Father Has Claimed Adam Lanza's Body, Family Tells AP

By Mark Memmott

Published December 31, 2012 at 9:30 AM EST

Remembering the victims: Earlier this month, two mourners paused at a makeshift memorial in Newtown, Conn., for the children and adults killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

"The father of the gunman who killed 26 people in a Connecticut school shooting has claimed his son's body," The Associated Press reports. "A spokesman for the family said Monday that Peter Lanza claimed the remains of Adam Lanza. He didn't say when the remains were claimed."

Sunday, according to The Hartford Courant, State Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II announced that the 20-year-old killer's body had been "claimed several days ago by someone who wanted to remain anonymous."

Peter Lanza and his son, according to the Courant and other news outlets, had little contact in the past few years. The elder Lanza and Adam's mother, Nancy, divorced in 2009. Authorities say Adam Lanza killed his 52-year-old mother before the Dec. 14 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Twenty first-graders and six adults at the school were mortally wounded before Adam Lanza took his own life.

Police have said it may take months, if not longer, to determine a motive for the mass shooting.