Columbine: They Swore No One Was on the Roof. So Why Can I Prove Otherwise? Part 1

Multiple suspects were seen on the roof, but was it really just a repairman?

This is part 1 in a 3-part series.

Part 2
Part 3 (coming soon)

For 25 years, the official story hasn’t changed: there were no shooters on the roof during the Columbine incident. Just two gunmen inside, thirteen dead, and a nation in shock. Case closed.

But what if that version was only half the truth?

I’ve seen the photos. I’ve read the reports. I’ve spoken with witnesses who remember things they weren’t supposed to. And I’ve found the proof that rules out the “repairman” excuse forever.

If there were no rooftop suspects…
Then who the hell was up there?

Let’s dive into this hot topic.

CNN’s famous “rooftop suspect” photo

While the incident at Columbine High School was unfolding, a neighbor named Brian Pain (pronounced “pah”) captured a photo that shows a man in a ski mask on the library rooftop. This is the photo that made the public aware that suspects were present on the roof. Although multiple witnesses reported seeing suspects on the roof, most people learned about this topic from the CNN broadcast.

This photo aired on CNN and was later explained in Jefferson County’s official report as a repairman named Chris Clarke who was sent up to fix a leak above the girls’ locker room.

But here’s the problem.

He told multiple, different stories that don’t match and can’t be simultaneously true.

He wasn’t just a repairman working for Environmental Systems, Inc. - he also worked for Jefferson County Schools.

And he’s related to alleged victim Ann Marie Hochhalter.

In other words, he was an insider, presented to the public as just an HVAC repairman.

And that photo? That can’t be Clarke. By his own admission, he never traveled onto the library rooftop. He mapped his movements in the opposite direction with no diversion to the library rooftop.

Before digging in, let’s establish that Pain’s photo shows a man on the roof and not something else.

Some say the figure in the photo isn’t a person at all. Just a pole or part of the roof. But when you watch the helicopter footage taken that same day, you see that area of the rooftop is clear, flat, and empty.

No poles.
No equipment.
Nothing in the way.

Some say it was a man, but it was SWAT, but that’s easily proven false, too.

So what exactly are we looking at?

In this two-part series, we’re going to look at the so-called “man on the roof” and the multiple witnesses who say they saw suspects up there. Their stories don’t line up with the official version. In fact, they make it impossible.

Let’s start with the man in Brain Pain’s photo.

Brian Pain’s photo: close-up

Here’s a close-up zoomed in from the original high-resolution image:

Enlarging the photo reveals what appears to be a man in a dark ski mask, a white shirt with red stripes that angle inward moving toward his waist and look more like suspenders than print, and what appears to be a black strap over his right shoulder. Is that a firearm strap? Asking for a friend.

Thanks to Redditor ‘Lemonbeats’ for pointing out the stripes look like suspenders!

If we are to believe the official story, this is just repairman Chris Clark on the roof. At first glance the story seems to make sense, especially since the man in the photo loosely matches Clarke’s reported attire.

"Clark described that he personally was wearing blue jeans with a white "Polo" style shirt with red and blue stripes, as well as a red ballcap with black and yellow on it. He further described his shirt as being mostly white and red with small blue stripes. When asked what color the shirt might appear from a distance, [he] responded, "probably red." (11k, p.746)

The shirt in the photo doesn’t appear red. But even if the blue stripes on his shirt were too small to be seen from a distance, how does a ball cap look like a full-face ski mask?

Critics have speculated that this man is not wearing a ski mask, and it’s just a shadow covering his entire head and face. However, that isn’t possible given the time of day, cloudy sky, and direction of the sun. This argument disintegrates when you look at photos of the roof from that day. But if lighting isn’t your thing, we’ve got an explanation with visuals.

A qualified Redditor who goes by ‘Babanasikim’ posted a thorough explanation to my old subreddit. He explained that on a cloudy day, the sun doesn’t produce drop shadows that would darken a face enough to become underexposed on film. Remember, Brian Pain’s photo was captured on physical 35mm film.

On April 20, 1999, there was only global illumination and that would not have produced any drop shadows.

Only global illumination o 4/20/99 - credit to 'Babanasikim’

In the image above, the line of purple figures represents the potential location of the man on the roof. As you can clearly see, no matter how far back he was located, there could be no drop shadow engulfing his face.

