Fact Checking “Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”, Chapter Eleven

“Nobody Died At Sandy Hook”
Chapter Eleven
By: James Fetzer and Kelley Watt

When I saw the title of this chapter—“Are Sandy Hook skeptics delusional with ‘twisted minds’?”—I thought, Perfect. Easiest chapter yet. I’ll just write “yes”—or “yes, of course,” if I’m feeling loquacious—publish it, and move on to Chapter Twelve.

Unfortunately, there are actual claims being made here. Most are the same recycled nonsense we’ve already slogged through in earlier chapters, but a couple of new wrinkles are tossed in for variety.

Ol’ Jimmy kicks things off by quoting himself, which is certainly a choice.

Page 178

Fetzer and Watt return to the familiar claim that none of the bullet fragments could be matched to Adam Lanza’s Bushmaster—a point I already addressed in Chapter Eight. But since repetition seems to be their comfort zone, let’s recap.

While some bullet jackets were damaged and corroded—owing largely to poor firearm maintenance and post-impact deformation—all recovered shell casings were conclusively matched to the Bushmaster rifle found in Classroom 10. From the official report:

The Bushmaster rifle was found in classroom 10. The Bushmaster was tested and found to be operable without malfunction. All of the 5.56 mm shell casings from SHES that were tested were found to have been fired from this rifle. All of the bullets and fragments, recovered from SHES and the OCME that were tested, with the exception of those mentioned immediately below, are consistent with having been fired from the Bushmaster rifle. They could not have been fired from the Saiga-12, the Glock 20 or the Sig Sauer P226.

And let’s indulge their fantasy for a moment. If the shooting were staged (it wasn’t) and the official reports falsified (they weren’t), then authorities would have exercised total narrative control. So why, in that imaginary scenario, would they include language that conspiracy theorists could even attempt to exploit? Why not simply state that every fragment was a perfect match and move on?

Because that’s not how real forensic reporting works—but it is how bad fiction works. The inclusion of nuance and limitation is evidence of honesty, not deception.

Then there’s this gem:

Under these circumstances, it would have been impossible for the alleged shooter, Adam Lanza, to have been convicted in a properly conducted court of law for his alleged offense.

Right. Let’s just ignore that Lanza’s body was recovered at the scene alongside the rifle used in the murders. Or that ballistic analysis tied the shell casings to that weapon. Or that his car was abandoned in the school’s fire lane with a shotgun visible inside. Or that witnesses observed him acting alone. Or that he murdered his mother at home with firearms she legally purchased—further tying him to the weapons used that day.

Let’s also ignore the blood spatter from his victims found on his clothing and shoes:

Supplemental report 00122048.pdf (CHS 1200704597) meticulously catalogs bloodstains on each item of Lanza’s clothing, documenting their location, pattern, and consistency with the crime scene.

But sure—“impossible” to convict.

And because no chapter would be complete without reheating old leftovers, Fetzer and Watt once again resurrect the Shannon Hicks evacuation photographs. This may be the third time this argument appears, and it’s presented with the same microscopic, low-resolution comparison images that look like they were scanned from a fax machine sometime around 2005:

The images are so tiny and blurry—possibly by design—that Fetzer and Watt could probably convince their readers they’re looking at Sasquatch. In reality, the children depicted bear no resemblance to one another and are wearing entirely different clothing.

I covered this claim in exhaustive detail back in Chapter Five. Nothing has changed since then—except that it’s somehow gotten even weaker with repetition.

Page 179

Fetzer and Watt argue that a real evacuation would have inevitably produced countless photographs showing hundreds of students clustered in the parking lot. As always, this claim collapses almost immediately under even minimal scrutiny.

First, the children were evacuated in small groups, not all at once, and through multiple exit points. The scenario Fetzer and Watt imagine—hundreds of students flooding out a single front entrance simultaneously—is a complete fabrication. No official report, witness account, or contemporaneous media description suggests anything remotely like that occurred. This is a strawman invented solely to be knocked down.

