Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GIRL-SCHOOL-SHOOTER'S DARK ONLINE LINKS TO SITE 'WATCH PEOPLE DIE,' ACCOMPLICE IDed?

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

A second grade teacher at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin calls 911 at 10:57 am to report an active shooter inside a study hall classroom at the private Christian school. Inside the study hall class, students from several different grades dive for cover as 15-year-old Natalie "Samantha" Rupnow,  is firing a 9mm handgun around the class.   She is a student at the school and commits suicide  before law enforcement breaches the building. No shots are exchanged.  Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes says identifying a motive is a top priority, but at this stage of the investigation it appears the motive was a combination of factors. A reported manifesto has been found, but  Barnes says they have not been able to verify its  authenticity. Police say Rupnow has been in texting with a 20 year old Carlsbad,California man,  planning his own mass attack.  After police discovered the message Alexander Paffendorf was interviewed by the FBI where he admitted  “that he told Rupnow that he would arm himself with explosives and a gun and that he would target a government building."  No specific building was named.  A  California judge has  issued a restraining order  under California’s gun red flag law.   The order requires Paffendorf to turn in  his guns and ammunition to police within 48 hours. Neighbors say police entered his home carrying out a big  "black gun box."  Joining Nancy Grace today: Philip Dubé  -  Former Court-Appointed Counsel, Los Angeles County Public Defenders: Criminal & Constitutional Law, Forensics & Mental Health Advocacy Angela Arnold  - Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA, AngelaArnoldMD.com, Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital, Voted My Buckhead’s Best Psychiatric Practice of  2022, 2023 and 2024. Robin Dreeke - Behavior Expert & Former FBI Special Agent / Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, Author:"Sizing People Up: A Veteran FBI Agents Manual for Behavior Prediction" , "Unbreakable Alliances: A Spy Recruiter's Authoritative Guide to Cultivating Powerful and Lasting Connections" being released  and "Sizing People Up: A Veteran FBI Agents Maual for Behavior Prediction" all of his books available on Amazon, peopleformula.com, Twitter: @rdreeke Katherine Schweit  -  Creator of the FBI's Active Shooter Program, Former Chicago prosecutor and career FBI special agent; authored "Stop the Killing; How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis" and "How to Talk About Guns to Anyone"; website: https://www.katherineschweit.com/ Dr. Eric Eason - Board Certified Forensic Pathologist, consultant, Instagram: @eric_a_eason, Facebook: Eric August Eason, LinkedIn: Eric Eason, MD  Bria Jones  -  Reporter, Fox 6 Milwaukee Twitter: @BriaJonesTV Facebook: Bria Jones TV    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The girl school shooter's dark online past links to odd and scary sites like watch people die. And in the last hours, has an accomplice been identified? Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. A Wisconsin school is met with tragedy. A 15-year-old student armed with a 9-millimeter handgun shoots a student and a teacher dead, injuring six others. Who is this girl? Just 15 years old, going down in the history books as one of the very few female school shooters. What possessed

a teen girl to have an obsession with dark and morbid, even gruesome websites. What, if anything, did her parents know? As law enforcement desperately seeks a motive for a horrific school shooting at a private Christian school, take a listen to police chief Sean Barnes. Today at 10.57 a.m., our team was called to the Abundant Life Christian School in reference to an active shooter. We know that three people are dead including the suspect shooter. We know that the suspect shooter was a teenage student who attended the school. Two other people have died. That died were a teacher and a teenage

student. Six other people were injured. Two students are now in critical condition in the hospital. And these injuries are considered life-threatening injuries. Why? Why? Why did this happen? You were just seeing the Chiefs video from our friends at Fox 9, Minneapolis, St. Paul. Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we are learning. This as it emerges, a much older man that she apparently had met online may have planned a simultaneous terror attack to go down at the same time that she unleashed a hill of bullets in a private Christian school. Why is this happening? How is this happening? Straight out to Bria Jones joining us out of Milwaukee, investigative reporter Fox

6 in Milwaukee. Bria, thank you for being with us. First of all, let's go back to that moment and dissect what we know happened at the school. What happened? Well, Nancy, authorities say on Monday, that 15-year-old girl we know, Natalie Rubdown, they say she went by Samantha. She opened fire inside of a study hall classroom at Abundant Life Christian School. The school is K through 12, about 400 students. This is a private Christian school. We know that ultimately she shot and killed two people, a 14-year-old girl who has been identified as Ruby Vergara, as well as a 42-year-old teacher that was identified as Aaron West. Now, we know that there are six other people who were also shot

late last night. There was not a press conference. I was actually at the school yesterday. There was not a press conference, but around nine o'clock, we did receive an update from the police chief that at least four of these victims have been released from the hospital, two of them still in critical condition, fighting for their lives today.

