Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Page 32

There’s no shortage of staggeringly disingenuous claims in this sad, ugly book, but nearly everything on page 32 manages to compete for the title of most egregious.

Beginning with the second photo on the page, Chang misidentifies an image as a school hallway being used for storage. This claim collapses the moment even minimal context is restored.

Walkley’s crime scene photographs are presented in strict chronological order across 760 pages. The image Chang relies on appears on page 759—essentially the very end of the photographic record, long after forensic processing was well underway. A nearly identical image, taken at approximately the same time, appears on page 953 of 970 in Tranquillo’s Back-up Scene Photos #2, also part of the “22 Assorted Files” archive. Like Walkley’s, Tranquillo’s photos are likewise chronological.

Below is a clearer, annotated version of the Walkley photo Chang stripped of context. This image appears on page 759 of 760, placing it at the tail end of the investigation’s timeline. Click to view full-size:

In this view, odd-numbered rooms are on the left and even-numbered rooms on the right, with room numbers increasing toward the lobby. For orientation, I’ve highlighted the height markers between rooms #3 and #5, as well as the “Warm up to a good story” display between rooms #10 and #12.

A blue tarp blocks the hallway’s view into the lobby, and red biohazard bags are visible on the floor—hardly the trappings of a long-abandoned storage corridor. Several items Chang points to as “stored furniture” are identifiable elsewhere in earlier photos: the white-and-blue portable storage racks (including the one on the far right) appear inside Room #10—Victoria Soto’s first-grade classroom—on pages 161–162 of Walkley’s photos. Tranquillo’s Back-up Scene Photos #1 (pages 167 and 200) show these same racks, along with what appear to be the same desk chairs and computer workstation visible on the left.

For additional clarity, here is the same hallway marked on the Sandy Hook floor plan:

Now compare Chang’s cherry-picked image to how the hallway appeared shortly after the shooting. The following photo, from page 88 of Walkley’s scene photos, has been cropped to roughly match the perspective of the page 759 image. Walkley took this earlier photo from farther back—roughly between rooms #4 and #6—while the later photo was taken closer to the lobby, between rooms #6 and #8.

The height markers between rooms #3 and #5 are clearly visible here. I’ve circled one of Adam Lanza’s dropped magazines on the floor, and marked the approximate position from which the page 759 photo was taken. In the distance, Mary Sherlach’s body is faintly visible:

Near room #5, SWAT and EMS equipment is plainly visible: a helmet, a LifePak 15 monitor, an EMT backpack, and a bag containing mass-casualty supplies. This is not “storage”—it’s an active crime scene.

A closer view of this same area appears on page 70 of Tranquillo’s Back-up Scene Photos #1. In this image, I’ve again labeled the height markers, circled the cartridge, and indicated Walkley’s approximate shooting position. The spatial continuity is unmistakable:

At this point, the explanation should be obvious. The image Chang misrepresents was taken after investigators had begun systematically clearing rooms, temporarily staging contents in the hallway to allow unobstructed forensic access. This process is clearly documented in Walkley’s photos (pages 563–574) and Tranquillo’s Back-up Scene Photos #2 (pages 151–152), which show Room #8 almost entirely emptied. The official report (CFS 1200704597, 00118939.pdf) explicitly describes this room-by-room clearing process:

If that still isn’t enough, here is a photograph from Sandy Hook’s 2011–2012 school scrapbook, taken January 23, 2012—nearly a year before the shooting—showing this same hallway in everyday use. There are no boxes, no stacked furniture, no clutter of any kind:

The conclusion is unavoidable: Sandy Hook’s hallways were not used for storage. The only reason they appear that way in Fetzer’s book is because Chang and Fetzer deliberately presented photos stripped of chronology and context.

With nine contributors—five of them holding PhDs—you’d expect such a basic error to have been caught. Unless, of course, it wasn’t an error at all.

The same pattern applies to the allegedly “jammed” classroom pictured at the top of the page.

That image depicts Classroom #6, a special education room, taken from page 249 of Walkley’s scene photos. Chang selected the single most cluttered angle—near the teacher’s desk—while ignoring adjacent photos taken moments later that show the rest of the room. Below is a composite assembled from pages 249–251, images Chang would have had access to but chose not to show:

Not exactly “jammed.”

More damaging still is a second composite assembled from four photos taken from the opposite side of the room, just inside the doorway (pages 244–247). From this angle, the room appears even less cluttered:

As seen in both composites, there is no fire hazard here as Maria Chang claims. The path to the door is clear and unobstructed. Additionally, personal items such as jackets and water bottles are visible in both photos, further indicating an active classroom. In fact, you can even spot coffee brewing to the left in the first composite, and a December 2012 calendar is prominently visible just to the right of center. All of this points to the fact that this was indeed an active classroom and a functioning school.

There is no fire hazard here. The path to the door is clear and unobstructed. Jackets, water bottles, a coffee maker, and a December 2012 calendar are all plainly visible—hallmarks of an active classroom in a functioning school, not a storage dump masquerading as one.

Which leaves us with three possible explanations, listed here in descending order of plausibility:

1. Intentional deception: Maria Hsia Chang and James Fetzer knowingly presented photos out of order and out of context to fabricate a false narrative and sell books.
2. Staggering incompetence: Chang somehow misunderstood material she demonstrably had access to, and Fetzer’s editorial team failed to catch it.
3. An elaborate hoax: Sandy Hook was abandoned for years, repurposed as storage, then meticulously staged—right down to seasonal decorations, personal items, fresh coffee, and deliberately misleading photo sequences—to fool the public, while simultaneously releasing the very evidence needed to expose the ruse.

Only one of these explanations survives contact with reality.

Read more about “Dr. Eowyn” aka Maria Hsia Chang here: Who Writes This Shit? Who Is “Dr. Eowyn”?