Gunman recalled as silent tech whiz

Mother wanted to enroll loner son in ‘center’ out West.

NEWTOWN, CONN. — As the nation paused to mark a week since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, new details emerged Friday about the gunman, Adam Lanza, who acquaintances said was able to take apart and reassemble a computer in a matter of minutes but rarely spoke to anyone.

In high school, Lanza hardly ever talked to classmates and once gave a presentation entirely by computer, never uttering a single word.

“As long as I knew him, he never really spoke,” said Daniel Frost, who took a computer class with Lanza and remembered his skill with electronics.

Lanza seemed to spend most of his time in his own large space in the basement of the home he shared with his mother — the same basement where she kept a collection of guns, said Russell Ford, a friend of Nancy Lanza’s who had done chimney and pipe work on the house.

A week ago, Lanza fatally shot his mother before blasting his way into the school, killing 20 children and six teachers with a military-style rifle. As police approached, he used a handgun to commit suicide.

Nancy Lanza was