So why is his head black? Why is his head square at the top? How do we know it’s a ski mask?

'Babanasikim comes to our rescue once again with another demonstration:

Some balaclavas (ski masks) have a square head, just like we see in Pain’s photo:

And if you adjust the contrast on Pain’s photo, you can see three holes exactly where the eyes and mouth holes would be on a mask. Look closely and you’ll see the holes look elongated. That’s easily explained, too. Here’s Babanasikim’s recreation:

“Motive” should read “motif”

Babanasikim explained that the photo was taken with a telephoto lens and the person is just a small detail in the photo, so even the slightest movement would create an extreme motion blur even with a shutter speed of 4000. This would create the double, blurred eye and mouth holes.

By now, it should be clear that Pain’s photo captured a man on the library rooftop wearing a ski mask and not an object. But was it Clarke?

Maybe... Maybe not.

If it was Clarke, then he was an accomplice.

If it wasn’t Clarke, then his presence on the roof was inserted into the story to account for rooftop suspect sightings.

Either way, things don’t add up.

Who is the man in the photo?

Was it Clarke? I’m pretty sure HVAC repairmen don’t wear ski masks while working. And Clarke himself said he wore a ball cap. But that’s not the only part of the story that doesn’t make sense.

» Clarke never mentioned having a buddy on the roof, but another suspect was seen with the man in Pain’s photo.

Clarke’s interview summary [11k, pp.741-747] never mentions another person being on the roof, and nowhere in any reports does it state he had a buddy up there with him.

Yet, witnesses Karen Drinnon and Mike Valerio observed and video taped two suspects on the roof together, at the same time, from 0.8 miles away in an office park through a telephoto lens. One individual matched the description of the suspect in Pain’s photo.

Pain and Drinnon/Valerio recorded the same suspect at the same time all while officer Rick Searle was reporting the same suspect’s movements to dispatch. But as you’ll see, police were quick to discredit Pain and Drinnon/Valerio (but somehow not Searle!).

“She was unable to provide a physical description, but thought one of the individuals was wearing a white t-shirt and the other possibly a white shirt with a red stripe. She believed one of them was possibly looking over the edge of the building…” [Tips, p.13160]

Drinnon said she saw two people on the rooftop - one man wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with a red stripe and another man wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with a red stripe. (10k, p.18701)

So the man in Pain’s photo was on the roof with another person wearing a white t-shirt and possibly also red stripes (or red suspenders). Other witnesses also identified a rooftop suspect wearing a white shirt, so all of this matches other sightings.

Drinnon and Valerio gave their recorded footage to police. The tape was entered into evidence. It was never released. FOIA requests for the tape were denied. It was withheld, declared to have no evidentiary value, said to show no people on the roof, and then destroyed.

… if Drinnon and Valerio were watching the two suspects through the lens in real-time while recording, how could the recording show no people on the roof?

Police tried to get Drinnon and Valerio to change their story by explaining that the suspects they saw were actually SWAT members, but that’s impossible (we’ll get to this shortly).

Let’s look at the timing of Drinnon’s sighting and Clarke’s alleged presence on the roof.

On the dispatch tapes, Officer Rick Searle is heard tracking the movements of the man on the roof in real time beginning at 11:36 a.m.

11:36:45
“141 (Searle): “We've got a guy on the roof, white, red, and blue striped shirt, standing on the roof.”

Dispatcher: “OK, units in the area, a red, white, and blue striped shirt up on the roof.”

Multiple reports confirm the fire truck was moved to the West side at around 12:02 p.m. The Channel 4 helicopter footage begins just two minutes before they start driving the fire truck over to the building. The man who rescued Clarke said the fire truck was brought around just after he rescued Clarke. That means the man on the roof was rescued minutes before noon.

Since the man is visibly, verifiably off the roof when the helicopter footage starts at around 12:00 p.m., we know the man was “rescued” off the roof before 12:00 p.m.

Drinnon and Valerio saw and video taped the two rooftop suspects between 11:45 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. The timing works perfectly for them to have seen the same man in Pain’s photo. Not only does the attire match, but Drinnon saw one suspect looking over the edge of the building, and that’s exactly what the man appears to be doing in Pain’s photo.

It’s safe to assume the suspect Drinnon and Valerio saw and video taped is the same man seen in Pain’s photo. However, was it Clarke? Clarke’s own statements suggest it couldn’t have been him.

