Newtown Shooter Problems Possibly Genetic, Drew Sinister Images, Say Mom's Emails

Days before Newtown shooter Adam Lanza's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, his mother Nancy worried that a genetic disorder he inherited from her and her grandfather might have contributed to significantly warping his mind, according to a family friend.

Nancy Lanza often vented about her son's escalating psychological issues, and other problems in emails and private chat conversations, a friend of the mother's, Marvin LaFontaine, recently told the New York Daily News.

"Nancy indicated that Adam's issues were genetic like hers," LaFontaine said.

Adam Lanza was afflicted with a strain of autism known as Asperger's syndrome, as well as a sensory perception disorder, which "prevented him from recognizing pain and caused him to recoil from being physically touched." As he grew older, Nancy Lanza became increasingly concerned his issues were a direct result of the family's history with genetic disorders.

The Daily News reports that "hundreds" of emails show that Nancy often worried her son's autoimmune disorder, which killed her grandfather in six weeks, was wreaking havoc on Adam's mental state.

When doctors discovered lesions on Nancy's brain in 1999, the mother said her diagnosis felt "like living on top of a time bomb." However, she chose to keep the news from her children.

"I am carrying the gene for this type of self-destruct," she wrote in an email to LaFontaine. "My diagnosis was not good. I was going under the premise that I had a limited time left ... about enough to get the boys settled in ... At one point I was trying to deal with the time frame of about 12 months."

Just weeks before the shooting at Sandy Hook, Nancy came to the realization Adam's problems likely extended far beyond his gene abnormalities. The doting mom found gruesome images of dead and mutilated bodies in Adam's room, though she decided against confronting him.

"One [drawing] had a woman clutching a religious item, like rosary beads, and holding a child, and she was getting all shot up in the back with blood flying everywhere," Nancy's friend said.

"Nancy was disturbed, really disturbed, but didn't confront him," he added. "She wanted to think it over."

According to newly released warrants that include reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the morning of Dec. 14, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the head as she lay in bed, packed four legally purchased firearms and drove a black Honda Civic to the Connecticut K-4 elementary school. Lanza opened fire in two classrooms around 9:30 a.m., fatally shooting 20 children and six adults with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, showering the rooms with 154-bullets in less than five minutes before taking his own life with a Glock 10 mm handgun. Police revealed the Bushmaster had a 30-round capacity magazine; 14 rounds were left in the magazine, with one bullet still in the chamber.

Police now believe Nancy enabled her son's fascination with guns by making "straw purchases" for him. The guns used in the shooting were legally purchased and registered to his mother. Authorities said Lanza was found dressed up in military clothing, including a bulletproof vest. He still had another three, 30-round magazines left for the Bushmaster rifle, as well as another loaded handgun on him. According to another warrant for the Honda Civic driven by Lanza, police found a fully loaded 12-gauge shotgun in the car, along with 70 rounds of Winchester 12-gauge shotgun rounds.

Since the tragedy, authorities have remained cryptically quiet on possible motives in the shooting, citing an ongoing investigation that could easily extend into summer.

News emerged recently that Adam Lanza may have been motivated to commit the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School because he was constantly abused and bullied while he was a student there, an unidentified relative has revealed.

The New York Daily News reports that Lanza "never seemed emotionally right after his time in Sandy Hook," according to a member of Lanza's family who would only speak on the condition of anonymity.

Evidence came out earlier in March that Lanza had been planning the shooting for "years," and had a bizarre collection of disturbing images in his room. Among the items collected from Lanza's home, police found three photographs of "what appeared to be a dead person covered with plastic and blood."

The New York Daily News spoke to an unidentified "law enforcement veteran" who visited a conference where Connecticut State Police colonel Danny Stebbins spoke at length about the tragedy and revealed numerous new details surrounding the case. Stebbins reportedly explained that police now know Lanza had been planning meticulously with a 7 foot long, 4 foot wide spreadsheet that displayed obsessively researched information - in nine-point font - concerning "virtually every mass murder" in the U.S. and abroad. Colonel Stebbins said he believed Lanza's obsession with video games was likely among the factors that motivated Lanza in the massacre.

According to an FBI report among released police warrants, Lanza hardly ever left home, thought of himself as a "shut-in," was a passionate gamer who often played the first-person shooter video game "Call of Duty," and believed the elementary school was his "life."

A 2011 Supreme Court decision upholding the right of minors to purchase violent video games in California ruled 7-2 that there is no conclusive causal connection between violent video games and violence.