Burying a killer
TOM AND SUE Klebold “have got to be the loneliest people on the planet,” remarked Don Marxhausen, the minister in Littleton, Colorado, who officiated at their youngest son’s funeral April 27. “They thought they had been good parents,” Marxhausen added. “Tom Klebold told me he thought he had a good finished product.” Their son, Dylan Klebold, 17, would have graduated from Columbine High School this spring and was planning to attend the University of Arizona in the fall.
Instead, on April 20, he and friend Eric Harris, 18, killed 12 students and one teacher and injured almost two dozen classmates in the worst school shooting in U.S. history. Harris and Klebold then killed themselves. The Klebolds “are like people who have been run over by a truck, and then the truck backed up over them,” Marxhausen said. “They lost their son, but their son was also a killer.” Marxhausen, pastor of Littleton’s St. Philip Lutheran Church, was pastor to the family for about eight months five or six years ago, he said. After the shootings, Marxhausen made it known “through the grapevine” that he would aid the family if they wished. Word came back that they were interested, and he officiated at the private service.
Fifteen people attended, including Tom and Sue Klebold; their older son, Byron; some relatives and friends; and Judy Marxhausen, Don’s wife. Marxhausen also asked another Lutheran minister and his wife and a police officer to come. With so few people in attendance and such “awkwardness and tension” hanging in the air, Marxhausen suggested that everyone “use some time just to talk about Dylan.” “There was an outpouring of love from one of the couples who said their son used to play with Dylan when the boys were little,” the minister said.
While friends of Dylan Klebold and Harris said the two wore swastikas, shouted “Heil Hitler!” during bowling class and chose the anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s birthday for their rampage, Tom Klebold “said he didn’t know where the Nazi stuff or the violence came from,” according to Marxhausen. The family kept only a BB gun in the house and used it just to scare away woodpeckers, Marxhausen said.
Though Sue Klebold was raised as a Jew, the family observed religious rituals of both Judaism and Christianity. “They did Christmas and they did Passover seders,” said Marxhausen. In his eulogy for Dylan, the pastor used scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments. From the Old Testament he recalled the story of King David, whose son, Absalom, was killed trying to take over his father’s kingdom. Part of the story, in Second Samuel, recounts David’s words on hearing of his son’s death: “O, my son! Absalom my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you.” Marxhausen also used the familiar 23rd Psalm, which has been used in funerals for several of the Columbine victims, and the Lord’s Prayer from the New Testament. In his eulogy Marxhausen stressed God’s love and healing power. “God, who knows about suffering and pain and loss, wants to reach out to you,” he said. And he went on to say:
God, who raises up and lifts up after the journey through the valley, will
do so in time and in surprising ways. Some people will run from you, there
will be others who will come to you. There is God’s mercy and there is the
mercy of others. True enough, there will be those who do not know grace and
will want to give only judgment. But God will reach out to you through
those who know his grace. I have no idea how you are going to heal. God
still wants to reach out to you and will always reach out to you in some
way.
Marxhausen declined to indicate where Dylan Klebold is buried, but said he encouraged the family to bury him in the metro area “so they would have a place to grieve.” Marxhausen noted that Dylan attended St. Philip with his parents, but he doesn’t remember any other church activities they were involved in. “They’re hardworking, very intelligent ’60s kind of people. They don’t believe in violence or guns or racism and certainly aren’t anti-Semitic.”
Marxhausen said he had visited the Klebolds’ home and found them to have “energetic ideas.” “I enjoyed talking to them,” the pastor said, “but I don’t know all about the family dynamics.” He does know from his own daughter that Dylan “was an outcast” at Columbine. Sarah Marxhausen, a Columbine grad now in college, told her father that Dylan often sat alone in the school cafeteria. She would go over and sit with him and play cards.
Dylan was registered and had already paid his dorm fees at the University of Arizona for the fall term, Marxhausen said. But “there was a part of Dylan’s center that wasn’t filled. There was some anger, but I don’t know at what.” Marxhausen said he has learned from many people that “there was a lot of rage in Harris” and that Klebold followed him “because he was afraid of his safety and that of his family if he left Harris.” One student told Marxhausen, “With Harris you either follow or get completely away from him.”3
COPYRIGHT 1999 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning