text: Print Share + Twin Suicide Pact Had Columbine Connection 
   
   ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) ― 
   
   CBS4 Investigator Rick Sallinger has learned why twin sisters from Australia may have come to Colorado to carry out their suicide pact.Investigators found a magazine cover related to the Columbine tragedy at the La Quinta Inn where Kristin and Candace Hermeler, 29, were staying before they shot themselves. But their connection dates back to 1999, just a couple of months after the shooting.Kristin wrote two letters to Brooks Brown, a student at Columbine High School who was once targeted by Eric Harris, one of the Columbine gunmen.Brown and Harris became friends before the April 20,1999 shootings at the high school.In one letter dated June 12, 1999, Kristin wrote, "As someone who has been rejected, victimized and ostracized in their life, I would like to thank you for giving him (Eric) that chance."She went on to write, "Thank you for not judging and for accepting Eric and Dylan who were, from what I have heard, rejected and victimized by so many others. Thank you so much. Sincerely, Kristin."In another letter dated July 14, 1999, she wrote, "... you felt like everyone hates you. Words could never tell you how sorry I am that you feel like anyone hates you. It completely baffles me as to why anyone would hate someone when they don't know them, it sickens me."Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office said that Kristin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Her sister, Candace survived after shooting herself. She remains in serious condition at Swedish Medical Center.Her family released this statement Friday afternoon, "Our family would like to say thank you for the outpouring of support and concern shown during this past week. This is an extremely difficult time for our family. We would especially like to thank the Arapahoe County Sherriff's office for their diligence and perseverance in determining the facts and circumstances of this situation. We are also grateful to the paramedics who responded and assisted our daughters."Ernest and Kelsay Hermeler also requested privacy.The Hermeler twins were at the Family Shooting Center inside Cherry Creek State Park on Monday and were shooting for an hour and a half before the incident. The details of what exactly happened have been unclear until now because the surviving twin has been unable to communicate clearly to deputies what happened.On Thursday she was able to share the fact that the sisters had planned to commit suicide together and "did in fact shoot themselves," according to authorities.The sisters had been at the shooting range for lessons. Investigators believe they carefully planned out what was to be their final moments."In reality they walked in that gate right there just as jovial and smiling and talking to each other like a couple of gals out on a field trip," said shooting range owner Doug Hamilton.Because each woman turned the gun on herself, not the other, investigators said no crime was committed."Her demeanor was somewhat defensive which I believe any of us would. She is here in a foreign country being interviewed by law enforcement," said Captain Louie Perea."But she was willing to speak with us and did speak with us for some length of time."The case has attracted international attention, bringing reporters from Australia to Colorado."In the beginning it has been a real mystery case, a puzzle that everyone has been quite intrigued in as the days have developed," said Emma Dallimore an Australian TV reporter who recently arrived to cover the story. "It just seems more and more to be a very tragic story.""Based on the physical evidence collected, the surviving sister's statements, and video surveillance footage from the shooting center the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office believes that this incident was indeed a suicide and attempted suicide," the sheriff's department wrote in a prepared statement.Officials said they are not releasing the video surveillance footage obtained from the shooting range. 
   
   (© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) ||||| The Hermeler twins' interest in Columbine High School grew from their experience as victims of bullying, as suggested by their phone calls and 11-year-old letters to a Columbine survivor. 
   
   Kristin Hermeler, the 29-year-old sister who committed suicide Monday at an Arapahoe County gun range, called herself "someone who has been rejected, victimized and ostracized" in a letter to Columbine survivor Brooks Brown. 
   
   "I just wanted to write to you and let you know that not a day goes by that I do not think about what happened," she wrote in a letter dated July 14, 1999. 
   
   A month earlier she wrote, "I am completely shattered by what happened." 
   
   Her sister, Candice, survived the .22-caliber bullet she fired into the 
   
   Kristin's Letters Click for larger versions. 
   
   center of her forehead at the same instant her sister killed herself. 
   
   The existence of the letters was first reported by News4. 
   
   Connecting to Columbine 
   
   "It was a very sweet letter, very sad," Brooks Brown told The Denver Post by telephone Saturday. "It was her wanting to know why it happened, trying to understand." 
   
   Brooks Brown said they made contact by phone, letters and e-mail — but not for many years. 
   
   He said Kristin told him she and her sister had been bullied "physically and mentally." 
   
   Judy Brown, Brooks' mother, spoke to both twins at length on the phone in 1999. On Saturday, she recalled how sensitive and sympathetic the two girls were. 
   
   At the time, the twins were 18 years old. 
   
   "It never goes away," Judy Brown said. "Bullying changes who you are and who you become." 
   
   During their visit to Colorado, which began a few months ago, the twins never contacted the Browns. 
   
   Why the women decided to commit suicide together at the Family Shooting Center remains a mystery, and so far the surviving twin has refused to discuss the reason with investigators. 
   
