression and organizations such as AFSP and the American Association of Suicidology. Both organizations are mentioned in the article along with information about AFSP's National Survivors of Suicide Day.
The article was facilitated in part through a relationship AFSP has with Sue Klebold. The article is moving, heartfelt and honest and talks about her son’s undiagnosed depression. While a uniquely tragic story, many aspects of what she discusses in the article are quite similar to what other survivors experience.
