Afraid She Was 'Losing' Him: Slain Mother of CT Shooter Reportedly Said Son Was 'Getting Worse' Last Week

In this handout image provided by ABC News, shows Nancy J. Lanza mother of suspected mass shooter Adam Lanza at an unspecified time and place. (Photo: Getty Images)

Roughly one week before her son went on a deadly shooting rampage at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, Nancy Lanza reportedly told a friend that she feared her always-eccentric son was "getting worse."

The New York Daily News relates:

A drinking buddy of Lanza told The Daily News that her son Adam had long been troubled and rarely came up in conversation.

"She just looked down at the glass and said, 'I don't know. I'm worried I'm losing him,'" said the bar pal, who did not wish to be named, of the ominous conversation at the bar My Place in Newtown, Conn.

"She said it was getting worse. She was having trouble reaching him."

Nancy Lanza was the first person killed in the attack that claimed 26 other lives at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Officials say she was shot four times in the head, and was discovered in her bed wearing pajamas.

Prior reports indicate that the gunman, Adam Lanza, had a difficult time feeling both emotional and physical pain.  Within the past year, he had apparently taken to burning himself repeatedly.

The New York Daily News continues:

"Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something," [the friend] recalled of a conversation they had about a year ago. "It was like he was trying to feel something."

[...]

"It was weird. She never really talked about (Adam)," he said. "She mainly talked about her oldest kid (Ryan). I knew about the other one but she never spoke much about him.

"She looked disturbed. She was looking down at her glass and kind of talking slowly," he added [of their conversation last week].

Nancy's morose disposition could not have been more out of character.

"You have to know Nancy to know how weird that was," he said. "She was just always so full of life."

As she lamented her son's deteriorating mental state, the drinking buddy took a phone call. When he started chatting with her again, the subject had changed and Nancy was acting her normal, happy self.

The anonymous pal remembered Nancy as a die-hard Red Sox fan who had season tickets to Fenway Park. She "was a country girl" who loved to hunt with a falcon that would scare game she'd blast out of the sky.

When the friend asked Nancy whether she had sought help for her troubled son, she reportedly said yes.

WTIC has the latest on how the victims' families are recovering, and how the city is coping:

​The Associated Press contributed to this report.