The mother of the shooter in the Sandy Hook Massacre once told his babysitter never to turn his back on the boy, indicating there were concerns about the future killer’s volatility from a young age.
Ryan Craft of Hermosa Beach, California, tells CBS Los Angeles that he babysat young Adam Lanza, and mom Nancy Lanza warned him the boy was not to be trusted:
I also remember that his mom, Nancy, had always instructed me to keep an eye on him at all times and never turn my back or even go to the bathroom or anything like that.
Kraft, who lived next door to Adam and Nancy in Newtown, Connecticut, and attended Sandy Hook Elementary school in fifth grade, babysat Adam when Kraft was 14 or 15 years old and Adam was 9 or 10. He told the television station that when he made the connection that the shooter was the boy-next-door he once babysat, “I just couldn’t work for a while; I was shaking.”
He remembers Adam as a strange, intense young boy:
Adam always struck me as an introverted kid. He was really, really quiet. And whenever we were doing something, whether it was building Legos or playing video games he was really focused on it — it was like he was in his own world.
Kraft is shocked by the tragedy and the knowledge that he may have escaped the same fate as Friday’s victims:
Right now I still think that I’m just numb to it, I haven’t really processed the fact that this happened right where I used to be … and 15 years ago it could have been me.
Kraft has started a fundraiser for victims of the tragedy.