Nancy Lanza told friends just one week ago that she felt she was losing her son Adam and could no longer reach him.
Within days police said Adam Lanza would kill his mother and then launch an attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead.
A friend of Nancy Lanza told the New York Daily News that the woman normally didn’t talk about her son, but in the last week confessed that she feared the direction he was headed.
“She just looked down at the glass and said, ‘I don’t know. I’m worried I’m losing him,’ ” said the friend, who remained anonymous. “She said it was getting worse. She was having trouble reaching him.”
The friend retold a story about Adam Lanza seemingly losing a grip on reality and his ability to feel.
“Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something,” he recalled of a conversation they had about a year ago. “It was like he was trying to feel something.”
Reports have said that the three guns Adam Lanza used in Friday’s school shooting all belonged to his mother, and that the two would visit a shooting range together.
Nancy Lanza was even considering moving to Washington state with her son, the Washington Post reported .
“They were going to move out there together,” said Mark Tambascio, a restaurant proprietor who had known Nancy Lanza for several years.
“He was her whole life. She was very proud of both of her sons,” Tambascio added. “She never mentioned that [Adam] was suicidal or violent. Nothing like that. Everyone that had spent any time around him, they knew he was a little bit different, but you never saw any major, major issues.”
Nancy Lanza never got a chance to make a fresh start with son Adam. Police said he shot her in the head four times on Friday morning before taking her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School.