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The Independent
09-05-2025
- The Independent
Bail for Wisconsin school shooter's father facing three felonies set at $20K
The father of a 15-year-old girl who killed a fellow student and a teacher at a private school in Wisconsin had his bail set at $20,000 on Friday at his first court appearance on charges that he allowed her access to guns. Prosecutors charged Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, on Thursday with two felony counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a minor causing death and one felony count of contributing to the delinquency of a child. Rupnow would face up to 18 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Jeffrey Rupnow's daughter, Natalie Rupnow, opened fire at her school, Abundant Life Christian School, in Madison in December. She killed teacher Erin Michelle West and 14-year-old student Rubi Bergara and injured six others before she killed herself. Jeffrey Rupnow's attorney, Bruce Davey, said in court that his client would not be able to post $20,000 in bail, saying 'he's not a wealthy man.' Davey noted that he has no prior criminal history, cooperated with the investigation, has lived in the area his whole life and needs to work at his job to pay his bills and keep his house. 'There's no reason to hold him in jail," Davey said. Davey asked for him to be released on a signature bond, which requires the posting of no money. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne had asked for $100,000, noting the seriousness of the shooting and the pending charges. 'This is unprecedented and we do have two deceased," Ozanne said. "We have multiple gunshot victims. It's the defendants actions, inactions, that contributed to this incident.' If he posts bail, Jeffrey Rupnow will be fitted with a GPS monitoring device, not be allowed to have contact with anyone at Abundant Life Christian School, purchase or possess firearms or go to the block where the school is located. Davey declined to comment prior to the hearing. According to a criminal complaint, Jeffrey Rupnow told investigators his daughter was struggling to cope with her parents' divorce in 2022. He bought the two handguns she brought into the school for her as a way to bond with her, he told investigators. He added that he told her the access code to the safe where he stored her guns in case she ever needed them, the complaint said. Rupnow also told investigators he wasn't sure whether he put one of the guns back in the safe after his daughter cleaned it the day before the school attack. Investigators found writings in Natalie Rupnow's room saying she hated people who smoked marijuana and drank as much as they can like her father. She also wrote that her mother wasn't in her life, that she admired a number of school shooters and that she obtained her guns 'by lies, manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.' Jeffrey Rupnow sent a message to police in the days after the shooting saying the biggest mistake he made was teaching his daughter how to handle guns safely. He urged police to warn people to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months because 'kids are smart and they will figure it out.' Rupnow is the latest in a line of parents of school shooters who have been held criminally liable for their children's actions in recent years.
CNN
09-05-2025
- CNN
Father of 15-year-old who killed 2 at Wisconsin religious school faces felony charges
Crime Gun violenceFacebookTweetLink Follow Wisconsin prosecutors on Thursday charged the father of a teenage girl who killed a teacher and fellow student in a school shooting last year with allowing her access to the semiautomatic pistols she used in the attack. The criminal complaint against 42-year-old Jeff Rupnow of Madison details how his daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, struggled with her parents' divorce, showing her anger in a written piece entitled 'War Against Humanity.' Her father tried to bond with her through guns, the complaint said, even as she meticulously planned the attack, including building a cardboard model of the school and scheduling the shooting to end with her suicide. Jeff Rupnow was arrested early Thursday and taken to the Dane County Jail. He was scheduled to make his initial court appearance Friday. Online court records did not list an attorney for him. Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said he was cooperative throughout the investigation. No one returned voicemails left at possible telephone listings for him and his ex-wife, Melissa Rupnow. Natalie Rupnow entered Abundant Life Christian School, a religious school in Madison that offers prekindergarten through high school classes, on December 16 and opened fire in a study hall. She killed teacher Erin Michelle West and 14-year-old student Rubi Vergara and injured six others before she killed herself. According to the complaint, investigators recovered 20 shell casings from the study hall where she opened fire. They also recovered a 9 mm Glock handgun that Jeff Rupnow had purchased for her from the room and a .22-caliber Sig Sauer pistol from a bag the girl was carrying, the complaint says. Jeff Rupnow had given that gun to her as a Christmas present in 2023, the complaint says. Also in the bag were three magazines loaded with .22 ammunition and a 50-round box of 9 mm ammunition. She wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bull's-eye during the attack. Jeff Rupnow told investigators that his daughter lived with him but had been struggling with his divorce from her mother in 2022, saying she hated her life and wanted to kill herself. He said she used to cut herself to the point where he had to lock up all the knives in his house. She had been in therapy to learn how to be more social until the spring before the attack, he told investigators. Her mother, Melissa Rupnow, told detectives that the therapist told her that Natalie was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the divorce. One of Natalie's