Sandy Hook School Shooting Motive: Did Fear of Being Committed Spark Adam Lanza's Rampage?

Was the mother of Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old man who committed the second-deadliest school shooting ever at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Conn., trying to have her son committed to a psychiatric facility prior to the tragedy Dec. 14?

A longtime family acquaintance speaking to Fox News said Nancy Lanza, Adam's mother, was planning to place her child in psychiatric care before the horrific event that took the lives of 20 children and six adults.

According to The Huffington Post, a senior law official has also confirmed that authorities are investigating his mother's plan as a possible motive for the massacre.

"From what I've been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and (her) plans to have him committed," said 25-year-old Joshua Flashman who grew up not far from Sandy Hook Elementary. "Adam was apparently very upset about this. He thought she just wanted to send him away. From what I understand, he was really, really angry. I think this could have been it, what set him off."

Friday 20-year-old Adam Lanza reportedly shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, packed at least three of her guns, and then drove her car to the Connecticut K-4 elementary school, opening fire in two classrooms around 9:30 a.m., police said. Police are still searching for a motive; witnesses said the shooter didn't utter a word.

According to police, the three guns used in the shooting were legally purchased and registered to his mother Nancy. Lanza reportedly primarily used a Bushmaster .223 assault rifle while on the rampage.

Investigators questioned Lanza's older brother, 24-year-old Ryan Lanza, of Hoboken, N.J., for hours Friday and searched his computers and phone records, but he told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010. Police say he is not a suspect in the case.

Officials speaking under the condition of anonymity say Lanza had to force his way into the school.

"He didn't just snap. This takes a lot of planning," said Mary Ellen O'Toole, who has worked for 15 years in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit studying serial killers and psychopaths.

According to the New York Daily News who spoke to an unidentified friend of Nancy Lanza's, Adam Lanza had been withdrawing from his mother, and the world in general, in the days before the killings. The source claimed that Nancy had taken Adam to see a psychiatrist, but had no active plans of committing him to a formal facility. The Post notes authorities have confirmed neither of those reports.

According to numerous reports, Lanza suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of Autism, and was unable to physically feel pain.

While it was initially reported authorities couldn't establish a tangible connection between Nancy Lanza and Sandy Hook Elementary, she reportedly volunteered with kindergartners at the school for a number of years, the Post reports.

According to Flashman, Adam "believed she cared more for the children than she did for him."

Speaking to Fox News, Flashman said that Nancy was also good friends with the school's principal and psychologist, both of whom were killed during the incident.

Adam Lanza reportedly cut off communication with his father, Peter, in 2010, said the Huffington Post.