MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin prosecutors on Thursday charged the daddy of a teenage lady who killed a instructor and fellow pupil in a faculty taking pictures final 12 months with permitting her entry to the semiautomatic pistols she used within the assault.
The video within the participant above is from a earlier report.
The felony criticism in opposition to 42-year-old Jeffrey Rupnow of Madison particulars how his daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, struggled along with her mother and father’ divorce, displaying her anger in a written piece entitled “Struggle In opposition to Humanity.” Her father tried to bond along with her by way of weapons, the criticism stated, at the same time as she meticulously deliberate the assault, together with constructing a cardboard mannequin of the varsity and scheduling the taking pictures to finish along with her suicide.
Jeffrey Rupnow was arrested early Thursday and brought to the Dane County Jail. He was scheduled to make his preliminary court docket look Friday. On-line court docket data didn’t record an legal professional for him. Appearing Madison Police Chief John Patterson stated he was cooperative all through the investigation. Nobody returned voicemails left at doable phone listings for him and his ex-wife, Melissa Rupnow.
Assault left 2 useless, 6 injured
Natalie Rupnow entered Considerable Life Christian College, a spiritual faculty in Madison that provides prekindergarten by way of highschool lessons, on Dec. 16 and opened hearth in a research corridor. She killed instructor Erin Michelle West and 14-year-old pupil Rubi Bergara and injured six others earlier than she killed herself.
In keeping with the criticism, investigators recovered 20 shell casings from the research corridor the place she opened hearth.
In addition they recovered a 9 mm Glock handgun that Jeffrey Rupnow had bought for her from the room and a .22-caliber Sig Sauer pistol from a bag the lady was carrying, the criticism says. Jeffrey Rupnow had on condition that gun to her as a Christmas current in 2023, the criticism says.
Additionally within the bag had been three magazines loaded with .22 ammunition and a 50-round field of 9 mm ammunition. She wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bull’s-eye throughout the assault.
Police tape remained after a taking pictures Monday at Considerable Life Christian College on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024 in Madison, Wis.
(AP photograph/Mark Vancleave, File)
Natalie Rupnow had been fighting mother and father’ divorce
Jeffrey Rupnow advised investigators that his daughter lived with him however had been struggling together with his divorce from her mom in 2022, saying she hated her life and needed to kill herself. He stated she used to chop herself to the purpose the place he needed to lock up all of the knives in his home.
She had been in remedy to learn to be extra social till the spring earlier than the assault, he advised investigators. Her mom, Melissa Rupnow, advised detectives that the therapist advised her that Natalie was struggling post-traumatic stress dysfunction stemming from the divorce. One in all Natalie’s pals advised investigators that Jeffrey Rupnow was “ceaselessly verbally aggressive” with Natalie and that she had advised him that her father was a “drinker,” in response to the criticism.
Jeffery Rupnow advised investigators that took Natalie taking pictures with him on a buddy’s land about two years earlier than the Considerable Life assault. She loved it, and he got here to see weapons as a strategy to join along with her. However he was shocked at how her curiosity in firearms “snow balled,” he advised investigators.
He saved Natalie’s pistols in a gun secure, telling her that if she ever want them the entry code was his Social Safety quantity entered backward. About 10 days earlier than the varsity assault, he texted a buddy and stated that Natalie would shoot him if he left “the enjoyable secure open proper now,” in response to the criticism.
The day earlier than the varsity assault he took the Sig Sauer out of the secure so Natalie may clear it. However he acquired distracted and wasn’t positive if he put the weapon again within the secure or locked it, in response to the criticism.
‘Struggle In opposition to Humanity’
A search of Natalie’s room netted a six-page doc the lady had written entitled “Struggle In opposition to Humanity.” She began the piece by describing humanity as “filth” and saying she hated individuals who do not care and “smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as a lot as they will like my very own father.”
She wrote about how she admired faculty shooters, how her mom was not in her life and the way she obtained her weapons “by lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.”
Investigators additionally found maps of the varsity and a cardboard mannequin of the constructing, together with a handwritten schedule that detailed how she would being the assault at 11:30 a.m. and wipe out the primary and second flooring of the varsity by 11:55 a.m. She deliberate to finish the assault by 12:10 p.m. with a notation “prepared 4 Dying.”
She had been speaking on-line with individuals around the globe about her fascination with faculty shootings and weapons, Appearing Madison Police Chief John Patterson stated Thursday.
Father calls educating her gun security ‘greatest mistake’
Jeffery Rupnow despatched a message to a detective two weeks after the varsity taking pictures saying that his greatest mistake was educating Natalie methods to deal with weapons safely and urging police to warn individuals to vary their gun secure combos each two to 3 months, the criticism stated.
“Children are sensible and they’re going to determine it out,” he wrote. “Similar to somebody attempting to hack your checking account. I simply need to defend different households from going by way of what I am going by way of.”
In keeping with the criticism, after studying that Natalie was the shooter whereas speaking to a police officer, Melissa Rupnow started respiratory in a short time by way of her nostril and yelled one thing, to the impact of, “I will kill him, I will kill him,” apparently referring to her ex-husband.
Prices are newest in string of instances in opposition to mother and father in class shootings
Jeffrey Rupnow is the newest guardian of a faculty shooter to face costs related to an assault.
Final 12 months, the mom and father of a faculty shooter in Michigan who killed 4 college students in 2021 had been every convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mom was the primary guardian within the U.S. to be held accountable for a kid finishing up a mass faculty assault.
The daddy of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally taking pictures 4 individuals at a Georgia highschool was arrested in September and faces costs together with second-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon.
In 2023, the daddy of a person charged in a lethal Fourth of July parade taking pictures in suburban Chicago pleaded responsible to seven misdemeanors associated to how his son obtained a gun license.
Copyright © 2025 by The Related Press. All Rights Reserved.