friends told investigators that Jeff Rupnow was 'frequently verbally aggressive' with Natalie and that she had told him that her father was a 'drinker,' according to the complaint. Jeff Rupnow told investigators that he took Natalie shooting with him on a friend's land about two years before the Abundant Life attack. She enjoyed it, and he came to see guns as a way to connect with her. But he was shocked at how her interest in firearms 'snow balled,' he told investigators. He kept Natalie's pistols in a gun safe, telling her that if she ever needed them the access code was his Social Security number entered backward. About 10 days before the school attack, he texted a friend and said that Natalie would shoot him if he left 'the fun safe open right now,' according to the complaint. The day before the school attack he took the Sig Sauer out of the safe so Natalie could clean it. But he got distracted and wasn't sure if he put the weapon back in the safe or locked it, according to the complaint. A search of Natalie's room netted a six-page document the girl had written entitled 'War Against Humanity.' She started the piece by describing humanity as 'filth' and saying she hated people who don't care and 'smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as much as they can like my own father.' She wrote about how she admired school shooters, how her mother was not in her life and how she obtained her weapons 'by lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.' Investigators also discovered maps of the school and a cardboard model of the building, along with a handwritten schedule that detailed how she would begin the attack at 11:30 a.m. and wipe out the first and second floors of the school by 11:55 a.m. She planned to end the attack by 12:10 p.m. with a notation 'ready 4 Death.' She had been communicating online with people around the world about her fascination with school shootings and weapons, Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said Thursday. Jeff Rupnow sent a message to a detective two weeks after the school shooting saying that his biggest mistake was teaching Natalie how to handle guns safely and urging police to warn people to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months, the complaint said. 'Kids are smart and they will figure it out,' he wrote. 'Just like someone trying to hack your bank account. I just want to protect other families from going through what I'm going through.' According to the complaint, after learning that Natalie was the shooter while talking to a police officer, Melissa Rupnow began breathing very quickly through her nose and yelled something, to the effect of, 'I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him,' apparently referring to her ex-husband. Jeff Rupnow is the latest parent of a school shooter to face charges associated with an attack. Last year, the mother and father of a school shooter in Michigan who killed four students in 2021 were each convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mother was the first parent in the US to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack. The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested in September and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon. In 2023, the father of a man charged in a deadly Fourth of July parade shooting in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors related to how his son obtained a gun license.
Daily Mail
09-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Natalie Rupnow's father arrested for providing weapons used in deadly shooting at Wisconsin Christian school
The father of Wisconsin school shooter Natalie Rupnow was arrested after it was revealed that he used semiautomatic weapons to 'bond' with his daughter. Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, the father of Abundant Life Christian School shooter Natalie Rupnow, 15, was taken into custody during an early morning traffic stop and was charged with intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 causing death and contributing to the delinquency of a child. Prosecutors say Rupnow legally bought his daughter a pistol, which he kept in a gun safe - and told Natalie that if she ever needed it, the access code was his Social Security number entered backward. 'Her father knew that she had them, or at least had access to them,' acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said at a news conference as chilling new details about the December 16 shooting were revealed in the criminal complaint against the father. It notes that just one day after the deadly shooting, Jeffrey told police how he had retrieved his daughter's handgun from the safe for cleaning two days prior - and was unsure whether he ever returned it to the safe. That gun and another firearm were then used in the deadly attack, which killed teacher Erin West, 42, and freshman Rubi Vergara, 14, and left six others wounded - one of whom remains hospitalized nearly five months later, according to CBS News. Jeffrey also allegedly suggested to the officers that Natalie must have retrieved the second weapon from the safe, according to the criminal complaint obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 'When they initially started the interview with the defendant, one of the first things he uttered was that he... began to think about if he had put [her] gun back in the safe yesterday,' it says. The criminal complaint also sheds new light on Natalie's life before she decided to open fire at the small school and took her own life. It details how the 15 year old Natalie Rupnow struggled with her parents' divorce in 2022, which she railed against in a written piece entitled War Against Humanity, where she described humanity as 'filth' and said she lived in a 'population of scum.' She went on to write that she hated people who don't care and 'smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as much as they can like my own father' and apparently believed that humanity had forced her into a hole. 