Australian twins in Colorado suicide pact have eerie link to Columbine school massacre
Arapahoe County Sheriff
Kristin Hermeler, 29, of Australia died in a double suicide pact with her twin sister Candice. Kristin wrote letters to a former Columbine High School student after the massacre there in 1999. The case of the Australian twin sisters who shot themselves at a shooting range near Denver last week took a bizarre twist this weekend when reports surfaced that the twin who died had contact a student who was spared by killers on the day of the deadly school shooting at Columbine High School in 1999.
Kristin Hermeler, 29, who killed herself Monday at the Cherry Creek State Park Family Shooting Center in a bizarre suicide pact with her twin sister, Candice, who survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, had written two painful and empathetic letters to former Columbine student Brooks Brown months after the high school massacre, CBS News4 Denver reported.
The letters and phone calls are the second link between the sisters and the Columbine killings.
Earlier this week, a photocopy of a Time magazine cover about the Columbine shooting with the headline “The Monsters Next Door/What Made Them Do It?” was found in the sisters’ hotel room.
Brown had once been bullied by Columbine shooter Eric Harris but the two had allegedly made peace and became friends.
On April 20, 1999, the day of the massacre, Harris reportedly told Brown to go home before he and Dylan Klebold, the other gunman, stormed the school and killed 15 people, including themselves, and inured 24 others in what at the time was the deadliest school shooting in American history.
In the first letter, dated June 12, 1999, Kristin described herself to Brown as “someone who has been rejected, victimized and ostracized in their life'' and thanked Brown for giving Harris a second chance at friendship after Harris had bullied him.
In a second letter, dated July 14, Kristin wrote, "I just wanted to write to you and let you know that not a day goes by that I do not think about what happened."
Kristin also wrote in that letter that she had watched Brooks discuss his experiences being bullied on an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show and that “Words could never tell you how sorry I am that you feel like anyone hates you.”
“It completely baffles me as to why anyone would hate someone when they don't know them, it sickens me," she wrote.
Both letters were posted on The Denver Post’s website.
"It was a very sweet letter, very sad," Brown told the Post. "It was her wanting to know why it happened, trying to understand."
Brown also said they made contact by phone, letters and e-mail but had not been in touch for many years.
Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office said Kristin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Her sister, Candice, who is recovering from a .22 caliber bullet wound to her forehead at Swedish Medical Center, told police in an emotional bedside interview Thursday that the sisters had shot themselves but denied that they were obsessed with the Columbine massacre.
"I don't give a (expletive)," Candice told the police, the Post reported. "It happened a long time ago."
Captain Louie Perea, a spokesman for the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, said Candice was agitated and frustrated during the interview and that she insisted that the Columbine killings had no connection to their simultaneous suicide plan.
The sisters, who are from Australia's Victoria state, had been in the Denver area for about five weeks.
They didn't attempt to contact Brown or his family during their time in the United States.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/21/2010-11-21_australian_twins_who_shot_themselves_at_colo_shooting_range_have_odd_link_to_col.html#ixzz16BvhD3AM
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