Second, video footage of the evacuations exists but has been redacted or withheld because it depicts large numbers of identifiable minors in an active crime scene. Releasing such material would violate well-established privacy protections for children under both federal and state law, including constitutional privacy guarantees and Connecticut statutes governing juvenile records and images. The absence of publicly released evacuation footage is not suspicious—it is exactly what the law requires.

And then there’s this:

Adam Lanzan, huh?

Please, James—tell me more about these “highly educated researchers” who wrote and edited this book.

“Search for any parent displaying real grief. It’s not there.” pg. 181

Yeah—no “real” grief here, scumbag:

Page 181 offers a textbook example of how Sandy Hook denial operates: assert something grotesque, get immediately disproven, and then pretend the evidence itself is fraudulent.

Fetzer first claims that the absence of publicly available death certificates proves a cover-up. He is then confronted with an official death certificate—specifically, Noah Pozner’s. Rather than concede the point, Fetzer predictably declares the document a fake.

Let’s be crystal clear about what that accusation entails. Noah Pozner’s death certificate was released publicly by his father, Lenny Pozner. Calling it a forgery is not some abstract critique of bureaucracy—it is an accusation that Lenny is either lying, participating in a hoax, or being used as a prop by the state of Connecticut. Fetzer never quite commits to which, but the smear is unmistakable.

And if it isn’t obvious: Lenny Pozner is Noah’s father.

Fetzer and Watt repeatedly place Lenny’s name in quotation marks, a childish rhetorical trick meant to suggest that even his identity is somehow suspect. Curiously, they never apply the same insinuation to Noah himself. Apparently the imaginary crisis actors only extend one generation deep.

Lenny Pozner has been one of the most relentlessly harassed Sandy Hook parents, precisely because he has been willing to confront deniers head-on. As a result, he appears more frequently in denialist fantasy than nearly any other victim’s family member—an outcome Fetzer and his ilk seem to relish.

When it comes time to explain why he believes the death certificate is forged, Fetzer does something he does quite often: he punts responsibility to other conspiracy cranks. In this case, he cites two nobodies—Dennis Cimino and Bob Sims—as if outsourcing the accusation somehow absolves him of it.

Sims writes:

“I am rather surprised, according to the copy you posted, that any branch of government was still using typewriters at all, when computers can do it so much better.” pg. 182

This is only surprising if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Typewriters never disappeared from government or institutional use, and pretending they did just exposes how flimsy this argument is. As Richard Polt explains in The Typewriter Revolution (2015):

Why do typewriters still get made at all?

Because there are some niches in business and government where they still get used.

Those “niches” are exactly the environments Fetzer is pretending don’t exist. Police departments still use typewriters for reports, warrants, and property receipts. In 2012, New York City agencies—including the NYPD—were collectively using over a thousand of them. As Mayor Michael Bloomberg put it at the time:

“They still have a function and your belief that typewriters have gone away is just erroneous.”

Prisons rely on typewriters because inmates are barred from computers. Libraries use them for labeling. Hospitals, banks, and law offices keep them on hand. Intelligence and diplomatic services use them precisely because they aren’t networked.

And relevant here: funeral homes.

Polt explicitly notes that funeral homes routinely use typewriters for death certificates:

Libraries type labels. Funeral homes type official death certificates.

This isn’t obscure trivia. The Wall Street Journal ran a 2013 article titled “Death Keeps Typewriters Alive, Clacking” documenting this exact practice. The CDC acknowledges it as well. Its Funeral Directors’ Handbook on Death Registration states:

Make the entry legible. Use a computer printer with high resolution, typewriter with good black ribbon and clean keys, or print legibly using permanent black ink.

So no—there is nothing strange about a death certificate being typed. What is strange is Fetzer’s belief that every government office modernized instantly, uniformly, and without legacy systems.

Once again, a mundane administrative reality is treated as evidence of fraud—not because it is, but because Fetzer and Watt don’t understand how institutions actually operate.

