The father of Adam Lanza, who murdered 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly two years ago, opened up about his personal guilt and son's mental state in an interview with The New Yorker.
Peter Lanza, vice president of GE Energy Financial Services, said his son, who took his own life after the killings, was "evil."
"You can't get any more evil," Peter Lanza told The New Yorker.
His son walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14, 2012 and shot and killed 20 students and six adults before turning the gun on himself. Earlier that day, Adam Lanza killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, shooting her four times.
Peter admitted he has no doubt that given the chance Adam would have killed him too.
"I don't question that for a minute. The reason he shot Nancy four times was one for each of us: one for Nancy; one for him; one for [his brother] Ryan; one for me," Peter told The New Yorker, according to the New York Daily News.
Peter and Nancy Lanza got divorced in 2009. Peter, who said he had not seen Adam in the two years before the shooting, expressed guilt for what his "socially awkward" son did.
"How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he's my son?" Peter told The New Yorker. "A lot."
Nancy did not give any indication that she was scared of her son.
"She never confided...about being afraid of him. She slept with her bedroom door unlocked and kept guns in the house which she wouldn't have done if she were frightened," Peter told The New Yorker, according to the Daily News.
Peter said his son, who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, was not the same person when he died.
"You can't mourn for the little boy he once was," Peter said.
The father believes his son was misdiagnosed, and was really a schizophrenic.
"Asperger's makes people unusual, but it doesn't make people like this," he said.
Peter spoke to The New Yorker because he hopes his information can benefit the families of the people his son killed.
"I need to get some good from this. And there's no place else to find any good. If I could generate something to help them, it doesn't replace, it doesn't-" Peter said. "But I would trade places with them in a heartbeat if that could help."
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