Police Unsure About Columbine ‘Martyr’

Cassie Bernall, hailed as a martyr in the Columbine High School massacre for professing her belief in God before she was shot dead, may never have had such an exchange with her killer, officials in Jefferson County, Colo., said. The story of the 17-year-old, one of the 13 people killed when two teenage gunmen stormed the Littleton, Colo., school on April 20, has inspired religious fervor among Christian teenagers and her parents have published a book called “She Said Yes: the Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall.” But a Jefferson County sheriff’s spokesman said, even though some students maintain that the exchange took place, doubts arose after investigators put the stories together with the time line and where witnesses were when they said they heard the exchange.