Rebecca Carnes, Ryan Lanza, Adam Lanza and the 2007 NHS Freshman Yearbook Oddities
Rebecca Carnes
Could Adam Lanza really be a compilation of his brother Ryan Lanza and an unidentified young man featured in the 2007 Newtown High School yearbook?
While at Newtown’s Cyrenius Booth Library recently, I located the Newtown High School yearbook from 2006 which features Ryan Lanza as a graduating senior (see below pics).
A Daily Mail article published on Dec. 16, 2012 stated that Adam Lanza was a member of the Newtown High School Tech Club in 2007 when he was a freshman (as shown in the below famous pic of Adam standing with his fellow Tech Club members). This information about Adam Lanza was widely circulated in the press. The Dail Mail article states:
In 2007, when he was a freshman, he was pictured along with ten of his classmates for a group photo of the ‘Tech Club,’ which ‘allowed students to explore technology and promote events’ on student TV.
Ryan Lanza is indeed listed and pictured as a junior in this 2005 NHS yearbook that I viewed at the Cyrenius Booth Library in Newtown. However, the Newtown Library did not have the NHS 2004 yearbook in its collection which would have shown or listed Ryan Lanza as a sophomore. The Newtown Library did have a 2003 NHS yearbook in its collection, but the 2003 yearbook did not have Ryan Lanza pictured or listed in the ‘Camera Shy’ section as a freshman at Newtown High School in 2003.
Richard Novia, the school district’s head of security until 2008, who also served as adviser for the school technology club, said Lanza clearly ‘had some disabilities.The 2007 NHS yearbook also does not show Adam Lanza listed as a freshman and he is also not listed in the Class of 2010 ‘Camera Shy’ students who missed photo day for the 2007 yearbook.
‘If that boy would’ve burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically,” Novia told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “It was my job to pay close attention to that.’
Mr Novia described Lanza as ‘a very scared young boy, who was very nervous around people he could trust or he refused to speak with,’ Novia said.
‘Somewhere along in the last four years, there were significant changes that led to what has happened,’ Novia said. ‘I could never have foreseen him doing that.’
Former classmate Olivia DeVivo said she remembered Lanza talking about ‘blowing things up’, but added: ‘I put that down to the usual talk of boys. I think he went so unnoticed people didn’t stop to think, “There’s something going on here – maybe he needs some kind of help?”That same article also strangely quotes 2010 NHS class president Ben Federman as saying he barely remembered Adam Lanza and neither did any of his classmates he spoke with while home in Newtown for Chirstmas break in 2012. But then he goes on to say that he remembered a specific detail about Adam Lanza – that he always carried around a briefcase instead of a backback (even though he was just quoted as saying he barely remembered his classmate at all).
‘No one is surprised. He always seemed like he was someone who was capable of that because he didn’t really connect with our high school, with our town.’
Another former school friend, Jamie Crespo, 19, said: ‘He used to hang with the freaks, guys who dressed in trench coats.’
Other students remember him walking through school dressed in black, carrying a black briefcase.
Newtown High School’s 2010 class president Ben Federman is like the rest of his classmates – he can barely remember Adam Lanza.Strangely, even though the Newtown Library has an extensive collection of Newtown High School yearbooks dating back to the 1970s, the years 2008, 2009 and 2010 (which would have been Adam Lanza’s yearbook dates for his sophomore, junior and senior year, respectively) – are all missing from the Cyrenius Booth Library collection in Newtown. I do not know if home schooled students are included in photos or “Camera Shy” lists for NHS yearbooks.
Mr Federman, who was home from attending college at Vanderbilt University, told MailOnline that he had heard from many graduates from the class of 2010 and none of them can think of a single friend Lanza had.
‘The only time I ever saw him was in the hallway and he never seemed to engage anyone. He was just focused on walking from one class to another,’ Mr Federman said.
His only memory of the 20–year-old Lanza was the bizarre way he dressed – always in button-down shirts that were too big for him. He also usually had pens in his shirt pocket and usually carried a black leather briefcase.
‘You noticed that because it was different. He carried a briefcase and not a backpack,’ Mr Federman said.
As a side note – I did notice a picture of an odd-looking, unidentified young man featured in the “Clubs” section of the 2007 NHS yearbook with a similar hairdo and facial features as the pictures of Adam Lanza widely circulated in the media. Again, the 2007 NHS yearbook would have been Adam Lanza’s freshman year at Newtown High School.
Rebecca Carnes is a third-generation Newtown, Conn., resident. Email Rebecca at dandelion1972@protonmail.com. To help Rebecca continue her research and writing, please consider making a donation to support her efforts. paypal.me/NewtownRooster
Correspondence may also be sent to Rebecca at the following address:
P.O. Box 3671
Newtown, CT 06470
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