Newtown Parents Used Photos To ID Youngest Victims

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The youngest victims of Friday's mass shooting at Newtown's Sandy Hook School had to be identified by photos to protect their parents, the chief medical examiner said Saturday.

Memorials appeared across Newtown Saturday after Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook School.
Photo Credit: *Al Branch*

Balloons and flowers surrounded the Sandy Hook School sign in Newtown.
Photo Credit: *Al Branch*

Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II discusses details of the Newtown shooting with the press Saturday evening.
Photo Credit: *Greg Canuel*

by Andrea Graziano and Matt Zalaznick

12/15/2012 3:50 p.m.

"We took picture of their facial features. It's much easier for the families to do it like that, we felt it would be best to do it this way," H. Wayne Carver II, the chief medical examiner said. "You can sort of you can control the situation depending on the photographer and I have a very good photographer."

Carver said the children were wearing "cute kid's stuff."

"They were first graders," he said.

Carver said each victim had been hit "more than once."

"This was a very devastating set of injuries," he said.

Officials said Saturday that all the victims were shot with a long rifle.

The suspect in Friday morning’s massacre, widely identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, of Newtown, was found dead inside the school. Twenty-seven people, including 20 children, were killed in the massacre.

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