“He said he walked over to the edge of the roof on the North side of the library entrance and looked over to the ground below. He described seeing two students wearing backpacks laying on the ground near the library entrance.” (11k, p.745)

The only library entrance accessible from outside is on the Northwest side of the building. What he calls the North side of the library entrance is actually the library’s emergency exit where the West hall doors are located. It’s nowhere near the location of the man in Pain’s photo, who is on the complete opposite side of the library building. Clarke said he looked down and saw two kids lying on the ground wearing backpacks. That would be “victims” Rachel Scott and Richard Castaldo. They were allegedly shot just outside the West hall doors. Again, that’s nowhere near the man in Pain’s photo.

Is the man in Pain’s photo SWAT?

The man in the white shirt with red stripes was off the roof by noon. The first SWAT team to make entry to the roof was Lakewood SWAT, and they didn’t get up there until 1:40 p.m. Plus, they were wearing all black (not white polo shirts with red and blue stripes), and they were hundreds of feet away from where the man in Pain’s photo was.

Here’s a screen shot from a video of Lakewood SWAT on the roof:

The man in Pain’s photo can’t be SWAT. The timing and attire don’t match.

And SWAT couldn’t have been the two suspects seen by Drinnon and Valerio, either. The timing and attire don’t match.

“(W) Drinnon stated her employer, (W) Valerio, left the office shortly after 11:30 for lunch and upon his return, had a small telescope, a pair of binoculars, and a video camera. He took the equipment into his office on the Northeast corner of the building and started watching the activity. She explained, she kept working, but would go into the office every so often to update herself on what was going on. At one point, she thought around 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., while they were watching through the remote viewer of the video camera, using the telephoto lens, they observed two individuals on the South edge roof of the school.” [Tips, pp.13159-13160]

After their initial interviews, police attempted to convince Drinnon and Valerio that the suspects they saw were SWAT. Valerio changed his story, while Drinnon did not.

“(W) Valerio stated the activity on the school roof was closer to 2:00 p.m. and he felt it was law enforcement personnel.” [Tips, p.13160]

Even if this change in Valerio’s story wasn’t coerced, and they really did see the suspects closer to 2:00 p.m., the Lakewood SWAT team wasn’t wearing white polo shirts with red stripes, and they weren’t on the library rooftop.

Clarke’s multiple stories

Chris Clarke provided multiple stories that don’t match. But before we dive into those, let’s meet Clarke. And yes, it’s Clarke, not Clark.

Chris Clarke

This is Chris Clarke - the man said to have been on the roof fixing a leak above the girls’ locker room when the shooting broke out at Columbine. As we touched on earlier, he was an insider. He worked as an HVAC technician for Environmental Systems, Inc., but he was also a Jefferson County Schools employee and he’s related to “victim” Ann Marie Hochhalter.

Now let’s look at his stories. He couldn’t decide if he had already been working on the roof for 45 minutes when the shooting began, or if he was inside the building when it started and ran up to the roof to escape shots.

Clarke’s story #1

He was working inside the school when the shooting started.

He then ran up to the roof to escape.

From Officer RC Byerly's report:

"It was aired there was a man on the roof wearing red, white, and blue shirt. It would later be determined he was a victim and was rescued off the roof by Denver SWAT. He was brought over to our location. He identified himself to me as (W) Clark. He said he was doing work inside the school when the gunfire began. He ran through the janitor closet to get to the roof. Once on the roof, he said he used vice grips to wedge the door shut so the suspects could not get on the roof. He said he stayed on the roof until rescued. He said he never saw the gunmen, according to (W) Clark." (11k, pp.743-744)

This contradicts Clarke’s second story that he was already on the roof when the shooting began.

Clarke’s story #2

He had already been on the roof working for 45 minutes when he heard gunshots, peered over the West door area, saw Scott and Castaldo (but never saw any shooters), and then hid on the roof until he was rescued.

Let’s establish that he was on the roof for 45 minutes when the shooting began at around 11:15 a.m.:

"He said that he was on the roof of the school twice the morning of April 20th, 1999, on a warranty service of the system. He said this service was to fix a leak directly above the girl's locker room. Clark said he accessed the roof on both occasions through the roof hatch in the hallway, North of the library access. The first time on this date he was on the roof was from 9:30 a.m. until 9:45 a.m. when he left to go to his office. He said he returned to the building and was back on the roof in that same location at about 10:30 a.m." (11k, p.745)

The time span from 10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. is 45 minutes.

