Article from O,

The Oprah Magazine

Questions for "I Will Never Know Why"

Questions for page 1

  1. Why was Oprah so interested in an interview with Susan Klebold?
  2. Which day changed Susan Klebold’s life forever?
  3. Which job did Susan Klebold have?
  4. Susan received at phone message from her husband, which said: "Susan—this is an emergency! Call me back immediately!" - What did Susan think had happened?
  5. Why did she think there had been a car accident?
  6. Why did Susan’s husband ask her to "Listen to the television!"?
  7. What made Susan’s husband suspect that Dylan was involved in the shooting?

Questions for page 2

  1. What was Susan Klebold thinking of when she drove the 26 miles from her office to her home?
  2. Susan was very afraid that Dylan might be hurt – why didn’t she even for a moment consider that it was Dylan who was hurting the others?
  3. Did they have any guns at the Klebolds’?
  4. What had changes in Dylan’s behaviour the weeks leading up to the shooting?
  5. Eric and Dylan had been in trouble before – what had they done about a year earlier?
  6. How did Susan react when she finally came home?
  7. When the SWAT team arrived – how did they treat the Klebolds?
  8. Why did the SWATteam react as they did?

Questions for page 3

  1. Why did helicopters begin circling over their house?
  2. Why were the Klebolds told to evacuate for a few days?
  3. Why did Kleboldshide in the basement of a family member's house?
  4. How was Dylan as a child?
  5. Dylan was very happy as a child what changes in his adolescence?
  6. When did Dylan’s passion for learning disappear?
  7. Dylan loved his computer, which he built himself, he played games but not everything he did with the computer was quite legal – what did he do?
  8. Why did Susan and her husband try to keep Dylan from seeing Eric?
  9. How did Dylan look by his senior year?
  10. The Klebolds had planned a future for Dylan – where was he to go after graduation?

Questions for page 4

  1. How long time went by before the sheriff's department began sharing some of the evidence explaining what happened that day?
  2. In the period where they did not know what really happened Dylan's friends and family were in denial. – why?
  3. Why did they believe his participation in the massacre was accidental or that he had been coerced?
  4. The SWAT team found some notebook pages – what was disturbing about them?
  5. There was also a school paper, which Susan and her husband never had seen – what had Dylan written in that paper?
  6. How did Susan react in the weeks and months that followed the killings?
  7. Why did Susan avoid all news coverage?
  8. Did Susan only concentrate on her own grief?
  9. Susan perceived herself to be a victim of the tragedy – did the community see her the same way?
  10. How do you think it feels to be viewed as a perpetrator or at least an accomplice since she was the person who had raised a "monster"?

Questions for page 5

  1. How did Susan feel when she constantly heard on the radio that they were bad parents and were to blame for the killing?
  2. Why did Dylan’s relatives feel responsible for his death?
  3. Had I been too strict? Not strict enough? Had I pushed too hard, or not hard enough? Why did Susan ask herself those kinds of questions about Dylan’s upbringing?
  4. Why was Susan suddenly convinced that Dylan had not loved her?
  5. What has Susan done to move on with her life?
  6. Not all of victims’ parents kept a distance – what did they do?
  7. What did Susan do in order to understand what Dylan had done?
  8. How have criminal psychologists concluded that Dylan was depressed and suicidal?
  9. When did Dylan first begin to write about ending his life?
  10. The SWAT team also found two half-empty bottles of Saint-John's-wort –why did Dylan take this herb?

Questions for page 6

  1. How many people commit suicide every year in the United States?
  2. Why didn’t Dylan want to talk about his thoughts - at least according to Susan?
  3. In raising Dylan, Susan taught him how to protect himself from a host of dangers: lightning, snake bites, head injuries, skin cancer, smoking, drinking, sexually transmitted diseases, drug addiction, reckless driving, even carbon monoxide poisoning. – can you teach someone how to protect yourself from suicide?
  4. Why is Susan today supporting suicide research?
  5. Susan said in the article “Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love.” – will she ever be able to lead a normal life?