Straight out to you, Robin Dreek, behavior expert, former FBI special agent. For my purposes, chief of the FBI counter intelligence behavioral analysis program, author of sizing people up and unbreakable alliances. Robin, we always look to why, of course, that's not required in a court of law. But could I just point to what we are learning about a sick website that she seemingly was obsessed with called Watch People Die. Apparently, there are over three million people in all that have ever visited this website. It's graphic. It's upsetting.

It's people getting shot to death, run over, killed, beheaded. It includes videos of international incidents like the horrible ISIS beheadings we saw over and over and over and worse. If you can imagine, why is a 15 year old girl visiting sites like that? Why did she have access to a gun? Why is she wearing a shirt almost identical to the one worn by a Columbine shooter that features some German electro band on it? She obviously was obsessed with them, too. And how come nobody knew anything about it? I find that really hard to believe.

Well, Nancy, you just hit all the motives right there that police said they're going to be looking for. These things just don't happen. They don't go from zero to I'm a great kid today to I'm going to kill people tomorrow. They are groomed into violence. They're desensitized to violence. The fact that a 20-year year old is corresponding with her. I do not believe that the parents groomed her into violence. That's what you just said. No, I don't think that school, this tiny itty bitty Christian school, they did not groom her into violence. So who are you saying groomed her into violence? You think the parents went on and went, look up beheadings by ISIS. Nope. So this Columbine effect that happened ever since

the Columbine shooting, there is a subculture out there of these people. And you've noted them on social media that are are just groomed into this. When you are feeling disenfranchised, when you're feeling like you're bullied or you're going through some traumatic things at home and you're looking to feel connected somewhere, this is where some of these teenagers are going. And so that's where she was groomed into violence. And so this 20-year-old is part of this network in some way. And I think we're going to start seeing a lot more tendrils come out from there. And so that's what I meant when I went about grooming. It wasn't the parents or anyone in her immediate circle where she was at because she was pretty disconnected from what we're hearing. Philip Dubay joining me, a high profile defense

attorney joining us out of L.A. Philip, just take off your defense hat for just one moment. I want to analyze what the chief just said. We don't know about her disciplinary records because we don't have those records. What? Have they ever heard of a subpoena? Get the records. This is a murder investigation. It's not hard to write out a subpoena ducus tecum, which is basically a subpoena, not for your testimony, but for your documents. I want to know what the school knew because in this most recent Georgia shooting, remember that? That shooter had just transferred to the Georgia school. And what the Georgia school did not have was his eight inch thick file on disciplinary problems from his old school. So I don't want to hear we don't have the records. Get the records. I agree with you. The problem is, is I think there are two types of

records that are kept by the school. They have what's called your official record that the district has and the school has right there on the premises. And then they have what we call your traveling file, meaning it contains all the notes from teachers, from the nurses, as opposed to your academic progress, any special needs that you might have in the school. If the traveling file doesn't make it to your next school, then the new school has no knowledge of your history. So I think there should be a change in the law that your school should get your traveling file. Now, DeBay, you're trying to compare this to the Colt Gray case where there was a mass shooting in a school in Georgia where the file didn't follow him.

That is so lame. Why would you have a student in your school that could be a security risk because, and you don't know anything because you don't have the file? Welcome to the 21st century. This is what happens. One hand doesn't know what the other is doing. It's terrible. You get the official record, but you don't get the traveling file that has nurses' notes, complaints from other teachers, complaints from other kids.

Instead, you just have an academic profile of how the kid is doing scholastically. It's a breakdown in communication between the schools. So what does this mean? It means that we need a change in the law. Well, you know what? You can tell that to the families of the two dead victims. Joining me right now, in addition to Bria Jones, Robin Drake,

and Philip Dubé, Catherine Schweit. Catherine Schweit, the creator of the FBI's Active Shooter Program, former Chicago prosecutor, career FBI special agent, who authored Stop the Killing, How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis, and How to Talk About Guns to Anyone.

