The book took roughly ten years to research.
Cullen spent years investigating Columbine, interviewing people connected to the event and examining extensive documentary evidence before completing the book.
KODAMA / TRUE CRIME
2026
True Crime · Investigation · Psychology · History
Columbine
A decade-long investigation into the Columbine tragedy, examining the killers, the survivors, the investigation, and the myths that grew around one of the most consequential school shootings in American history.
Categories
Author
Dave Cullen
Publication
2009
Country
United States
Publisher
Twelve
Subject
Columbine High School
Type
True Crime / Investigation
A story about violence, investigation, grief, and memory.
Colorado · 1999
KODAMA ARCHIVE
TRUE CRIME
01
About the book
What happened at Columbine?
On April 20, 1999, two students carried out an attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The event became one of the defining tragedies of its era and permanently altered the way America talked about school violence.
Dave Cullen spent years investigating what happened before, during, and after the attack. Drawing from interviews, police records, psychological analysis, diaries, recordings, and extensive reporting, the book examines both the perpetrators and the survivors whose lives were transformed by the tragedy.
“
What really happened at Columbine was far more complicated than the story most people first heard.KODAMA / EDITORIAL NOTE
Archive
Four details that changed the story.
Many popular explanations were challenged.
Cullen's reporting questioned simplified explanations surrounding the attack, including several myths that became widely repeated in the aftermath.
The story follows both killers and survivors.
Rather than focusing exclusively on the perpetrators, the book also follows the experiences of survivors and the long-term consequences of the tragedy.
Columbine became a turning point in American culture.
The tragedy influenced public discussions about school safety, media coverage, violence, mental health, and the way subsequent attacks were understood.
Aftermath
The story didn't end that day.
Columbine examines not only the events of April 20, 1999, but also the years that followed: the survivors, the investigation, the public narrative, and the lasting cultural consequences of the tragedy.
1999
April 20
The attack at Columbine High School left 12 students and one teacher dead, many others injured, and a community struggling to understand what had happened.
2009
The book arrives
After approximately a decade of reporting, Dave Cullen published Columbine, presenting an extensive reconstruction of the tragedy and its aftermath.
Watch
Minute by minute timeline.
A detailed, minute-by-minute documentary account of the tragic events at Columbine High School, examining the timeline and unfolding of the tragedy.
ARCHIVE DOCUMENTARY
Columbine High School · Case Analysis
Legacy
More than a story about one tragedy.
Columbine remains significant because it examines not only a devastating event but also the stories created around it. Cullen's investigation looks at how incomplete information, media narratives, assumptions, and later evidence shaped public understanding of what happened.
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