Report gives new details on Trump assassination attempt suspect's 'descent into madness'
The 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer experienced a "descent into madness" leading up to the incident, during which he was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," a new report says.
The New York Times, citing thousands of pages of school assignments, internet activity logs and interviews with dozens of people who knew Thomas Matthew Crooks and the investigation surrounding him, among other documents, reported this week that "he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation from a meek engineering student critical of political polarization to a focused killer who tried to build bombs."
"There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks's descent into madness," Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who served on a Congressional task force that investigated the July 13, 2024 shooting, told the newspaper.
He was "having conversations with someone that wasn't there," Higgins added, after learning information about Crooks' mental health during a trip to Pennsylvania to investigate the assassination attempt.
Prior to the shooting targeting Trump, the only time Crooks got into trouble was receiving lunch detention in middle school for chewing gum, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper reported that Crooks scored 1530 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT and graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County, where he spent several semesters on the dean's list while earning an engineering degree. He was preparing to transfer to Robert Morris University located outside of Pittsburgh, telling classmates he wanted to have a career in aerospace or robotics, the newspaper added.
However, Crooks' father noticed his son's mental health taking a turn in the year before the shooting and especially after the May 2024 graduation, telling investigators he had seen Thomas talking to himself and dancing around in his bedroom late at night, the newspaper said. The alleged behavior coincided with a history of mental health and addiction struggles in Crooks' family, the New York Times reported, citing portions of a report from the Pennsylvania State Police.
A classmate said to the newspaper that during high school, Crooks enjoyed talking about the economy and cryptocurrencies. At community college, he reportedly designed a chess board for the visually impaired, such as his mother, the New York Times added.
"He seemed like a really intelligent kid – I thought he would be able to do whatever he wanted," Trish Thompson, who taught Crooks' engineering at the Community College of Allegheny County, told the newspaper.
About a year before graduation, in April 2023, Crooks reportedly wrote an essay in favor of ranked-choice voting in American politics, arguing against "divisive and incendiary campaigns which are pulling the country apart."
"As we move closer to the 2024 elections we should consider carefully the means by which we elect our officials," Crooks was quoted by the New York Times as saying. "We need an election system that promotes kindness and cooperation instead of division and anger."
Around that same time, the FBI said, Crooks made more than 25 different firearm-related purchases from online vendors using an alias.
One purchase that Crooks made with an encrypted email address was gallons of nitromethane, a fuel additive that can be used to build explosives, according to the New York Times. He reportedly listed his home address for the delivery.
In the summer of 2023, Crooks joined a local gun club, the New York Times reported.
The newspaper added that Crooks visited news and gun websites, as well as the Trump administration's archives, before narrowing his online searches in the days leading up to the attack to queries such as 'How far was Oswald from Kennedy?'" Searches also included "major depressive disorder" and "depression crisis," the Times said.
He also reportedly continued to show up for his job as a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the weeks leading up to the Trump assassination attempt.
On the night of the shooting, ATF agents visited Crooks' home in Bethel Park but had to evacuate after one spotted an ammunition can "with a white wire coming out" and a gallon jug labeled "nitromethane" in his closet, according to the New York Times.
Outside the property, agents then interviewed Crooks' parents, with them saying he liked building things and visiting the gun range, and his father also reportedly claiming that he did not "know anything" about his son.
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