Catherine, thank you for being with us. This sounds like a broken record. After the Georgia mass shooting in a school, it was highlighted the significance of getting records from the previous school. Now, what Rupnow's records show, I don't know that. But I think it's a huge dereliction of duty for the current school not to insist on those before they allow a student in. No, I'm with you on that, Nancy. You know, you have to know what's coming.

And I'll tell you, I live in Virginia, northern Virginia, about, I don't know, you have to know what's coming. And I'll tell you, I live in Virginia, northern Virginia, about, I don't know, a few blocks away from the shooter who shot up Virginia Tech High School or Virginia Tech University. And that shooter went to my kids' school where my two kids went to high school. And that shooter at Virginia Tech had problems in high school. That information was never passed to Virginia Tech. And then Virginia Tech had no idea that this kid had all kinds of issues when he was in high school. What happened after that is that the state legislature changed the law and said information has to pass from school to school. And we have seen this in a lot of cases where a shooter moves, and not just a shooter, right, but another student who's got violent ideation, they move from one school to another because they're kicked out of

one school or kicked out of another. I will say this school is a 12 through K school, so I think we have to verify exactly how long she's been there. But absolutely, you're right. The records have to move with because there isn't a way for the teachers to know what they're dealing with and whether this is an explosive kid or whether this kid is buried in their own world

and gonna cause a problem that isn't gonna happen. We don't know about. Well, that's really interesting. You said that they've gotta know whether the kid is quote buried in their own world. I don't know how they have access to a student, a child's social media, cross Ixor, cross Ixor, and commented on a video of a suicide saying, gotta be thinking of something while hanging himself. She writes, I wonder what a lot of people think before they die, you know, like just simply if it's they want to die at all or just nothing or perhaps just sex or something stupid.

One thing I would bother to think is just do it already if I was killing myself. But I guess it depends on the situation. I mean, it goes on and on. Robin Drake, she's commenting so casually, almost flippantly about homicide and suicide. Yeah, there's a lot of idolization going there. And it's extremely sad that there's not more observation going on with her from her parents. I mean, the parents' culpability in this is going to be really interesting as it comes out. And the big thing here, access to firearms.

Kids and individuals that are shown a pattern of behavior over time. Because, again, I said this is doesn't go from zero to 100. Access to firearms is really key and critical. How does how does someone like this have it? They shouldn't and she shouldn't. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bria Jones joining us, Fox 6 Milwaukee. What, if anything, do we know about her manifesto? Why is a 15-year-old girl writing a manifesto anyway, an evil manifesto, likely about death, bitterness, anger, and nobody noticed that?

Well, Nancy, at this point, the big thing is that the police chief, the mayor of Madison, they're all saying that they want to avoid misinformation. They're trying to verify exactly where this alleged manifesto came from. A lot of concerning words in there. We could see there's obviously some trouble with the family coming from this manifesto as well, if it's actually from her. Right now, the big thing, the police chief, they're saying they're just working to confirm, investigating where exactly this document came from. We know they executed a search warrant at her home. That's where they say they retrieved some information that could be vital to determining the authenticity of that alleged manifesto.

A second grade teacher at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, calls 911 at 10.57 a.m. to report an active shooter inside a study hall classroom at the private Christian school. Inside the study hall class, students from several different grades dive for cover. A deputy with the Dane County Sheriff's Office is first to arrive on the scene, followed 24 seconds later by a Madison police officer, and they immediately enter the school. Inside the school, officers report the shooter is down and the weapon has been recovered. 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, also known as Sam, has a troubled and turbulent home life. It all comes to a boiling point one Monday morning as gunshots ring out in the Abundant Life Christian School's hallways.

Saying a turbulent home life, the parents were divorced and remarried, then divorced and remarried. Then they have her going back and forth between homes like every two or three days. I would be more worried because both parents seem to be loving. There she is getting a karate belt about her sick obsession with watching people die online. And the fact that she is apparently courting online with a 20-year-old. Throw in a gun and target practice with an obsession with Columbine, and you have a school shooting in the making. Listen.