“For starters, can you see any reason for the government typist to change the ball back and forth on the IBM machine I must assume was being used” pg. 182

An absolutely asinine assumption.

Standard procedure—laid out plainly in the CDC handbook—is as follows:

• The funeral director enters biographical information.
• The medical certifier completes the medical sections.
• Additional details may be added later before the certificate is filed with the state registrar.

Different people. Different offices. Different machines. Sometimes computers, sometimes typewriters, sometimes both. That has been true for decades.

When you compare Noah Pozner’s certificate to Adam Lanza’s, the pattern is obvious: consistent typefaces within logical groupings. One typeface for biographical entries, another for medical information. That’s exactly what you’d expect from a document completed correctly.

Fetzer’s objection depends entirely on an imaginary scenario—a lone typist swapping typeballs for no reason. That scenario exists only in his head.

“For example, look at the very top in Box 3, where the date is posted. Why is that type clearly smaller than the rest of the page?” pg. 182

Because it was typed on a different machine.

The type in Box 3 matches the type used in Boxes 37, 38, and 49—entries almost certainly completed by the medical certifier. When compared side by side, the match is obvious: same letterforms, stroke width, spacing, and scale.

The only reason Box 3 draws attention is that it contains numbers, while most other entries using that typeface are alphabetic. Once you compare like with like, the argument evaporates.

Nothing was resized, altered, or selectively manipulated. It’s simply a different typewriter completing a different section of the form.

“Now look at the capital ‘A’ in Box 12 for Residence (Alpine). It is identical to the capital ‘A’ in Box 22 for Mailing Address (Alpine). It is also identical to the capital ‘A’ in Box 33 for Funeral Home.” pg. 182

Yes. Correct. And exactly as expected.

Boxes 12 (Residence), 22 (Mailing Address), and 33 (Funeral Home) are all completed by the funeral director. Naturally, they were entered using the same machine, often in a single sitting.

Rather than revealing a problem, this consistency confirms the form was completed normally. Fetzer and Watt have accidentally pointed out evidence of routine administrative work and declared it suspicious.

“Note that the capital ‘A’ in question above in three different boxes has a small flag at its pinnacle. Compare that to the capital ‘A’, without the small flag in Box 4, Time of Death, Box 26, City or Town, Box 27, County of Death, and Box 39, Time Pronounced, and in Box 46, Time of Injury.” pg. 182

And once again, this observation undermines their own claim.

The unflagged “A” appears consistently across Boxes 4, 26, 27, 39, and 46. That’s a second typeface, used coherently within a specific set of entries. There is no randomness here—just two distinct machines completing two distinct portions of the form.

A forgery would either be uniform throughout or sloppily inconsistent. What we see instead is structured, logical grouping—the opposite of fabrication.

At this point, the authors are just pointing at the same formatting differences and hoping repetition will do the work of argument.

“Compare Box 1, ‘Noah,’ with Box 7, ‘November,’ and you will clearly see that the spacing between the ‘N’ and the ‘o’ is quite different.” pg. 182

This isn’t an argument—it’s an observation with no conclusion.

Yes, there are minor spacing differences. Yes, one entry is slightly crooked. And then… nothing. No explanation for how this supports fraud.

If anything, these imperfections argue against forgery. A fabricated document would be clean and uniform; minor misalignment and uneven kerning are exactly what you expect from real clerical work done by humans on a typewriter, not a computer.

Once again, mundane quirks are declared sinister simply because the authors need them to be.

“Compare Box 1, the ‘N’ in ‘Noah,’ with Box 26, the ‘N’ in ‘SANDY.’ They are clearly different.” pg. 182

“Compare Box 1, ‘Samuel,’ with Box 11, ‘Sandy,’ and again, the spacing between the ‘S’ and the “a” is clearly not the same.” pg. 182

“Compare the name “Pozner” in Box 1 with “Pozner” in Box 20, clearly not the same.“ pg. 183

Different “N”s? Different machines.

Different spacing in “Samuel” and “Sandy”? Manual typing.

