Pictured: Adam Lanza's father and new wife as it's revealed couple fled their home and haven't been back since massacre

Pictured: Adam Lanza's father and new wife as it's revealed couple fled their home and haven't been back since massacre

The father and step mother of Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old whose gun rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people, have been pictured for the first time as it is revealed the couple fled their home on the evening of the attack and have not been seen since.

Neighbours of Peter Lanza and Shelley Cudiner told MailOnline that the pair packed up their car and left their affluent home in the Stamford suburb of Westover, Connecticut, shortly after being informed of Adam's involvement in the massacre on Friday afternoon.

It was also claimed that when Peter, who works in financial services, was told of the tragic Sandy Hook gun massacre that his son had committed he became visibly shaken and made frantic phone calls to try and find out what exactly had happened.

Pictured: Neighbours said Peter Lanza, centre left, and his new wife, Shelley Cudiner, centre right, fled after hearing the news

'Peter was informed by a news reporter who was waiting outside his house that his son was involved in the shooting,' said a neighbour who has known Shelley for over a decade.

'After news crews descended on their house they calmly packed their bags and drove off and we've not seen them since.'

Nice but quiet: Neighbours described Shelley Cudiner, pictured, as a 'very quiet lady' who along Peter, kept herself to herself

Nice but quiet: Neighbours described Shelley Cudiner, pictured, as a 'very quiet lady' who along with Peter, kept to herself

The news reporter who told Lanza that his son had potentially committed one of the worst mass shootings in American history described the moment he learned the scale of the tragedy in the Stamford Advocate.

'His expression twisted from patient, to surprise to horror,' wrote Maggie Gordon.

'It was obvious that this moment, shortly after 1.30 p.m. Friday, was the first time he had considered his family could be involved.

'He quickly declined to comment, rolled up the window, parked in the right side of the two-car garage and closed the door.'

The stunned father is then said to have sat at a table in the front of his three-bedroomed house with a phone to his ear and his palm to his right cheek.

Once Shelley returned home the couple left and as revealed by the MailOnline have not been seen since by any of their neighbours.

One neighbour who declined to give their name said that Shelley and Peter Lanza had lived together for around three years and that she was 'a very nice woman.'

The neighbour described Shelley as a 'creature of habit' who never seemed 'out of the ordinary.'
Peter Lanza is a vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services and divorced Nancy Lanza in 2009 due to 'irreconcilable differences.'

According to CNN, money troubles contributed to the Lanza's marriage falling apart, around four years ago.

The Lanzas filed for divorce on November 24, 2008, and the divorce was finalised in September 2009 after an uncontested hearing.

Connecticut court records show Nancy Lanza ticked 'yes' for financial disputes but 'no' for parenting disputes as reasons for the split.

Home: Peter Lanza, the father of Adam Lanza, lives in Stamford, Connecticut, pictured, but hasn't been home since Friday

According to the Stamford Advocate the couple had arranged a joint custody agreement for Adam, who was 17 at the time of their divorce.

As part of this parental agreement, Adam was to live primarily with his mother and Peter was allowed 'liberal visitation and vacations.'

Nancy Lanza was shot dead by her son Adam at the home they shared in Sandy Hook before he traveled to the elementary school where he killed 20 children and six staff members.

While neighbours on the small, quiet suburban street said that they too were shocked at the involvement of one of their neighbours in the tragedy, they claimed to know little to nothing about them.

'I wouldn't have thought the police would be here for that house. Not that house,' said one neighbour.

Responding to reports that Shelley had previously been married, the neighbour said they didn't know.

Murderer: Adam Lanza who shot dead his mother and then went on a gun rampage at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut leaving 26 dead

Murderer: Adam Lanza shot dead his mother and then went on a gun rampage at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut leaving 26 dead

Shelley is understood to have been married to David Cudiner, 55, of Fairfield, Connecticut.

His late father, Adam Lanza's grandfather, Peter S. Lanza, was an investment broker and insurance salesman and Peter Jr followed him into a career in finance.

According to his resume on LinkedIn, Peter Lanza is tax director and vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services in the New York City area.

Father: Peter Lanza, a wealthy executive for General Electric, who is believed to earn $1million a year, moved out of the family home in 2006

He has been an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University in Boston since 1995 and also teaches a partnership tax class in the master's in taxation degree program at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, according to CNN.

On LinkedIn, Peter wrote of his experience: 'Career dedicated to developing and refining partnership tax planning and transactional skills' and 'Work closely with many of the preeminent partnership tax advisers in the United States on a daily basis.'

Shelley Cudiner is a reference librarian and business liaison at the University of Connecticut's Jeremy Richard Library.

On the college's website, she wrote: 'I serve all our undergraduate students and graduate students, with an emphasis on the business, biology, economics, and psychology departments, order materials for our degree programs, and coordinate bibliographic instruction.'

Despite going to ground over the weekend, Peter Lanza took the time to release a statement earlier on Saturday regarding his son's involvement in the shocking tragedy.

'Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired.

'Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy.'

He said that all living members of the Lanza family, including himself and Adam's older brother Ryan, have been fully cooperating with police and plan to help in any way that they can as the repercussions of the shooting are felt.

Adam's first victim was his own mother, Nancy, whose dead body police eventually found at the Newtown home that she shared with Adam.

It took several hours to confirm that she was the victim, however, since she had been shot in the face and was hard to identify.

Nancy Lanza's home in Newtown, Connecticut, was raided after 2 p.m. Friday and she was found shot dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face

Nancy Lanza's home in Newtown, Connecticut, where she was found shot dead from a gunshot wound to the face

Mother: Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza, pictured, was 'obsessed with guns' and preparing for the collapse of the world economy

Mother: Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza, pictured, was preparing for the collapse of the world economy by stockpiling food, water and guns in the large home she shared with her son

Jim Leff, a musician who knew Nancy through a local bar and music spot that she frequented, called her a 'lovely person.'

But he said he never became close friends with her because she was 'high-strung.'

'What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung,' Leff wrote on his blog.

'But now that I've been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn't that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace.'

Ryan, Adam's 24-year-old brother was immediately embroiled in the shooting as Adam reportedly had Ryan's ID on him when police found his body in the Sandy Hook elementary school.

Questioning: Ryan Lanza is led away for questioning by police after his brother is named as the killer

In fact, he was at work in the Manhattan office of Ernst & Young when television news reports started connecting his name to the shooting in Connecticut, and that was when he started to understand that his brother may have been involved.

Lanza quickly told his boss: 'I need to go.' He then walked out of his Times Square office, according to a co-worker who spoke to MailOnline on condition of anonymity.

Thirty minutes later, New York police officers stormed the office. Between leaving his place of work and being taken in for questioning, Lanza defended himself in a series of bizarre Facebook posts when he was mistakenly named as the killer after his ID was found at the scene.

Lanza, 24, seemed unaware that his younger brother, Adam Lanza, had gunned down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown before taking his own life.

'Everyone shut the f*** up it wasn't me,' he insisted on his Facebook page on Friday. 'I'm on the bus home now it wasn't me. IT WASN'T ME I WAS AT WORK IT WASN'T ME.'

Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, told the AP that he sent Ryan a Facebook message Friday asking what was going on and if he was alright.

According to Wilshe, Lanza's reply was something along the lines of: 'It was my brother. I think my mother is dead. Oh my God.'