Madison Fire Department arrives on the scene to begin providing immediate care and treatment of the wounded. Of the eight people who are shot, four people are transported to SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital and three are transported to University of Wisconsin Hospitals. One of those victims dies on the way to the hospital and one of the gunshot victims is pronounced dead at the scene. Joining us is our now medical examiner, board certified forensic pathologist, Dr. Eric Eason. Dr. Eason, I've been thinking about the victims in this case and all the many near victims. Their deaths were very likely not instant.

Explain. Well, a lot of it depends on where the gunshot wounds were located on the body. If you have a wound to the head, it's probably going to be pretty quick. But wounds to the chest or even to the abdomen, oftentimes death doesn't occur immediately at that point in time. You're going to have to have a time period where blood loss occurs and then death will occur. And then we also have victims that are still in the hospital right now and hopefully they'll make it but their injuries are pretty serious but it just really all depends on how many times each individual

was shot and the location of the wounds and the organs that were were damaged when someone is bleeding out like we believe the victims did in this case you've got a teacher trying to protect your students you've got another student you to protect your students. You've got another student. You don't immediately lose consciousness unless you're shot in the heart or the head. You lie there and know you're dying as you hear all the commotion around you and gunshots ringing out and students screaming. You are aware of that. Would have been very scary. Yes. Deep state of despair is what you would have been going through at the time, yes, for sure. Who is this girl? Extremely rare for there to be a female school shooter, a teen girl. Very statistically unlikely. Who is she?

Listen. 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, known as Sam, is identified as the shooter. She is a student at the school and fired off multiple rounds inside the classroom. Rupnow dies from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound before law enforcement breaches the building. No shots are exchanged between law enforcement and the teen. Sources say Rupnow is known for wearing a collared shirt with a tie, jeans, and combat boots to school and pounding energy drinks. Straight out to Angela Arnold, Dr. Arnold, a renowned psychiatrist, joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Dr. Angie, wouldn't the parents know or shouldn't the parents know if she had a much older boyfriend she says is from Germany?

I mean, Nancy, wouldn't the parents have known about any of this, the way she dresses? I mean, all of this, all of this indicates to me that no one was paying enough attention to her. She's 14 or 15. Well, what's wrong with a white shirt and a tie i don't understand what the problem is with her wearing a white collared shirt with a tie what well why is she going by sam instead of her actual name natalie at a very small conservative christian school she is as far as i'm concerned she is completely out of place in the school. Okay. Probably the parents have put her there out of some sort of, because like you said, we don't have her records, but she's probably there because she's been so troubled that

they thought, okay, if we put her in this small school, maybe they can help her. But you can't go back and forth between parents homes and have different because if parents aren't married nancy i don't care how loving they appear they're not getting along okay so she's going back and forth between parents homes several times a week she can get away with anything she wants to get away with number one and number two she's looking for someone to attach to. They're in the the online boyfriend thing. OK, this girl is fraught. She was fraught with so many issues. I can't even believe that they were ignored by her parents. And I'm telling you, Nancy, that's where this starts is with the parents. I'm very, let me just see, flummoxed by the fact that you say, because she goes by the name Sam, short for Samantha,

which of course is not her name. Her name's Natalie. And because she wears a white collared shirt and a black tie, you think she has problems because she dresses like a boy and goes by a boy's name. See, I don't see that that is inherently a problem. I was a tomboy. I didn't have a problem. So what? Well, there are a lot of different names for this, but I don't see this as being her problem. I would see that as being the school's problem for allowing her to be bullied because of the way she dresses or because she uses a boy's name. How do we know she was being bullied? Well, you can't have them both ways, Dr. Angie. You can't say she's the problem because she dressed this way and went by a boy's name, but yet she wasn't bullied.

But do we actually know that she was bullied? We don't know she was bullied. And I'll tell you something, Nancy. then it's not a problem, is it? Oh no. I think it's a real problem, Nancy, because she didn't fit in. She goes by a boy's name and dresses like a boy. Yes. The problem is how people treat her because of that. But I mean, I don't know why you're the problem. Isn't her going by a boy's name or dressing like a boy. The problem is she's watching people get murdered and kill themselves online and she likes it. And the problem is that it has become blase blase to her.

