Graduating Sandy Hook survivor looks back and ahead

By Kar­la Perez | UConn Jour­nal­ism
July 17, 2025

Lenie Urbina grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut in May. With a wide smile on her face, she col­lect­ed her diplo­ma at Gam­pel Pavil­ion to the cheers of her friends and fam­i­ly. As she walked, Lenie’s mind slipped tothe 20 Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary stu­dents and the six staff mem­bers who were killed 12 years ago in a tragedy that shocked the nation.

Lenie was there that day; a fourth grad­er hid­ing in the gym sup­ply clos­et try­ing not to jump at the sound of gun­shots. The tragedy would fol­low her for years, as she became a focal point for con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists who claimed the shoot­ing was a hoax.  

Behind the activist, soror­i­ty leader, dri­ven stu­dent and aspir­ing lawyer that Lenie is today, part of her is still that fourth grad­er – a girl fight­ing to reclaim her iden­ti­ty. 

As she looks ahead to start­ing law school at Quin­nip­i­ac Uni­ver­si­ty this fall, Lenie uses her trau­ma as fuel to con­tin­ue advo­cat­ing for an end to gun vio­lence.  

“I’ve been doing this for ‘lit­tle me’ for so many years,” she says.

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When Lenie woke up on Dec. 14, 2012, she begged her mom not to make her go to school. She couldn’t explain it in words, but she had a ter­ri­ble gut feel­ing. 

Her mom, Michelle, thought Lenie was just being dif­fi­cult. The night before, Lenie had sung with her class­mates at the win­ter cho­rus con­cert — a tra­di­tion for every fourth-grade class at Sandy Hook. The fes­tiv­i­ties con­tin­ued with a cel­e­bra­tion at a frozen yogurt shop. Lenie came home that night excit­ed for school the next day.  

The next morn­ing, her anx­i­ety sub­sided once Lenie got to school and min­gled with her friends. But it lin­gered in the back of her mind as she walked into one of her favorite class­es: gym. While her teach­ers gave instruc­tions for the morning’s activ­i­ties, the over­head loud­speak­er abrupt­ly clicked on and off. The teach­ers raced to the gym doors and cov­ered their win­dows with black paper. Then, in hushed voic­es, they urged the 45 fright­ened stu­dents into a cor­ner. Through the thick gym walls, Lenie could hear a woman’s scream, a voice yell “Put your hands up!” and bang after bang.

“You can hold hands with the per­son next to you if you’re scared,” one teacher whis­pered.  

Lenie remained out­ward­ly cal­mas shetried to com­fort class­mates wor­ried about younger sib­lings in near­by class­rooms. But she couldn’t slow her rac­ing heart.  

Sud­den­ly, two police offi­cers in SWAT armor flung the doors open and told every­one to get into the sup­ply clos­et. It was tiny and filled with gym equip­ment, but every­one crowd­ed in and hud­dled togeth­er on the floor. 

The police lat­er returned and told the stu­dents to link arms to exit through the school’s back entrance. They warned the chil­dren to close their eyes, but Lenie didn’t lis­ten.  

“If there is one thing I could go back and tell myself, it’s ‘Don’t open your eyes,’” she says.

Today, she still sees the bloody bod­ies lying inthe hall­way and hears teach­ers and police offi­cers cry­ing.

The shoot­er came in through the front entrance. Instead of con­tin­u­ing straight toward the gym, he turned right, into the hall­way of kinder­garten and first grade class­rooms. He killed 26 peo­ple that morn­ing.  

To Lenie, this night­mare seemed to stretch for hours. She was shocked to learn it last­ed just over five min­utes.

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As sur­viv­ing stu­dents were whisked away to safe­ty, Lenie’s father, Cur­tis, a stay-at-home dad, rushed to the school with her 3‑year-old sis­ter Sky.  

 They were direct­ed to a near­by fire­house where Lenie and her class­mates had been tak­en. When they saw each oth­er, they ran sob­bing into each other’s arms. While hold­ing tight to his daugh­ter, Cur­tis texted Michelle, who was already on her way from her work at a bank in Bethel. 

Oth­er fam­i­lies’ night­mares con­tin­ued as they learned their chil­dren were unac­count­ed for. One was the broth­er of Lenie’s best friend and class­mate. While his par­ents stayed behind to await news of their younger son, the Urbinas took Lenie’s friend home for the evening. As they walked to their car, they were inter­cept­ed by a reporter from NBC Con­necti­cut who inter­viewed Lenie, cap­tur­ing a clip of a small, shak­en 9‑year-old girl, with a mane of curly hair.  

“I was in the gym, and I heard, like, sev­en loud booms, and then the teach­ers told us to go in the cor­ner, so we all hud­dled, and I kept hear­ing these boom­ing nois­es,” she told the TV inter­view­er. 

