World
Australian twin 'wrote to Columbine pupil'
- From: AFP
- November 21, 2010
Ernest Hermeler arrives at Denver airport. Picture: Craig Ruttle Source: Sunday Herald Sun
THE Australian twin who killed herself in Colorado wrote letters to a Columbine High School student bullied by one of the killers in the 1999 massacre, local TV reported.
If confirmed the link would be the second between the joint suicide bid by identical twins Kristin and Candice Hermeler, who were found to have a photocopy of a Time magazine cover on the Columbine killers in their hotel room.
Local police have so far downplayed a possible connection with the massacre at the Columbine school, which is only a few kilometres away from the shooting range where the sisters shot themselves on Monday.
Kristin, who killed herself while her sister Candice survived with gunshot wounds, wrote to junior pupil Brooks Brown at the school in the Denver suburb of Littleton, Denver TV station KCNC said overnight.
They were sent in June and July after the April 20, 1999, shooting rampage by students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed 13 people.
According to KCNC, Kristin wrote two letters to Brown, a student at Columbine who in 1998 was bullied by Harris, but who later became friends with him.
In one letter Kristin wrote, "As someone who has been rejected, victimised and ostracised in their life, I would like to thank you for giving him (Eric) that chance," the television report said.
She also thanked Brown for accepting Harris and fellow shooter Klebold who had been "rejected and victimised by so many others."
The TV report did not identify the source of the letters. Calls to the Brown family home were not returned.
But police have downplayed the Columbine link - Sheriff's Captain Louie Perea reiterated overnight that the surviving sister told investigators that the event "happened a long time ago and she didn't care about it."
No other information about Columbine or other mass shootings was found in the twins' belongings, he said.
The twins' parents, Ernest and Kelsay Hermeler, arrived in Denver on Friday to care for their remaining daughter. They issued a statement through the hospital asking for privacy during this "extremely difficult time."
Suicide prevention links and resources:
Lifeline - 13 11 14 (24-hour help line) www.lifeline.org.au
SANE Australia on 1800 18 SANE (7263) www.SANE.org
Beyondblue Info Line 1300 22 4636 http://www.beyondblue.org.au/
NATO leaders devise Afghan exit strategy
US PRESIDENT Barack Obama and allies thrash out a plan to pass the battlefield to Kabul by 2014.
Concern over 'underground fire'
TESTS detect "heating of some kind" inside the New Zealand coal mine where 29 men are trapped.