She goes, oh, I wonder what he's thinking about when he kills himself. She's not worried about the loss of human life. It's like a game to her. But also, the fact that she's 15 and she's got a 20-plus-year-old boyfriend. As a matter of fact, listen. Police say Rupnow has been texting with a 20-year-old Carlsbad, California man planning his own mass attack. After police discovered the message, Alexander Paffendorf was interviewed by the FBI, where he admitted that he told Rupnow that he would arm himself with explosives and a gun and that he would target a government building. No specific building was named.

A California judge has issued a restraining order under California's gun red flag law. Neighbors say police entered his home carrying out a big black gun box. Okay, whoa, whoa. Bria Jones, help me out here. What is a 20-year-old man doing, texting, and hatching a bomb plant with a 15-year-old girl? Nancy, that is the million-dollar question today. Everyone wondering how exactly these two even linked up in the first place. We know that again, as we just heard that California judge ordering that 20-year-old man from Carlsbad to surrender all of his guns and ammunition because he allegedly told Natalie Ruff now that he was also planning some sort of attack on a government building. Now, we do know that the two were,

according to these court records, collaborating for some sort of mass shooting. Not sure how much input he could have potentially had on what happened at Abundant Life, but we do know these two were in communication. So my questions now are how long have they been in communication and how exactly these two came together to conspire some sort of mass shooting. Police say her social media posts are terrifying, and accounts linked to Rupnow show an obsession with infamous past school shooters, white supremacist ideologies, and even a chilling message from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. A manifesto allegedly written by Rupnow shared

screenshots that show the teen was lonely and felt, quote, trapped and forced into my own corner. She admits she's a loner, but admits she will mourn for her friends, but sooner rather than later, they'll leave. Investigators trying to verify the origins of the manifesto being attributed to Natalie Samantha Rubnow as part of the so-called manifesto are being shared around the world. Describing herself as a loner, Rubnow is able to express unhappiness at what she describes as a broken home and makes many references to a therapist. Investigators have been able to

uncover that Rupnow has seen a therapist and has been involved in a contentious custodial situation with her parents that had her splitting days of the week with each parent. The supposed manifesto ends with a quote from the Unabomber, quote, finally, one learns that boredom is a disease of civilization. Catherine Schweit joining us, creator of the FBI's active shooter program. Catherine, I just find it really hard to believe that the parents had no idea what was going on in this child's life. I mean, the theory of the idea of a female teen girl school shooter is almost unheard of. I've got a few examples and they're usually because of love interest, but how could you not know? For instance, she posts online on a video of a man jumping through a window that he is a quote fat version of Liam Payne, referring to the One Direction singer who jumped to his death in Buenos Aires.

OK, it goes on and on and on. She's just very, let me just say, frivolous as it relates to the loss of human life. I find that really difficult to believe that no one, I mean, they said she's going to a therapist. The therapist didn't know what was going on. The parents didn't know the school didn't notice. Now people are dead.

I think that what they, I agree with you that I think that what they noticed had nothing to do with their online performance and platform. But they would have noticed other things. They would have noticed her school performance dropping. They would have noticed her isolation, the amount of time she spent online, the amount of time that she spent with her head buried in her phone, which is kind of something that I'm sure every parent thinks, well, my kid's always on the phone. Yeah, what's your kid on the phone doing? You know, and I think that's something that's important

because I think what you just said, frivolous, is a great word. But I think don't, I would say, you know, don't overwhelmingly look at a comment and say, oh, geez, that just shows they have no heart or they're careless because comments on social media are so on. OK. And they're so sarcastic. OK, I agree with you. Some perverse comments online. You're right. That may mean nothing. People will send off a text in a heartbeat and they wish they hadn't done it. But these are a series of comments

that were frivolously done commenting on the loss of human life, be it through homicide or suicide. But OK, let's just pretend for the moment. Let's suspend our disbelief for just one moment that that doesn't matter. Let's focus on her obsession with the so-called trench coat mafia, the Columbine shooters. Listen. Police say her social media posts are terrifying and a counseling to rub now showed an obsession with infamous past school shooters, white supremacist ideologies, and even a chilling message from the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. Screenshots show the teen was lonely and felt, quote, trapped and forced into my own corner she admits she's a loner but admits she will mourn for her friends but sooner rather than later they'll leave

