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ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Psychologist Peter Langman was still in bed Saturday morning when a reporter for a British newspaper called his Allentown home.
That was when Langman learned that his book of research on the minds of school shooters was found with hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the rucksack of the 18-year-old who killed nine people Friday at a shopping mall in Munich.
By Saturday morning, Langman had dozens of messages from reporters in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, he said.
"It certainly is a little strange," said Langman, who started studying the psychology of child killers when he was a post-doctoral intern at KidsPeace psychiatric hospital in North Whitehall Township.
Now in private practice, Langman said it's not the first time a youthful gunman has taken an interest in his work. It's common among those at risk and who actually carry out shooting rampages to idolize other mass killers, he said.
Eric Harris, one of the two boys who killed 13 and wounded 20 students and teachers in 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., was obsessed with Adolf Hitler. Karl Pierson, who stormed into Arapahoe High School, not far from Columbine, armed with Molotov cocktails and a shotgun in December 2013, related himself to Harris, Langman said.
Langman's book, "Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters," was discovered on Pierson's electronic tablet after he killed a fellow student and took his own life. Langman speculated in an analysis of the shooting that it was his research on Harris that led Pierson to diagnose himself "a psychopath with a superiority complex."
Although Langman said he didn't know enough about the Munich gunman to speak about his psychological state or motivation, he wondered if Ali David Sonboly had read the German translation of "Why Kids Kill" to learn about others who shared his horrific vision.
"I don't know if he was trying to understand himself or looking for a role model," he said.
Authorities said the German-Iranian man appeared to be obsessed with mass killings, but said he had acted alone and was not affiliated with a terrorist group. He had researched other shootings, including a 2009 rampage in Germany and the shooting and bomb attacks by Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people in Norway exactly seven years before Sonboly's attack.
An 18-year-old German-Iranian man shot dozens of people July 22, 2016, in the Bavarian city of Munich, killing at least nine and wounding many others. Police say the man was obsessed with rampage-style shootings.
Sonboly had reportedly been treated for depression, but made little impression on neighbors, who described him as quiet. Authorities said it appeared he had hacked a Facebook page to post a promise of a giveaway to lure young people to the mall.
Langman said he became interested in the psychology of school shooters as he was completing his doctorate at Lehigh University. In the weeks after the Columbine massacre, a child was admitted to KidsPeace because he was seen as a potential Columbine-type threat.
"When I saw my first one, there wasn't much literature on the topic," Langman said. "I had that direct personal interest because I was working with potential school shooters."
In the nearly two decades he has devoted his work to the topic, the number of large-scale shootings appears to have increased from year to year. While Langman has identified personality disorders such as profound narcissism and sociopathy, mental illness and history of abuse as common threads between shooters, and observed behaviors like making hit lists and hoarding weapons as indicators of a threat, he said there's no single key to preventing school shootings.
Schools and law enforcement have done a good job preparing to respond to school shootings with lockdown protocols and quick response plans, but there's room to improve prevention efforts.
"Teach staff what the warning signs are. Have the staff evaluate the warning signs and determine whether there is a threat," he said.
And while he said it's "very disturbing" if the shooter used his work for inspiration, his goal in continuing the research is to save lives.
"Psychologists and other professionals need to study the phenomenon and further our understanding to help prevent the attacks," Langman said.
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Information from: The Morning Call, http://www.mcall.com
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