When they final­ly made it home, Lenie’s par­ents tried to dis­tract her and her friend with car­toons and rock paint­ing. But the respite was short-lived as they began to learn about the vic­tims. One was the broth­er of Lenie’s friend. Oth­ers were some of the chil­dren Lenie had eat­en frozen yogurt with the night before. 

Lenie also learned that anoth­er vic­tim was Avielle Rich­man, a first grad­er who Lenie treat­ed like a lit­tle sis­ter. With Lenie being small for her age and both girls hav­ing strik­ing­ly curly hair, they were jok­ing­ly described as twins. Lenie’s fond­est mem­o­ries are of read­ing books like Fan­cy Nan­cy to Avielle in the Sandy Hook library.

The fol­low­ing weeks were a whirl­wind of emo­tions. Between grief and survivor’s guilt, there was also the thrill of being in the lime­light – includ­ing the tele­vi­sion inter­view.  

Lenie had nev­er been one to cry eas­i­ly, but she espe­cial­ly tried to avoid it in the days fol­low­ing the shoot­ing. She believed that if her par­ents saw she was okay, they would be okay too.  

By ear­ly Jan­u­ary, Lenie and her Sandy Hook class­mates resumed school at a dif­fer­ent build­ing in New­town. On one of her first days back, Lenie was thrilled to learn she would be part of a group of stu­dents to per­form at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.  

The 26 stu­dents sang “Amer­i­ca the Beau­ti­ful” in Cae­sars Super­dome with Jen­nifer Hud­son, green rib­bons pinned to their polos in hon­or of the shoot­ing vic­tims. They also got a sur­prise vis­it from Bey­on­cé, who chat­ted with the chil­dren and snapped a pho­to with Lenie. 

Lenie was promi­nent in the front row, stand­ing tall and proud despite her small stature. She would soon dis­cov­er that fame is a dou­ble-edged sword, espe­cial­ly when root­ed in tragedy. This trib­ute to their home­town was quick­ly skewed by con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists look­ing for “proof” that the Sandy Hook shoot­ing was a hoax.  

“That was when I think it real­ly start­ed to kick off,” Lenie says. “They start­ed point­ing each of us out and match­ing us to vic­tims… to be like, ‘Your child’s not dead, they’re right there.’” 

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Despite Lenie’s par­ents’ efforts to shield her from the aggres­sive con­spir­a­cies about her and her fam­i­ly, a child’s curios­i­ty is pow­er­ful.  

Three years after the tragedy, when she was 12, Lenie Googled her name and was stunned by what popped up. Michelle sat her down and explained that there was a group of con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists that believed Sandy Hook was a gov­ern­ment hoax to deny Amer­i­cans’ Sec­ond Amend­ment rights.  

As con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists looked for “proof” that the shoot­ing didn’t hap­pen, they matched the faces of liv­ing chil­dren to each of the vic­tims. They insist­ed that, due to their sim­i­lar size and shared curly hair, Avielle was still alive and liv­ing with anoth­er fam­i­ly in New­town under the assumed name “Lenie Urbina.” 

UConn jour­nal­ism pro­fes­sor Aman­da J. Craw­ford, who stud­ies con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about mass shoot­ings, said the Sandy Hook con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries start­ed imme­di­ate­ly in fringe inter­net forums — many­root­ed in mis­takes and incon­sis­ten­cies in the break­ing news cov­er­age. Promi­nent right-wing provo­ca­teu­rAlex Jones ampli­fied to mil­lions of fol­low­ers of his radio show and Infowars web­site the base­less con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that par­ents, stu­dents and oth­er sur­vivors were cri­sis actors paid to stage the tragedy so that the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment could use it to take away Amer­i­cans’ guns.

Some of Jones’s most out­ra­geous claims orig­i­nat­ed with fel­low con­spir­acist Wolf­gang Hal­big, a retired Flori­da pub­lic school secu­ri­ty employ­ee who became obsessed with Sandy Hook and tried to prove that Lenie and Avielle are the same per­son. He pub­lished Lenie’s pho­to and address online and trav­eled to New­town sev­er­al times — some at Jones’ expense — to press town offi­cials for volu­mi­nous pub­lic records, includ­ingthe names of stu­dents from the 2013 Super Bowl per­for­mance, seek­ing to prove that Avielle and oth­er vic­tims were there. In 2015, Hal­big brought pho­tos of Avielle and Lenie to a man in Texas he claimed to be an “expert wit­ness” of doc­u­ment exam­i­na­tion to “con­firm” the girls were the same per­son.

“In Halbig’s world, Lenie was sig­nif­i­cant ‘proof’ that the chil­dren are still alive,” says Lenny Pozn­er, a father whose first-grade son Noah was killed in the shoot­ing.  

