NEWTOWN, CONN. — As this once-placid town struggled Saturday with the horror of 20 children and six adults gunned down at an elementary school, authorities said first-graders were shot as many as 11 times, some at close range.
"This is a very devastating set of injuries," Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver II said. "I've been at this for a third of a century and my sensibilities may not be the average man's, but this is probably the worst I have seen or the worst that I know of any of my colleagues having seen."
Officials released the victims' identities, a list of 12 girls and eight boys, all 6 or 7 years old. The adult victims were all women, including the principal, school psychologist and four teachers. Carver described the weapon used in the shooting as a "long gun," but did not give any specifics.
Grief in this storybook New England town gathered like a storm.
"Our wound is deep," said Patricia Llodra, head of Newtown's Board of Selectman. "We are a strong and caring place. We will put our arms around those families and around each other. We will find a way to heal."
New details emerged about the rampage that began Friday morning after the shooter killed his mother, whose body was found inside their home about three miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After shooting his mother, the gunman, Adam Lanza, 20, took three weapons from their house, drove to the school in her car and forced his way onto the locked campus, law enforcement sources said.
The gunman "was not voluntarily let into the school.... He forced his way in," said State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance. It is not clear why he targeted the school, authorities said. His mother, Nancy Lanza, 52, had never been a teacher or a substitute teacher at the school, officials said. Her connection to the school, if any, remained unclear.
Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, and school psychologist Mary Sherlach, 56, rushed the gunman, said Newtown schools Supt. Janet Robinson. Both were shot dead.
As shots and screams echoed through the hallways of the kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school, teachers and students scrambled to hide in classrooms and closets. First-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig herded 15 children into a bathroom.
"I turned the lights off. I told them we had to be absolutely quiet," Roig told ABC News. "I said there are bad guys out there now. I said now we need to wait for the good guys."
Within minutes, it was over.
Roman Catholic Msgr. Robert Weiss spent the night with state police and a grief counselor notifying families whose loved ones had been confirmed dead.
One family lost both a parent and a child.
"The reality is just settling in," he said.
Weiss has ministered to parents who have lost young children before, but said little could prepare him for the magnitude of the grief he was witnessing.
"I just hope God's hand will be on me," he said. "I draw strength from these families. They have suffered and are still going."
Parents here — and across the nation — grappled with how to explain the shootings to their children, especially during what is supposed to be a joyous holiday season. In Newtown, population about 27,000, many people know the victims or their families through a web of social ties, including sports leagues and churches. Some took down Christmas decorations and several church memorials were held.
A local plumber, who didn't want to be named, described how he took his three children to a restaurant Friday night. Upon leaving, his 3-year-old son stopped and asked if there was a shooter waiting outside.
"They needed to know that they were not in danger," the father said. "No one is going to hurt them."
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