Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter

On Valentine s Day 2008, Steve Kazmierczak killed five and wounded eighteen at Northern Illinois University, then killed himself. But he was an A student, a Deans Award winner. How could this happen?

CNN could not get the story. The "Chicago Tribune," "Washington Post," and all others came up empty because Steve s friends and professors knew very little. He had reinvented himself in his final five years. But David Vann, investigating for Esquire, went back to Steve s high school and junior high friends, found a life perfectly shaped for mass murder, and gained full access to the entire 1,500 pages of the police files. The result: the most complete portrait we have of any school shooter. But Vann doesn t stop there. He recounts his own history with guns, contemplating a school shooting. This book is terrifying and true, a story you ll never forget."