As Beth Nimmo grieved the callous death of her daughter in the Columbine school massacre , she was astonished to receive a letter of apology… from the mum of one of her killers.
Yet Beth’s instinct was not to turn away in hate but to reach out, share her pain and, most of all, to forgive.
She says simply: “I knew her loss wasn’t any different from mine, she just had a different path to walk.
“It really was about two mums losing a child, only from different points of view.”
Once the spotlight had moved off a little Beth took her forgiveness one step further, arranging to meet Sue Klebold, mother of shooter Dylan.
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At 17, he had been the same age as Beth’s daughter, Rachel Scott – the first to die when he and pal Eric Harris launched their killing spree.
When the murderous rampage was over, he killed himself in the exact same way Rachel had died – with a bullet to the left temple.
Beth, 66, recalls: “Before I met her I was unsure what to say to Sue or what she would be like.
“As I drove to the meeting, it came to me that I wanted to know what her son was like before April 20, 1999.
“So I did, I asked her, I said, ‘Sue, the only thing I know about Dylan is what happened that day.
“‘Would you tell me who your son was before that?"
“Immediately the tears just started rolling down her face and she started talking about this loving little blond-haired, curly-headed boy.
“That they had birthday parties and Christmas vacations. She said he was a normal little child and then how, in the last couple of years of his life, he started distancing himself.
“Now I have managed to forgive both my daughter’s killers. There is no place for the hate they held.”
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But hate had been very much in the air the day 20 years ago when Rachel died. Beth said: “Rachel was on their target list, primarily just because she was a Christian.
“She had talked to those boys and wasn’t unkind to them, but they put her on their list of people to kill.
“Their name for her was ‘Godly Christian whore’ because she was trying to be faithful to her beliefs and stay true to those values.
“They mocked the fact. Rachel was trying to stand for something she believed in, and she wanted to be that kind of person to others.
“She was known on campus as kind of a friend to the outer people.”
Beth revealed her daughter was well known to both Klebold and Harris as they attended media studies together. She adds: “She knew her killers. Rachel did photography. The boys did video.”
Beth then describes the harrowing moment the pair shot Rachel dead. After first injuring her with several shots, they strolled up to the teen as she tried to escape.
“When they saw who it was, they pulled her up by her hair and put a gun to her forehead,” recalls Beth.
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“They started mocking her for her faith and asked her if she still believed in God. When Rachel answered, ‘You know I do’ Harris just said in a very cruel way, ‘Well go be with him’.
“He then pulled the trigger. I believe Rachel went from the face of evil right into the presence of the Lord in that split second. We were so lucky to have her for 17 years. She wrote in her journals she believed she’d die young.
“She never saw herself getting married or having children. It was like God was preparing her and she fulfilled her destiny. She belongs to the Lord, and she is with him now.
“For her, April 20, 1999 was a life sentence – but I didn’t want it to be my life sentence.”
Now, as she watches the BBC news in her Columbine home, Beth fears for Britain’s knife crime epidemic.
She says: “There’s a level of hatred and anger now that accompanies any kind of disagreement, with different values causing young people to lash out. The UK is seeing that.
“It starts with the family unit, and once that breaks down, then the neighbourhood breaks down, and then communities break down.
“We need to begin targeting what would even make a young person want to knife somebody.
“What would even make someone want to put a gun to somebody?”
“The one thing you can control in your children is what’s going on in their attitudes.
“You teach your children to love, you teach your children to have compassion. You teach them to share, to be kind.
“If we install in our children these values then hopefully together we can tackle the violence too many parents like myself are left to overcome.”
