Discrepancies in Kimberly Blair's story
Over time, memories change and people often remember their own experiences incorrectly. This is normal. However, in the Columbine case, there are far too many discrepancies in how some witnesses tell their stories. These are discrepancies that do not come from poor memory, but it seems as if they are reading from a script and key details are either added or omitted.
I recently became aware of fairly recent video of witness Kimberly Blair discussing her experience. Blair was sitting outside with Jayson Autenrieth and Ann Marie Hochhalter when the incident began. She claims to have witnessed Hochhalter get shot and fall over sideways. However, Autenrieth says Hochhalter was already standing and running away when she was shot. A minor discrepancy, but it gets worse.There are four major things that stand out about Blair's new story.
Discrepancy 1
First, she begins with a huge smile on her face while seemingly boasting about having cussed at the shooters during the incident using every amount of profanity she could think of and "yelled and yelled and yelled." She says she stood up and then cussed out the shooters. This isn't mentioned in her interview, and it sounds a bit strange that someone would confront a shooter with so much aggression after watching them shoot their friend.
This sounds like embellishment after the fact, and if she is acting and reading a script, that would explain the big smile on her face. There's no way someone who experienced the genuine trauma of watching their friend get shot would retell the story of how they cussed out the shooters with what looks like a genuine, excited smile on their face. Yes, some people do smile when they're nervous, but that's not the smile she has on her face. She looks like she's enjoying telling that story as if it isn't connected to anything negative.
Real trauma survivors don't recount their stories in this manner. They aren't necessarily still upset, but if anything, they're more stoic and less animated. This girl looks like she just got the lead role in a Lifetime movie, but it's her first rodeo as an actor. Is she smiling because someone dumped a load of money into her bank account in exchange for this performance? Is this even Kimberly Blair? One has to wonder.
Discrepancy 2
The next discrepancy is rather large. In this clip, Blair says that she later found out the car she was hiding behind had a bomb underneath it. There were no bombs reportedly found under any cars. One would assume she simply meant that she hid behind Dylan Klebold's car because she was in the senior parking lot and Dylan's car was the only suspect vehicle in the senior lot.
However, Blair's interview states she first hid behind a "light blue van." Then, she moved across the parking lot and took cover behind a "red or maroon SUV." There is only one light blue van discernible in the senior parking lot from pictures from that day, and one maroon vehicle that looks like it could be an SUV in the area she moved to. None of these vehicles are anywhere near Klebold's BMW. Blair said the light blue van was located in one of the center rows, so it may not be the van visible in the photo.
Blair discussing the light blue van
Jayson Autenrieth says the first vehicle they hid behind was in "lane #3" but investigators conveniently left out all of the drawings and maps made by Blair and Autenrieth, including the map where he marked their location behind the vehicle.
Autenrieth describes the vehicle they hid behind first
Below are two shots from the parking lot during the incident. I've marked both vehicles she said she hid behind with a red dot outlined in yellow. Klebold's car is the yellow dot outlined in red. There is only one light blue van that can be discerned as such from these photos, although it's possible there is another light blue van in the parking lot more to the right because the photos I have that show the rest of the senior lot are too small to tell. I would have to revisit the helicopter footage to spot other vans. But even so, if there is another light blue van, it's even further away from Dylan's vehicle.
There is only one red/maroon SUV-style vehicle in the lot where Blair ran. Note that Blair said they ran toward the soccer field, which is immediately on the other side of the fence where I've marked the maroon SUV.
Blair describes the red SUV
Blair describes the red SUV
Blair describes the light blue van
Blair was called over to the cars by the soccer field by Andy Marton, so the SUV I marked has to be the right one. That's where Marton was located.
Blair describes being called over by Andy Marton
Discrepancy 3
The third major discrepancy is that in the article that was published, Blair is quoted as saying "I ran inside the building. The first person I ran into was Dave Sanders, who was one of our teachers. And I told him, 'Anne Marie’s been shot! Anne Marie’s been shot! I need help! Someone help me.' And he told everybody to get down."
The problem with this is that she didn't even know who Dave Sanders was at the time of the shooting. And he wasn't her teacher.
According to her interview, she encountered Mary Baribeau and told her that Ann Marie had been shot. She simultaneously heard who she thought was a teacher, but wasn't sure, off in the distance yelling at kids to get down. She couldn't describe the teacher other than stating he was male. Then she stated she believed it was Dave Sanders, but couldn't be certain. Blair had no idea where he was in the cafeteria, but said she thought he was North of her location. She had no contact with this individual.
Discrepancy 4
This one is massive. According to her initial interview, Blair ran into the parking lot with Jayson Autenrieth and was with him the whole time. They made it back to the fence by the soccer field and were loaded into a police car and taken to safety.
According to her new story, "she ran to find her twin in the library. 'The kids were helping each other, holding each other, limping,' she said. "The EMTs and first responders weren't allowed in, so the kids did triage themselves."
This is nonsensical. Blair didn't run into the library to find her twin, Patricia.
Did she run away and hide behind all the cars, make it to safety, and then run back into the library? I don't think so. She also didn't run into the library before she ran through the parking lot. Even the stories of the students inside the library don't match this story here. Nobody was in the library doing triage.
According to Blair's sister, Patricia, Patricia thought she was the last one to leave the library. She doesn't mention her sister running into the library to find her. She mentions running to safety behind a police car, where students were taking off their socks to help the wounded.
It sounds like someone gave Kimberly Blair a script to read that was an amalgamation of her own experience plus her sister's experience, mixed up, with a bunch of made up nonsense.
Questions
Is Blair embellishing her story regarding the bomb under the car to make it seem like she was in more danger than she really was?Did someone innocently tell Blair the car she hid behind had a bomb underneath it, and they were just mistaken? And now she's just sharing a mistake?
Wouldn't Blair have seen a bomb under the car she was hiding behind to take cover? People were crouched down and laying on the ground...
Or...
Is Blair reading from a script that was written specifically for her just to keep the story of Columbine alive through participating in this panel of shooting survivors? This has my vote.
No matter how bad someone's memory is, I do not buy into the idea that they could swap out key characters they didn't even know. Blair didn't know Dave Sanders and he wasn't her teacher. She had no contact with him that day. For her to now claim that Sanders was her teacher and she ran into Sanders and told him Ann Marie had been shot (instead of her friend Mary as stated in her interview), AND she's claiming to have ran into the library where she saw students triaging each other because medical personnel weren't allowed in... feels more like someone wrote her a script for this panel than her being "confused."
Each discrepancy in this case seems explainable, but when you plot the whole collection, it tells a much different story.
More to come...