Now let’s look at where Clarke describes being on the roof when the shooting began:

"While on the roof, he heard what sounded like firecrackers and initially believed it to [be] kids playing around. During this same time period he heard a ricochet, after which he knew the sounds he was hearing was actually gunfire. He described all of these initial sounds were coming from outside the school. Clark described at about the same time he heard what sounded like an explosion, then white smoke come up from the edge of the roof by the library.” (11k, p.745)

Which story is true? Perhaps neither. A closer look makes it seem like Clarke was never there.

According to his interview, this is the ground view of Clarke’s vantage point on the roof when he peered over the edge of the roof and saw Scott and Castaldo lying on the ground. Notice how tall the front of the building is? Clarke claims he peered over that. That’s a façade. You’d have to be 15 feet tall to see over that edge.

Clarke’s vantage point

In his interview map, he marked the exact middle of this hall as the point where he peered over the edge. That’s impossible. The red circles above show the only two places where a human could realistically have looked over the edge.

Here’s Clarke’s map. Note where it says “LOOKOUT OVER LEDGE” and the arrow points to a spot marked in the exact middle of the West door façade:

Clarke’s map

Also notice that his work area is marked on the complete opposite side away from the library. Clarke claims to have peered over the ledge as marked before running back to his work area where he laid down and hid until he was rescued. He never mentioned running over to the library rooftop first, and he didn’t mark it on his map, either.

Even dispatch has him running back to the locker room area (Northwest) and lying down (not crouching on the Southwest side like we see in Pain’s photo):

11:44:46
141 (Searle): “I see the uh... Northwest side of the building (static) um my guy in a blue and white shirt’s just layin’ on top of the building, I have no clue what he's doin’.”

Why did Clarke mark the middle of the hall where no human can see over the edge? Was it just a mistake? A generality? Or was he told to mark that spot? Was the map drawn for him? Was he even there?

Let’s look at Clarke’s view from above the West doors. The photo below was taken facing out from the West doors. The areas outlined in red are where the shooters lingered and the arrow leads back to the doors where the shooters entered. The circle on the left is where Harris shot over the fence down the stairs. Anyone looking down on this scene at the time Clarke claims to have been watching would have seen a lot of action.

The area Clarke would have seen from his vantage point on the roof

Clarke should have seen everything. Yet, he claims he saw nothing.

Furthermore, if Clarke immediately ran and hid on the locker room roof (to the far right of this photo) as claimed, he would have had an even better view of all the action. Maybe he wearing a blindfold with that ski mask?

Clarke’s alleged rooftop rescue

Now let’s look at something odd.

Officer Wayne DePew said he rescued Clarke with Clarke’s own service van just before noon. DePew just happened to be exactly where Clarke was, and Clarke’s van just happened to be right there as well. What luck!

At first, DePew was going to use the van to rescue “victims” Castaldo and Scott, but then saw Clarke immediately above him on the roof and decided to rescue him instead of the two downed students (really??) Lucky for him, the keys just happened to be in the ignition. Amazing!

But nobody saw DePew rescue a man from the roof. The officers with DePew (Sargent Green, officer Ken Larita, Tom O’Neil) don’t mention this rescue taking place.

The image below shows the locker room roof in red where Clarke was allegedly rescued and the location of the man in Pain’s photo in yellow for reference. You can see the white van just to the left of the red circled area:

There’s just one major problem with this story. The timing doesn’t match the dispatch tapes.

DePew said the fire truck was brought around to the West side AFTER he rescued Clarke. The fire truck was brought around at 12:02 p.m., so why does the dispatch tape have Clarke being rescued at 12:13 p.m.? We have the Channel 4 helicopter footage from noon onward and there is nobody on the roof and no rescue to be seen. And DePew? He’s missing from the tape, too. You know what else is missing? Patrick Ireland’s rescue. The clip shown on the news isn’t anywhere to be found on the actual raw footage. I’ll save that for another post.

It was claimed that the dispatch tapes ran four minutes fast, but that would put the rescue at 12:09 p.m., which is still at least 10 minutes too late.