   Angry and distraught during the investigators' two-hour bedside interview Thursday, she denied any interest in Columbine, despite a photocopy of a May 1999 Time magazine cover that depicts shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris that was found among the twins' belongings. 
   
   "I don't give a (expletive)," Candice said, according to police. "It happened a long time ago." 
   
   About a year before the Columbine massacre, Brooks Brown had been subjected to personal and online threats by eventual shooter Harris, to the point that his parents contacted law enforcement and America Online. But eventually the two had made peace — to the point that, according to a May 10, 1999, Time magazine article, Brooks Brown told his parents in early April that Harris had "grown up" and become "a new Eric." 
   
   On April 20, 1999, Brooks Brown came across Harris in the school parking lot just minutes before the shooting. Harris was pulling a bag of materiel from his car, which, unknown to Brown, contained explosives. 
   
   "Brooks, I like you," Harris told him. "Now get out of here. Go home." 
   
   Brooks left. Minutes later, 15 people, including Harris and Klebold, were dead or dying. Another 23 were wounded. 
   
   The killings sparked national debates about the influence of guns, music, video games and TV and movie violence. It also led to a new focus on the dangers of high school cliques and bullying. 
   
   Grappling with pact 
   
   Candice remained in serious condition Saturday evening at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood. Her parents arrived in Denver on Friday and have asked reporters to respect their privacy. 
   
   Hospital spokeswoman Karen Prestia would not discuss whether Candice Hermeler is on a suicide-prevention watch, or what kind of treatment she is receiving. 
   
   Barb Mettler, chairwoman of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado, said people like Candice are likely to try to "complete the mission." 
   
   She's not surprised the twins seemed so normal the day they intended to die. 
   
   "Once the decision has been made to commit suicide, things become normal — that decision becomes normal to that person," she said. 
   
   "They're not doing it because they want to kill themselves; they're doing it because they want the pain to stop, the emotional pain and sometimes the physical pain." 
   
   Outwardly the twins seemed to have little reason to want to die. Attractive, educated and well-traveled, they came from a privileged background with, by all accounts, loving, supportive parents. 
   
   "It cuts across all demographics, genders, all economic situations," Mettler said of suicide. 
   
   As unusual as twins in a suicide pact might seem, it's also understandable, said Mettler, who is also a counselor at Spanish Peaks Mental Health Center in Pueblo. 
   
   "It's much like a mother who kills her children and commits suicide, because she's convinced no one else can care for her children," she said. "Twins are so connected that they think no one else could understand them, and one couldn't go on without the other. It's a little like the idea that 'We came in together, we'll go out together.' " 
   
   Final minutes at the range 
   
   Investigators and gun-range staff said the twins had gone to the range twice before. 
   
   Monday afternoon, they took a Yellow Cab from their motel 6 miles away to the shooting range. 
   
   They rented two pistols, a revolver and a semiautomatic, for $20 each and began to fire away at targets in lane No. 13 at the outdoor range, chatting with others, even borrowing an overcoat from another shooter when a gloomy cold front moved in Monday afternoon. 
   
   At 2:52 p.m., they decided it was time to die, after placing the borrowed coat on a table. 
   
   Fifteen-year-old Will Gwaltney and his father, Bill, a shooting instructor, were in the next lane. 
   
   Efforts to reach the Gwaltneys on Saturday were unsuccessful. 
   
   On Friday, Bill Gwaltney told the Herald Sun newspaper of Melbourne, Australia, that his son shouted, and he saw one of the twins writhing on the ground. Will called out, "There's a problem, there's a problem!" and his dad began CPR. 
   
   With blood in her hair and bulging eyes, Candice sat back on her feet, unresponsive, according to investigators. 
   
   "It's a difficult feeling," Bill Gwaltney said. "You wish you could have prevented it, but nobody knew it was coming." 
   
   Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 
   
   or jbunch@denverpost.com
target: – The Australian twins who shot themselves at a Colorado firing range may have been obsessed with the Columbine school shootings, which happened just 20 miles from the shooting range where one sister died. Investigators found that Kristin Hermeler, the twin who died, wrote letters to a former Columbine student in 1999, and they found a magazine cover related to the tragedy in the twins’ belongings, CBS 4 reports. Investigators determined that no crime was committed since each twin shot herself. Kristin’s letters were to Brooks Brown, a student who received so many threats from Columbine gunman Eric Harris a year before the shooting that his parents contacted the police—but who then forgave and befriended Harris, telling his parents just weeks before the shooting he was "a new Eric." “As someone who has been rejected, victimized, and ostracized in their life, I would like to thank you for giving [Eric] that chance,” she wrote. Brown tells the Denver Post he and Kristin went on to talk via phone and email, but hadn’t spoken in years. Surviving sister Candice was “somewhat defensive” while being questioned, a police officer says; she reportedly said, “I don’t give a [expletive]. It happened a long time ago,” when asked about Columbine.