rub now is able to express unhappiness at a broken home and makes many references to a therapist rub now has been involved in a contentious custodial situation with her parents that had her splitting days of the week with each parent. The supposed manifesto ends with a quote from the Unabomber. Quote, finally, one learns that boredom is a disease of civilization. Robin Drake, that is not a coincidence that she is wearing the same obscure shirt with an obscure German electro band on it that a Columbine shooter wore. It's not a coincidence. And she's taking target practice shooting at the time she's wearing it. And that photo is posted all under the nose of her father. Yeah, I agree. It's not a coincidence. These things are following a track of pattern in her life where she's romanticizing about death, about dark imagery, and just talking about the parents here and

their involvement or lack of involvement. It's strange that they put her in this school as well, trying to maybe shove off the responsibility of fixing what they might have seen as a broken daughter as they're struggling with their own issues. So it's a dark pattern of behavior that I think was emerging over time that people were ignoring and try to maybe shove off on someone else to fix. To Bria Jones joining us, investigative reporter Fox 6 Milwaukee. What can you tell me about a photo that has just emerged of Rupnow shooting a an OK sign, as some people call it, but others call it a white supremacist sign just before the shooting. Nancy, I've seen that image. Again, police tonight working to verify the authenticity, but the image that's circulating online, they say that she actually took that photo in the

bathroom shortly before the shooting took place. Again, Madison believes working to confirm the authenticity of that photo, but again, just very scary. But it's eerie to think that she was seeing this therapist, she had this trouble with family life, but almost everyone we spoke to that had some sort of contact with her that has known her over the years, even her neighbor saying that she was always a kind and welcoming child. So she was able to disguise whatever troubles she was deeply dealing with very well. Now we hear that the home of the Wisconsin shooter's parents has been raided.

Straight out to Brea Jones joining us, Fox 6. What happened? Nancy, investigators blew out that front door and they immediately went inside of the home. Our cameras actually are for several hours searching for evidence. We don't write down there. Actually, they were able to collect some evidence that they say will be crucial to determining any confirmed information. What they're trying to work to verify as far as the manifesto. If that's still, we know now, we learned last night that there were actually two guns that were found inside of the school, but only one was used to carry out the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School.

So right now, investigators say they're actually working to review and go over any of that information or evidence or findings collected inside of the home during that raid to work together to figure out their investigation. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are showing photos right now as a little girl, even a baby, and everything seems so innocent, so normal. How this went so off the rails, I don't know that we'll ever know the answer to that. But I do know in the raid that Brea Jones is telling us about that law enforcement got electronics, computers, phones, and many, many other items that they went in for. What else did they find in the home? Why are they raiding the parents' home? In a new trend that is reverberating across our country,

parents are increasingly being held accountable criminally for their child school shooter. Remember Ethan Crumley? Listen. and it looked like their car. And I walked around and checked the license plate and it's their car and the woman is here next to the car. The woman is where? Sitting next to her car in the parking lot. Straight out to veteran defense attorney Philip Dubé joining us out of L.A. Philip, holding the parents criminally liable

for their child's shooting up a school, their child's murders. That trend is increasing. It sure is. And I got to tell you, if I were the Rupnows, I'd be lawyering up and I'd be hitting up that school's collection plate to hire counsel right away. They are they've got a target on their back, for lack of a better term. What this raid is going to reveal. Wait a minute, did you hear that sound I just played for you? A concerned citizen spots Ethan Crumley's parents on the run.

They knew the gig was up. They knew, why would they take off into hiding? I'll tell you why. Why? If they did not feel they were responsible or not guilty of something. No, no, no. If you remember from the trial, what came out in evidence was that there were a series of death threats made against the parents. So they were on the run so that they would not be harmed. There were so many people outraged and upset in the community that the Crumleys had a target on their back.

That's why they hid out. OK, you know what? Apparently a jury did not agree with you. Two juries. As a matter of fact, their cases were severed and they were tried separately. So much came into evidence about how the parents blatantly ignored their son. As a matter of fact, listen to this. He went brush properly through the constant cavities in his braces. So we ended up taking the wires out. At one time he had 13 cavities under the braces. Dubay, 13 cavities up under the boy's braces. 13 cavities.