'Some of you guys deserve to be dead,' Natalie reportedly wrote in the document, after using a racial slur. The teenager was living with her father following the apparently contentious divorce, and had been undergoing therapy for the post-traumatic stress disorder it caused, according to the criminal complaint. Jeffrey even seemed to notice his daughter was struggling, as she said she hated her life and wanted to kill herself. Natalie even reportedly used to cut herself to the point where her father had to lock up all the knives in his house. But still, he tried to bond with his daughter over their shared interest in firearms. He allegedly told investigators how he took Natalie shooting with him on a friend's land about two years before the Abundant Life attack. She enjoyed it, he said, and he came to see guns as a way to connect with her. But he was shocked at how her interest in firearms 'snow balled,' he told investigators. Authorities say Natalie soon began building a cardboard model of the school and scheduling the shooting to end with her suicide. She had allegedly planned to begin the attack at 11.30am and wipe out the first and second floors of the school by 11.55am. She planned to end the attack by 12.10pm with a notation 'ready 4 Death.' The teenager also shared her idolization of previous mass shooters, whom she compared herself to and once even printed out a photo of a Finnish mass shooter whom she noted made his attack two years before she was born. At times, Natalie called the other shooters 'saints,' and their attacks 'masterpieces,' the Journal Sentinel reports. She then shared her fascination with school shootings and weapons with others online, and recorded videos of herself handling 'what appears to be a black semiautomatic firearm.' Another video showed Natalie next to a mutilated rabbit, and in one clip, the teenager could be seen pointing a firearm gesture with her hand at two neighborhood dogs, telling them: 'You're next,' according to the Journal Sentinel. Natalie wound up opening fire at a study hall at the Abundant Life Christian School shortly before 11am on December 16, before taking her own life. In the aftermath, investigators recovered 20 shell casings and recovered the 9mm Glock handgun Jeffrey had purchased for her, as well as a .22-caliber Sig Sauer pistol from the bag she was carrying. Rupnow said he had given that gun to his daughter as a Christmas present in 2023, the complaint says. Also in the bag were three magazines loaded with .22 ammunition and a 50-round box of 9 mm ammunition. Two weeks later, the complaint says, Jeffrey sent a message to detectives - saying his biggest mistake was teaching Natalie how to handle guns safely and urging police to warn residents to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months, according to the criminal complaint. 'Kids are smart and they will figure it out,' he allegedly wrote. 'Just like someone trying to hack your bank account. I just want to protect other families from going through what I'm going through.' Meanwhile, according to the complaint, after learning that Natalie was the shooter while talking to a police officer, Melissa Rupnow began breathing very quickly through her nose and yelled something, to the effect of, 'I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him,' apparently referring to her ex-husband. Jeffrey is now scheduled to make his first court appearance on Friday, but it remains unclear whether he has retained an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
CNN
08-05-2025
- CNN
Father of 15-year-old who killed 2 at Wisconsin religious school faces felony charges
Crime Gun violenceFacebookTweetLink Follow Wisconsin prosecutors on Thursday charged the father of a teenage girl who killed a teacher and fellow student in a school shooting last year with allowing her access to the semiautomatic pistols she used in the attack. The criminal complaint against 42-year-old Jeff Rupnow of Madison details how his daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, struggled with her parents' divorce, showing her anger in a written piece entitled 'War Against Humanity.' Her father tried to bond with her through guns, the complaint said, even as she meticulously planned the attack, including building a cardboard model of the school and scheduling the shooting to end with her suicide. Jeff Rupnow was arrested early Thursday and taken to the Dane County Jail. He was scheduled to make his initial court appearance Friday. Online court records did not list an attorney for him. Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said he was cooperative throughout the investigation. No one returned voicemails left at possible telephone listings for him and his ex-wife, Melissa Rupnow. Natalie Rupnow entered Abundant Life Christian School, a religious school in Madison that offers prekindergarten through high school classes, on December 16 and opened fire in a study hall. She killed teacher Erin Michelle West and 14-year-old student Rubi Vergara and injured six others before she killed herself. According to the complaint, investigators recovered 20 shell casings from the study hall where she opened fire. They also recovered a 9 mm Glock handgun that Jeff Rupnow had purchased for her from the room and a .22-caliber Sig Sauer pistol from a bag the girl was carrying, the complaint says. Jeff Rupnow had given that gun to her as a Christmas present in 2023, the complaint says. Also in the bag were three magazines loaded with .22 ammunition and a 50-round box of 9 mm ammunition. She wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bull's-eye during the attack. Jeff Rupnow told investigators that his daughter lived with him but had been struggling with his divorce from her mother in 2022, saying she hated her life and wanted to kill herself. He said she used to cut herself to the point where he had to lock up all the knives in his house. She had been in therapy to learn how to be more social until the spring before the attack, he told investigators. Her mother, Melissa Rupnow, told detectives that the