Robyn Anderson thought Dylan was going to Arizona because he liked the desert; Devon Adams because it was his ticket out of Colorado. “He had the best time ever,” Devon says of his visit to Arizona. He invoked his trademark humor and had pictures of himself hugging a cactus. “He was getting on with his life,” Devon says. “Past high school. Past all that stuff. I mean, graduation was in what? A month?”

   At prom Dylan danced with Devon Adams and made plans to see The Matrix on Wednesday, April 21st, which still perplexes her. “It could mean that they had planned [the shootings] and didn’t have a set date or something like that, you know,” she says. “It could mean anything. But it seems ‘cause Dylan never ever wanted to disappoint me. That was why he came to my birthday and confirmation party, even though he didn’t really want to. I mean, he didn’t like disappointing people. Like every time he and his parents would get in a fight, he felt so bad because he had disappointed his parents. He always felt bad because he had disappointed them in some way to make them angry at him. And I mean, that’s what’s like so weird about him making a date with me on a Wednesday when, if he knew that Tuesday, you know, this was going to happen.”

The Klebolds also called Dylan’s friend, Devon Adams, the day after the shooting to invite her to Dylan’s funeral. “I wasn’t there to talk to them, but they called us and I had told my parents if they called to tell them that I was there for them if they needed me,” Devon says. She ended up attending the funeral for slain student Rachel Scott instead, which was the same day. “Possibly my biggest regret in life is attending Rachel’s funeral and not Dylan’s,” Devon now says.

   Nearly six months after Columbine, Devon Adams called the Klebolds on what would have been Dylan’s 18th birthday, September 11, 1999.  
They still had the same phone number and she left a message.  She called to "Let them know I was thinking of them.  I was keeping them in my thoughts.  Let them know I hadn’t forgotten about them.  I hadn’t forgotten about Dylan, and I was still around.”

Devon also had a gift for the Klebolds and went to their house, where she spent a couple hours talking “about memories and stuff.”  She recounted how he helped her after her car accident.

   "I think they thought it was pretty cool,“ she said of the car story. ”We were T-boned while crossing an intersection, and Dylan stopped his car and ran up to my window and was just like, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ and he was freaking out, and I just told him to go get my parents and tell them to come up here and get me.“ 

  Then Devon and the Klebolds got to what had brought them together: The killings.  And why Dylan did it.  The Klebolds were still considering, as Devon puts it, "The multiple personality possibility” but adds, “Just, I mean, any theory you’ve heard of… literally.  I mean, we’ve talked about all of them.”

   The Klebolds cried at some points while Devon was there.  “But it was probably because I was crying first; because I cried a lot,” she says.           
   When Devon talked with the Klebolds a year later on September 11, 2000, Sue gave her an open invitation to hang out with her and Tom to watch a movie, or use their pool or tennis court, but Devon was too busy to take them up on the offer.  The Klebolds also said they were putting together a photo scrapbook of Dylan.

    People sometimes have a hard time describing how the Klebolds look.  Devon remembers Susan wearing Dylan’s jeans after his death, which is tough because Susan is not especially tall, while Dylan was around 6-feet 4-inches.  But its also tough recalling much more.  Devon believes it may be Susan’s sadness and her eyes that always seem to be filled with tears.  “It’s sort of the thing were you don’t want to remember; you don’t want to remember pain, and Susan really embodies pain and she’s pretty much been through the worst that you can go through and so you don’t really; you try to block that out,” Devon says.  “It’s obvious in everything she says; in her voice, yeah.  In her eyes, and just her mannerisms.”

-excerpts: Columbine A True Crime Story – Jeff Kass

Devon never saw the violence when Dylan was alive.  When they whacked each other with foam noodles in the pool, it was all fun and games.   Other guys tackled her when they played football, but not Dylan.  And when she cut her leg on the field, Dylan flipped out.  He called a time out and washed her leg off.   He didn’t like dogs and was scared of Devon’s Siberian Husky, but dealt with the animal, again, out of respect for her. 

   “He didn’t want to disrupt anything, you know?”  Devon says.  “was always very respectful of everything.”

  Devon did see flashes of anger in Dylan.  It might be a “dumb” occasion like getting a bad test grade.  Or a spat over something inconsequential.  At first, Dylan suppressed the anger.  “I remember one time when he and I got in a fight cause I said something I shouldn’t have to him; I was just was really, really angry at him, I don’t remember why; I was just mad at him, and he just walked away, and I don’t know if he ever got really mad about it.  But he just walked away, and he just stayed away from me for about a week.  And then it was fine.  We talked about it.  It was fine.  But he was really, really upset for a while.”

She heard about Eric and Dylan blowing things up on the nighttime, “rebel missions,” or launching “tons of fireworks.”  She knew Eric named a bomb “Pazzie,” and another “Anasazi,” after an ancient people who inhabited the southwest Colorado and who some believe practiced cannibalism.  But she says, “Half of the student population knows how to build pipe bombs and stuff.  And everyone likes playing with fireworks.  I had no idea.  No clue at all.”

   Eric, Devon believes was the live wire who helped Dylan get from Mr. Nice Guy to Columbine killer.  “He [Dylan] was entirely one person around Eric and then someone else around everyone else,”  Devon says.  With Eric, Dylan was “Crazy Dylan,” she adds.  “Crazy videotapes in the basement.  Crazy go shoot people.  Make bombs Dylan.  You know?”  

   Eric was the tough guy filled with aggression, she says.  Scary and intimidating, he dressed commando and was never happy.  He might get a CD he liked, but would then get angry and kick something.  Eric was a lurker who tried to be like everyone else, but couldn’t connect.  The jerk who ticked people off, even Dylan.  It showed in Eric’s death when almost everyone who knew him said they weren’t really friends with him, or had had a falling out.

   "He [Eric] just kind of hung out and was a pain in everyone’s bum,“  Devon says.
   Dylan was the leader when it came to everything else in life.  ”If Dylan liked something, Eric automatically liked it.“  Devon says.  "Bands, clothing, all the different stuff.”

  It wasn’t so much that Dylan’s parents “missed” Columbine, Devon says.  They didn’t even see it.  He kept it hidden.  When Devon realized what was happening the day of Columbine, she knew it was Eric, although it’s still hard for her to believe Dylan was there too.  She can only conclude, “It was the two of them against everyone else." 

Dylan wasn’t much into lyrics.  When it came to techno, says Devon, "LIke, the more bass he could get in that music, like subwoofers and stuff, the better.  He really liked that.  A lot of it is mostly instrumental, which he liked a lot.  He didn’t have to deal with all the lyrics and stuff.  He wanted to make up his own mind what the music was about.  He did not like to be told what to be feeling.  He was an individual.  He always strove to be an individual.  He didn’t always succeed.  You can just lose yourself in techno music.  I remember nights staying up with him and he just drifted off.  Music shuts down the outside world.”  

   Sue Klebold says she once asked Dylan about a poster of shock rocker Marilyn Manson in his room and he replied that he didn’t really listen to the lyrics, but the music.  Another one of his favorite bands was the Chemical Brothers.  And at one point, he talked with Devon about going to one of their upcoming concerts.  But Devon notes, “He obviously never ended up going to it because it came in summer of 1999.”

-excerpt: Columbine A True Crime Story – Jeff Kass