In 2014, Pozn­er found­ed the HONR Net­work­to fight inter­net con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists who spread false­hoods about his son and oth­er vic­tims. Since then, Pozn­er has suc­cess­ful­ly got­ten count­less hoax plat­forms cir­cu­lat­ing fic­ti­tious con­tent about Lenie and Avielle removed.

In 2020, Hal­big was arrest­ed in Flori­da and charged with the unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of Pozner’s per­son­al infor­ma­tion such as his Social Secu­ri­ty Num­ber; the charges were lat­er dropped.

Though there are still active hoax sites, search­ing Lenie’s name on Google today will yield smil­ing pho­tos on her sorority’s Insta­gram page and her char­i­ty work pro­vid­ing food to hos­pi­tal staff dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Nev­er­the­less, Hal­big con­tin­ues to send ram­bling emails to the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion and the press spew­ing Sandy Hook con­spir­a­cies.

“It’s very like­ly that [Hal­big] is still talk­ing about Lenie,” Pozn­er says.   

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Until her sopho­more year of high school, the only social media Lenie used was Musical.ly, now Tik­Tok, though she took the pre­cau­tion not to post her face or name.

She kept her Insta­gram account pri­vate until 2019, when a video of her prank­ing view­ers that she was cel­e­brat­ing her own 12^th birth­day went viral on Tik­Tok and gar­nered 100,000 fol­low­ers. Today, Lenie has near­ly 3,000 fol­low­ers on Tik­Tok and near­ly 7,000 fol­low­ers on Insta­gram. Her con­tent is a mix of shar­ing her per­son­al life and advo­cat­ing for gun pol­i­cy reform.  

Lenie doesn’t want her past to take cen­ter stage.  

“I want to share the good parts of my life,” she says.  

She uses Insta­gram Sto­ries and Tik­Tok reposts to advo­cate against gun vio­lence and crit­i­cizes Pres­i­dent Trump for his oppo­si­tion to more gun reg­u­la­tion. She con­demns his deci­sion to shut down the fed­er­al Office of Gun Vio­lence Pre­ven­tion, but she hopes to work there one day — when it gets rein­stat­ed, she says, not if.  

She doesn’t explic­it­ly post about Sandy Hook for fear of attract­ing atten­tion from trolls and con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists. Two years ago, she made an excep­tion. In Decem­ber 2023, 11 years after the shoot­ing, she post­ed a video clip of her and her class­mates singing “Light the Can­dles” dur­ing the win­ter cho­rus con­cert the night before. Inno­cent voic­es har­mo­nized, “But wouldn’t it be nice; if we could have one cel­e­bra­tion; all of us togeth­er.” 

Lenie has since removed the post. 

“Peo­ple from law school are start­ing to fol­low me and I feel like if they see [the video], that’s all they’ll think about when they see me,” she says. “I want them to know me for things oth­er than the tragedy and then learn that lat­er on.” 

Lenie still receives mes­sages from Sandy Hook con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists. Recent­ly, a Vir­ginia man sent her Insta­gram mes­sages call­ing her the “mes­si­ah.” He’s also tried mes­sag­ing her sis­ter and boyfriend, and mailed let­ters to her house plead­ing with her to help him “befriend the peo­ple of Sandy Hook.” Her fam­i­ly has since filed a restrain­ing order against him.  

Lenie doesn’t engage with the con­spir­acists. She has filed more reports with the New­town and UConn police than she can count. While each encounter is nerve-rack­ing, espe­cial­ly when it involves her address get­ting leaked, she reminds her­self that they have nev­er phys­i­cal­ly harmed her. 

How­ev­er, trau­ma lingers. Occa­sion­al­ly, Lenie will awake with a gut feel­ing sim­i­lar to the one she felt the morn­ing of the shoot­ing. When that hap­pens, she locks her­self away in her apart­ment — some­times for the entire day.

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Lenie grad­u­at­ed from UConn with a degree in busi­ness man­age­ment and minors in polit­i­cal sci­ence and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

A blue cord dec­o­rat­ing her gown rep­re­sent­ed her­ad­vo­ca­cy against gun vio­lence.  She served as the founder and pres­i­dent for UConn’s Every­town for Gun Safe­ty­chap­ter, Stu­dents Demand Action. As she heads to law schoolat Quin­nip­i­ac, she has passed the torch to lead the UConn chap­ter to ris­ing juniors Jack­ie Hegar­ty and Audrey Nichols — two more Sandy Hook sur­vivors.

“I’m not anti-gun; I’m anti-gun vio­lence,” she says. “And I feel like that’s some­thing every­one should agree on.” 

Lenie believes that her gen­er­a­tion has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to make peo­ple care enough about the impacts of gun vio­lence to fight for an end to it.  

In her 2023 memo­r­i­al post, she wrote: “Now, eleven years lat­er, we’re old­er, we’re stronger, and we’re still here. Our coun­try has failed us in more ways than ever pos­si­ble. We should have been the last one.”