therapist told her that Natalie was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the divorce. One of Natalie's friends told investigators that Jeff Rupnow was 'frequently verbally aggressive' with Natalie and that she had told him that her father was a 'drinker,' according to the complaint. Jeff Rupnow told investigators that he took Natalie shooting with him on a friend's land about two years before the Abundant Life attack. She enjoyed it, and he came to see guns as a way to connect with her. But he was shocked at how her interest in firearms 'snow balled,' he told investigators. He kept Natalie's pistols in a gun safe, telling her that if she ever needed them the access code was his Social Security number entered backward. About 10 days before the school attack, he texted a friend and said that Natalie would shoot him if he left 'the fun safe open right now,' according to the complaint. The day before the school attack he took the Sig Sauer out of the safe so Natalie could clean it. But he got distracted and wasn't sure if he put the weapon back in the safe or locked it, according to the complaint. A search of Natalie's room netted a six-page document the girl had written entitled 'War Against Humanity.' She started the piece by describing humanity as 'filth' and saying she hated people who don't care and 'smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as much as they can like my own father.' She wrote about how she admired school shooters, how her mother was not in her life and how she obtained her weapons 'by lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.' Investigators also discovered maps of the school and a cardboard model of the building, along with a handwritten schedule that detailed how she would begin the attack at 11:30 a.m. and wipe out the first and second floors of the school by 11:55 a.m. She planned to end the attack by 12:10 p.m. with a notation 'ready 4 Death.' She had been communicating online with people around the world about her fascination with school shootings and weapons, Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said Thursday. Jeff Rupnow sent a message to a detective two weeks after the school shooting saying that his biggest mistake was teaching Natalie how to handle guns safely and urging police to warn people to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months, the complaint said. 'Kids are smart and they will figure it out,' he wrote. 'Just like someone trying to hack your bank account. I just want to protect other families from going through what I'm going through.' According to the complaint, after learning that Natalie was the shooter while talking to a police officer, Melissa Rupnow began breathing very quickly through her nose and yelled something, to the effect of, 'I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him,' apparently referring to her ex-husband. Jeff Rupnow is the latest parent of a school shooter to face charges associated with an attack. Last year, the mother and father of a school shooter in Michigan who killed four students in 2021 were each convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mother was the first parent in the US to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack. The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested in September and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon. In 2023, the father of a man charged in a deadly Fourth of July parade shooting in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors related to how his son obtained a gun license.
New York Times
08-05-2025
- New York Times
Father of Girl Who Killed 2 at Wisconsin School Is Charged
The father of a teenage girl who fatally shot a teacher and a fellow student at a Christian school in Madison, Wis., in December was arrested on Thursday and charged in connection with the case, the authorities said. Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, of Madison was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a child and two counts of providing a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 resulting in death, police records showed. Mr. Rupnow is the father of Natalie Rupnow, a 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School who was known as Samantha. She died after the attack from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police said. The shooter opened fire in a study hall for students from several grades at Abundant Life Christian School on Dec. 16, the authorities said at the time. The two people who were killed were identified as Rubi P. Vergara, 14, a student, and Erin M. West, 42, who was listed in a staff directory as the substitute coordinator at Abundant Life. Two other students were critically injured in the attack and have since recovered, officials said. Four others — three students and a teacher — were hospitalized with less serious injuries. The shooter had two handguns with her, the authorities said in December, though the police said that they believed she used only one of them in the attack. The investigation has centered on how the teenage girl got the guns, the police said. They said that they would announce more details from the investigation at a news conference on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Rupnow faces up to 18 years in prison if he is found guilty on all counts. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. He is the latest parent to face charges associated with a school shooting. James and Jennifer Crumbley were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison in April 2024. They had been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to prevent their teenage son from killing four fellow students at a Michigan high school in November 2021. The Crumbleys were the first parents to be directly charged for the deaths caused by a child in a mass shooting at a school. Their son Ethan, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including first-degree murder, and was sentenced in 2023 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