There are many reasons to question the authenticity of the dispatch tapes, and that will be another post. For now, I will say that there is good reason to believe the man on the roof escaped into the ventilation system and the repairman story was made up to account for the rooftop suspect sightings, and a fake dispatch tape segment was inserted into the audio file.

So about that van. Clark’s interview summary refers to his rescue vehicle as simply “a” van. It’s the investigator’s summary and not Clarke’s own words. But you’d think the investigator would point out that it was Clarke’s van if that’s how Clarke told his story.

“Clark said he became worried that the persons shooting the guns would come up onto the roof, so he ran and retrieved some Visegrip pliers and clamped the roof access hatch closed. He then took a yellow rope from his toolkit and tied it to a vent pipe as he was planning on lowering himself to the ground in an attempt to flee. After discovering that the rope would not hold his weight, he abandoned this attempt and hid until uniformed police officers pulled a van alongside the school and helped him off the roof.” (11k, p.746)

It should also be noted that the yellow rope isn’t in the evidence logs and it’s not visible in the helicopter footage.

You can see a big white van in the helicopter footage to the left of the girls’ locker room roof, but the helicopter footage conveniently starts just minutes after Clark’s alleged “rescue,” so we don’t get to see the person being taken off the roof.

Reasons to question whether Clark was even there

Clarke claims to have been on the roof when the first shots were fired, but also claims he never saw any shooters.

“He said he walked over to the edge of the roof on the North side of the library entrance and looked over to the ground below. He described seeing two students wearing backpacks laying on the ground near the library entrance.” (11k, p.745)

“He said he never saw the gunmen, according to (W) Clark." (11k, p.744)

According to the official story, Clarke was right above the West entrance peering over the edge exactly where all the action was taking place, and exactly when the doors were blasted open with a shotgun and the shooters walked in.

And yet… he saw nothing?

No gunmen.
No chaos.
No shots fired?

If he was really on that roof right above the action, how did he miss all of it?

Let’s go back to those red suspenders

It might seem random to think these red stripes are suspenders, but not only do they angle in as they go down to the person’s waist just like suspenders would (printed stripes wouldn’t angle like this), but there just happened to be a few witnesses who reported a suspicious male wearing black cargo pants, a white t-shirt, and red suspenders grinning and openly laughing at people in Clement Park around 12:30, just a half hour after the man in Pain’s photo disappeared. He was also seen after the shooting at the public library.

“While standing outside the library, at approximately 12:30-1:00 p.m., an unidentified individual walked by Lori and a friend of hers named Matt Lohrenz. This individual openly laughed at them. This individual is described as male, 18-19 years of age, 5’10”, thin (180lbs), light complexion, clean shaven, wearing black cargo type pants, white t-shirt, and red suspenders.” (11k, p.4190)

This happened shortly after the man in this photo disappeared.

“Matt said that they were all standing around talking and he saw three people walking down Bowles, about 50 yards away. He said that they were looking at the people and grinning. He said that he didn’t see them laughing. He described one as wearing a plain white t-shirt with red suspenders, carrying a black coat with an orange liner over his shoulders, possibly wearing black shorts... Matt said the other two were about the same height, and both had black coats.” (11k, p.1505)

Matt Lohrenz said the three people he saw looked like the people who had been arrested in the park (The Splatter Punks).

If that wasn’t Clarke… who was it?

The timeline doesn’t add up.
The explanations don’t hold.
And the man in the photo doesn’t seem to be Clarke, or any repairman.

Too many things are off.
Too many details conflict.
And this is just the beginning.

Because in Part 2, we’ll look at the witnesses. Not one. Not two. But five separate witnesses from different spots around the school all reported seeing someone on the roof. And here’s the key detail: from where they were standing, it would’ve been impossible to see the man in Brain Pain’s photo.

Which means they were seeing others.
There wasn’t just a man on the roof.
There were men, plural.

Officials brushed it all off. They said the witnesses must’ve seen the repairman. Sounds reasonable… until you visit the school yourself.

In Part 2, I’ll show you exactly what they saw with real photos from their vantage points, and you’ll see why that explanation completely collapses.

Once you see what they saw, you won’t believe the official story either.

Stay tuned. Part 2 is where things really crack open.

Until next time - keep your alibi airtight,
The Lost Crime Files