They couldn't tell he wasn't brushing his teeth. The room was so disgusting. It smelled and they would just shut the door and walk off. I mean, you add that into the fact that the child kept actually asking, I need help. That very morning, he wrote a series of documents, drawings of shootings and murders and said, I need help. No one will help me. The first victim to be a pretty girl. I'm going to shoot her in the head. What? Nobody saw all this happening. Nobody knew he wasn't brushing his teeth or making his bed. Nobody saw all of these drawings. The thoughts won't stop. Help me. And you're saying the parents were improperly

targeted. What I'm telling you is that identate decayed mouth is not an element of involuntary manslaughter. The question is what put them on notice to make them criminally negligent. Do you have children? I'm just curious. This is why I don't right here I don't want nothing about taking a child to the dentist and the doctor regularly whether you think they've got a problem or not you know what I obviously it's a parent how does that leave your doctor Angie how does it lead to it shows they weren't paying attention to Ethan Crumley. And while he is sitting in the jail having just shot up the school,

they hop in the car and take off 90 MPH. It wasn't because they had a target on their back. It's because they knew they were partially responsible. Dr. Angie, can you talk to DuPay? I mean, Nancy, I've had cases of parents who are very, very doting, attentive parents. They send their kid to the dentist and all of a sudden he becomes an adult and he hasn't yet. You can send the kid to the dentist all day long, but if he's not brushing his teeth at

night, guess what? He might have rotting, decaying teeth. I've got a case like that that I take care of, and he hasn't shot up a school. So it's possible that it could show neglect, but if the door on your child's room that literally stinks and not noticing that they're not brushing their teeth. This is not a grown man not brushing his teeth. This is a child. And it takes a while to get 13 cavities in your mouth. But what about this regarding parental neglect? Listen. James Crumbly purchased a Sig Sauer 9mm Model SP 2022 from Acme Shooting Goods in Oxford, Michigan on November 26, 2021. A store employee confirms that Ethan Crumbly

was present with James at the time of the purchase. Per statute, James Crumbly completed ATF form 309A, 53009A. On or about November 26, 2021, Ethan Crumbly's social media posts reveal photos of the semi-automatic. Handgun, along with the caption, just got my new beauty today, including emoji with hearts. Sig Sauer 9mm. And Robin, then we learn that the very day of the school mass shooting, the parents are called to the school because very disturbing drawings are found, drawings by Ethan Crumley. So Robin Drake, I'm not quite sure how Dubay and Dr. Arnold are coming to the conclusion that the parents were vigilant and bore no responsibility in Ethan Crumley's mass

shooting. Well, what we're seeing here are data points and they're all data points and leakage of neglect is what I want to say. So we have an arc of behavior of these parents of, and the mother said it very specifically, and this is what I think the jury saw too. She shut the door and didn't want to deal with it. And that is exactly how they dealt with everything. And what they did was that the father did was so they didn't want to deal with it. So they bought him a gun. And so that's why the parents were held culpable in this. And that's why the juries found them guilty. And I think that's what we're going to be looking at juries from now on is how much are the parents responsible for those actions and

responsible for the neglect? What kind of data points over time do we have to show? Catherine Schweit joining us, creator of the FBI's active shooter program and author of Stop the Killing, How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis. Catherine, I've got to hear your thoughts on Crumley's parents being held liable by a jury criminally and their son's school shooting. Yeah, this wasn't, I agree with you and disagree with your other guests. It was absolutely not a situation of, hey, a few cavities. That's a lack of knowledge about the case. And I appreciate that somebody doesn't, everybody doesn't know about the case.

But in this case, half an hour after the shooting, the mother texted her son and said, don't do it. The parents were well aware that their son was on a nosedive down, bought him the gun on Black Friday, you know, after Christmas. She went to the shooting range with him on Saturday, posted a picture bragging about how she was shooting. He posted the picture saying, look at my new gun, my new Christmas present. Monday, they were called, she was texted. The family was called to school because he was in school searching to buy ammunition on Monday. And they did not, they ignored the school's call. And she texted her son and said, don't get caught next time. And then on Tuesday morning, when he drew, as you mentioned, he drew all over a piece of paper in one classroom, and a teacher was able to screen capture it and take it to the office, and they called the parents to the office. The parents never said, hey, we just bought this kid a gun.

