Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza's dad: 'I wish he'd never been born'

Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza&#039;s dad: &#039;I wish he&#039;d never been born&#039;

(Image credit: Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Peter Lanza, father of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, says his son "would have killed me in a heartbeat, if he'd had the chance." In a heart-wrenching story over at The New Yorker, Andrew Solomon writes about Peter's struggle to make sense of the massacre that left 26 people dead and his son's role in it. And one passage in particular sticks out:

I wondered how Peter would feel if he could see his son again. "Quite honestly, I think that I wouldn't recognize the person I saw," he said. "All I could picture is there'd be nothing there, there'd be nothing. Almost, like, 'Who are you, stranger?'" Peter declared that he wished Adam had never been born, that there could be no remembering who he was outside of who he became. "That didn't come right away. That's not a natural thing, when you're thinking about your kid. But, God, there's no question. There can only be one conclusion, when you finally get there. That's fairly recent, too, but that's totally where I am." [The New Yorker]

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Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.

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