No, she did not say yes

My son was two months old on an April day 20 years ago when I decided to go shopping. 

I'd heard about a shooting at a high school in Colorado, in suburban Denver, called Columbine High, and I'm sure I thought something like, "How awful!" before I went about my day.

I remember coming home and while stopped at the stoplight at the CVS near my house, hearing on the radio that the kids were coming out, running out with their hands raised.  I thought, thank goodness it's over.

Then I went home and turned on the TV.

Later, I saw the first report of  "25 dead."

I felt sick. 

Later, the figure was revised to 12 dead.  The twelve included the two shooters. 

"Columbine" is actually the name of a flower.  Since April 20, 1999, "Columbine" has become synonymous with "school shooting".

My son has grown up under the shadow of Columbine and the other school shootings that have since taken place.  I don't think we'll ever shake that shadow.  Once a Pandora's box of evil is opened, there's almost no way to shut it.

There's one myth, however, that I wish we would lay to rest:  the myth that Cassie Bernall was a martyr for Christ. 

In the first reports of the Columbine shooting, it came out that Cassie, who was in the library--where most of the killings took place--was asked by one of the shooters, "Do you believe in God?" She answered, "Yes," and she was shot and killed.  (I heard this story on NBC the day after the shootings.)

Evangelical Christians seized on this story because it embodied everything they love:  someone standing up for the cause of Christ who was not ashamed to say "yes, I believe in God" in the face of death, and who was killed for their belief. 

There's just one problem with this story.

It's not true.

Craig Scott, whose sister Rachel was one of the twelve who was murdered, was in the library that horrible day.    Investigators took him back into the library and asked him to recreate what happened, and when asked, where did the voice come from that said, "yes", he pointed away from where Cassie Bernall had been hiding under a table and toward where another student, Valeen Schnurr, had been. 

In addition, a teacher in the library who'd called 911 left the phone line open for eight minutes.  Events in the library were caught on that 911 tape. 

What actually happened was that Eric Harris looked under the table where Cassie was, said, "Peek-a-boo," and shot her.  It was a few moments later, when Valeen Schnurr began screaming, "Oh, my God?" that Dylan Klebold asked her if she believed in God. She said "yes" and when asked "why", she said, "because I believe and my parents brought me up that way."  Valeen was shot but ultimately survived.

Cassie's mother, Misty, wrote a book about her daughter, titled "She Said Yes".  Misty described her daughter as a teenager who'd become rebellious and nearly suicidal.  But in the last year of her life, she turned back towards her faith.  Cassie's father said that after Cassie attended a weekend church retreat, that she'd come back a completely different person. 

I don't believe that anyone deliberately set out to tell a lie about Cassie Bernall.  I've long believed that the events of that horrible day played out like a game of "telephone" where something is repeated down a long line of people and details are changed with every repetition.  It takes time and effort to gather up all the pieces of evidence and lay them out in order to figure out what really happened.  I think that by the time evidence was sifted through, arranged, and the final report written, Cassie's supposed "martyrdom" had so embedded itself into public consciousness that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to correct the impression that she truly had "laid down her life for Christ". 

Later in 1999, Family Christian Bookstores came out with a line of T-Shirts and keychains with the slogan, "Yes I Believe In God".  That was the moment I developed a distaste for Christian merchandising (known also as "Jesus junk".)  To me, that line of merchandise was a blatant attempt to capitalize on a horrible event. 

Ten years ago, journalist Dave Cullen published his book "Columbine", which is considered the definitive account of the Columbine shootings.  He devotes several pages to Cassie and the story of her alleged martyrdom. 

Between Cullen's book, the final report on Columbine, and the testimony of several witnesses (including Cassie's friend Emily Wyant), the evidence shows that it's time to lay this myth to rest, once and for all:

Cassie Bernall did not say "yes" when asked "do you believe in God".
Valeen Schnurr said "yes" when asked "do you believe in God".
Cassie Bernall was not martyred for her faith in God.
Cassie Bernall was murdered by a sociopath who also shot many other people before finally killing himself.
Cassie Bernall discovered faith in the last year of her life.  She did say "yes" to God.
Cassie Bernall is not a martyr. 
Cassie Bernall did not say "yes" and die.
Valeen Schnurr said "yes" and lived.
People did not initially intend to lie when reporting that Cassie said "yes, I believe in God".
Some people did, however, refuse to correct the impression when the facts proved that story wrong. 

Cassie deserves to be remembered as a daughter whose life ended too soon.  She deserves to be remembered as the person she was, a girl who lost her way for a while and who found it again. 

But despite what some people--and unfortunately, some of those people are Christians--would want you to believe . . . no, she did not say yes.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.