'Connecticut school shooter Adam Lanza and his mother visited gun ranges'

She said Lanza's mother "battled" with the school board and ended up having her son home-schooled.

"She had issues with school," said the aunt, who lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois. "I'm not 100 per cent certain if it was behaviour or learning disabilities, but he was a very,

very bright boy. He was smart."

"You could definitely tell he was a genius," Alex Israel, a classmate of Lanza at Newtown High School who lived a few houses down from him, was quoted by the channel as saying.

"He was really quiet, he kept to himself," Israel added.

A relative told investigators that Adam Lanza had a form of autism, according to a law enforcement official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation.

But a national autism committee cautioned against speculating about a link between autism and violence.

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