They never said, hey, we just bought this kid a gun. They never said, hey, we just bought this kid a gun. And two hours later, he's exiting the bathroom shooting people. They knew what was going on. That's why they took cash out of the bank and they were captured just a couple of miles from the Canadian border. Catherine, what can you tell me about students obsessed, even now, with Columbine making so-called pilgrimages? Yeah, that, you know, the problem with the Columbine case is that it has become its own cult. You know, it's like every other great cult movie or every other great product. It has survived 20 plus years, right, of people saying this is, or there are sites now that you can go to that are like,

I want to be a school shooter.com kind of sites. And all of those are, and it's not just like it was in Colorado, you know, where I'd spend time with Frank DeAngelis, who's a principal at Columbine, but now the, I spent time over at the school. And you know, one of the things that Frank told me that was most chilling to me is he said, you know, we're standing outside looking at the lawn across the campus. And he says, hey, you know, the biggest problem that we really have on security is that we are a destination now for people who want to commit a shooting. They pilgrimage here. And they may just commit suicide on a property of our school, but they may come here, see it, so that they can pay homage to it. And then they go and do their own shooting. I mean, I tell people that, you know, this Abundant

Life school shooting, they are members of the Association of Christian Schools International, and I spoke to their fall group and their policy group just a couple months ago, and I tell their security people, if somebody uses the words Columbine, if parents hear their kids use the word Columbine, they have a problem. They have a potential school shooter in their hands. That may sound hysterical, but I think it's factual based on what we've seen because it's moved from Colorado to the United States to the world. In a rarity in our country and really across the world,

a teen girl identified as a mass school shooter. Very, very rare. Right now, we know her parents' home has been raided. Her parents have not been charged in any wrongdoing. And it's been reported they are cooperating with police. But we do know she had a, quote, turbulent home life. Bria, what does that mean? Bria Jones joining me, Fox 6 Milwaukee. What does a turbulent home life mean?

Well, Nancy, since 2014, court records show that her parents have been married and divorced twice. We know from this alleged manifesto that police are still working to verify whether or not it actually came from her. We learned there that obviously there was some trouble with the family life. The thing we know, according to court records as well, at some point she was also seeing a therapist that was also referenced in the manifesto that allegedly belongs to her. So we know that she was seeing this therapist. We're not exactly sure why. We know that the mom was also ordered to participate in this therapy as well.

From the court records, they also show that the parents split their time with her. So at one point, there was a two to three schedule that she was sharing with her parents. The latest information that I saw, I think Tuesday night, she was having dinner with mom. And then at least one weekend a month that mom, she was able to be placed with her mother. But we know that primarily custody remained with her dad. They split custody, but she was placed with her father, a neighbor. We went to the home where the raid happened. A neighbor saying that, you know, her father sent her to this school because he thought that this would be a better place for her. So clearly her dad knew that something was going on.

It seems to me that she would spend like two nights with one parent, then three nights with the next, and then it would rotate. So she was going from pillar to post every week of her life. You know, the same thing is alleged in the Colton Gray case, recent school shooter that occurred in Georgia, where he was gifted a gun by his parents. There's Colton Gray right there. He grew into a school shooter. has been charged in connection with the deaths caused by his son. A turbulent home life as well. To Dr. Eric Easton joining me, board certified forensic pathologist. When you go into a case and you are determining cause of death, are you investigating the case forensically? Does it cross your mind? We see the same thing over and over and over,

and this life could have been saved had changes been made. Agree. Yeah, a lot of these deaths definitely could have been prevented, and that's the interesting thing about forensic pathology. We link up our findings from the autopsy, and we work with public health and other agencies to try and prevent deaths in the future. So we are saving lives, even though we don't actually see patients, but our autopsy information can help prevent deaths like these from occurring. So that's another reason why I chose going into this specialty. Guys, we wait as justice unfolds. And again, at this hour, Rubno's parents have not been charged and are cooperating with law enforcement. If you know or think you know anything about this case, please dial 608-266-6014, including information about her so-called boyfriend egging her on online at age 20.

Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.