The gunman in the Connecticut shooting rampage shot his mother four times in the head before going to the school and gunning down 26, authorities said yesterday as details emerged suggesting that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre.

The massacre of 26 children and adults at an elementary school in the US state of Connecticut elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised questions about why the gunman, a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims, some as young as five.

A gunman killed 26 people, including 20 young children, at a US school where his mother worked today in one of the worst school shootings in the country’s history.