“Pozner” typed twice with slight kerning variation? Still manual typing.

These observations add nothing new. The typefaces are consistent within their respective sections, and slight variations are normal on typewritten documents. Repeating the same point does not turn it into evidence.

“Moreover, Noah Pozner’s ‘death certificate’ states that ‘No autopsy was performed’, while the ‘official report’ states, ‘All the victims were given autopsies’. We know they cannot both be true. It would be tempting to presume that one of them is accurate and the other a mistake. But insofar as they are both predicated on the presupposition Noah Pozner and 19 other children actually died at Sandy Hook, they both appear to be false.” pg. 183

The death certificate states no autopsy was performed, and that’s accurate. Noah’s family declined an internal autopsy for religious reasons.

The “official report” states that autopsy reports were received for all victims. Fetzer and Watt stop there, satisfied, rather than investigating further.

Lenny Pozner did investigate. He contacted Dr. James Gill, Connecticut’s Chief Medical Examiner, who explained:

Dear Mr. Pozner,

We define “autopsy” as an external and internal postmortem examination. When the internal examination is not done, we call this an external examination or external postmortem examination. Unfortunately, in my cover letter to the State Police, I incorrectly used “26 autopsy reports” and this was then later included in the State Police report. I am sorry for the confusion this has caused you and I have contacted Alison Peters of the State Police to let her know.

You can read this correspondence on SandyHookFacts.com.

Fetzer’s refusal to resolve this discrepancy caught up with him in court. In 2018, Lenny Pozner sued him for defamation over Noah’s death certificate. Fetzer lost. Representing himself, he performed so badly that even he later admitted his original claims were mistaken—while insisting, of course, that new problems existed.

Pages 183–186 abruptly shift to a submission from “Kelly,” whose identity is unclear and whose spelling doesn’t even match Kelley Watt’s. Fetzer outsourcing chunks of his book? That tracks.

“Kelly” claims to have harassed Lenny Pozner for weeks, demanded private family materials, dismissed everything she received as fake, and then floated the idea that Lenny himself might have been an actor with access to personal family photos.

She then expects sympathy after admitting she donated to Lenny’s charity solely to set up a lawsuit. When Lenny cut contact, he’s cast as the villain.

This story includes several false claims:

“The following Monday he sent me an email telling me to check my inbox and sure enough, much to my surprise, he had posted all the things I asked for on his lenpoz.com website. However, the photo was not of his wife in the hospital, nonetheless, he did post a photo of Veronique with the two newborns in her arms. The death certificate I believe stated he was ‘never married’ which I thought odd.“ pg. 184

Why exactly is that odd?

Death certificates are standardized forms. There is a box for marital status, regardless of the decedent’s age. Should the medical examiner have left it blank? Skip the military service box too?

This is not a scandal. It’s desperation masquerading as inquiry.

“Speaking of his wife I asked him about Veronique working for the State Department in some capacity to disarm the country of Switzerland and he told me she never worked for the State Department but was a nurse, to which I asked for her nursing certificate (which he sent). Since Veronique’s mother worked for the UN, I decided to call the office in the US Embassy and disguised myself as a foreigner to ask for Mrs. Veronique Haller. I was told that ‘she had left her post in 2013’ (after she had been discovered working there for gun control in Switzerland).“ pg. 184

This claim has already been dismantled in detail by SandyHookFacts.com. It is complete nonsense and requires no further rehabilitation here.

“Meanwhile, Noah’s mother has claimed that she has released a photograph of his body. But no one I know can find it. So where is it?” pg. 186

More nonsense.

Veronique Pozner has never claimed to release such a photograph. This claim appears to stem from confusing her with the mother of Emmett Till—a staggeringly careless error.

And with that, the chapter ends not with evidence, but with recycled rumors, misread documents, and the persistent hope that confidence might substitute for accuracy.

Next: Chapter Twelve: “Every Grain Of Sandy Hook: Snopes.com & Plausible Deniability” by Sterling Harwood