The troubled home life of the young Wisconsin school killer has been revealed in court documents which exposed how she was in therapy.
Natalie Rupnow, 15, killed two people, as well as herself, and injured six others after unleashing hell at Abundant Life Christian School on Monday.
But according to court documents seen by The Washington Post, the killer’s parents divorced and remarried multiple times and she had been enrolled in therapy.
Rupnow, who also went by the name Samantha, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after she opened fire in a study hall at the private school in Madison.
A substitute teacher and three students had been taken to a hospital with less serious injuries, and two of them had been released by Monday evening.
Police have released few details about the teen shooter as they continue their investigation into the motive behind the incident.
Court documents, however, have pointed to an unsettled childhood for Rupnow, whose parents’ custody agreements often meant she had to move between homes every two to three days.
While it is still too soon to tell what exactly led to Monday’s shooting, Jillian Peterson, a forensic psychologist, told the newspaper that childhood trauma are often driving forces behind such incidents.
Natalie Rupnow, 15, killed two people, as well as herself, and injured six others after unleashing hell at Abundant Life Christian School on Monday
Police confirmed they were talking with father Jeff Rupnow (pictured) and other family members, who were cooperating. Court documents revealed the teen shooter had a troubled home life
Jeff Rupnow shared a picture of one of his daughters being encouraged to handle and fire guns by her father. Mr Rupnow in August shared a photograph (above) on Facebook at a local shootin range
According to the court documents, Rupnow’s parents, Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow, first married two years after she was born, in 2011.
Mellissa had been previously married and divorced, and she had another daughter, 20, with a different man to whom she was never married.
Court records indicated that Rupnow’s half-sister had other permanent legal guardians.
Jeff and Mellissa divorced for the first time in 2014, where they agreed to have joint legal custody of Rupnow, but specified that she would primarily live with her mother.
The couple then remarried in 2017 and divorced for a second time in 2020, where they once again agreed to share custody of their daughter.
Rupnow then spent a more even amount of time between her two parents – two days with her father, two days with her mother, then three more with her father, before flipping the schedule the following week.
Not long after Rupnow’s parents split up for the second time, the couple remarried once more – but by April 2021 they were petitioning for a third divorce.
A judge granted it a month later but noted that ‘parties [were] admonished concerning remarriage,’ according to court records.
Over a year later, in July 2022, the parents agreed they would share legal custody of the young girl but that she would now live mostly with Jeff.
By this time, Rupnow was enrolled in therapy, which was supposed to help her make decisions about which parent she would spend her weekends with, records show.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school — prekindergarten through high school — with approximately 420 students
The 2022 custody papers said: ‘The parents report a generally positive co-parenting relationship and will continue to communicate with one another by text messages and phone conversations.’
Jeff Rupnow has shared several images of his daughter throughout the years on social media – all the way back to her birth in 2009.
The father is cooperating with police as they try to find a motive for the tragedy as well as how the teen accessed the weapon she used, believed to be a 9mm handgun.
On his Facebook, Jeff had a photo uploaded from August showing his daughter at a shooting range.
She can be seen wearing a black shirt with the name of the band KMFDM.
The German industrial rock band’s lyrics were cited by the students who carried out the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, where 13 people were killed.
He was asked by a friend if it was his daughter in the image. He replied: ‘Joined NBSC (North Bristol Shooting Club) this spring and we have been loving every second of it.
The NBSC – or North Bristol Sportsman’s Club – is a gun club in Sun Prairie, a suburb of Madison, offering annual family memberships for just $90, according to its website.
Investigators on Tuesday said they are focused on trying to determine a motive for the deadly school shooting.
The shooting left two dead and a six injured – two of whom are in critical condition. A family is seen leaving the reunification center after the tragedy
Shon Barnes, the police chief in Madison said investigators were aware of a ‘manifesto, if you want to call it that, or some type of letter’ posted by someone who might have known the shooter, 15-year-old student Natalie Rupnow.
‘We haven’t been able to locate that person yet, but that’s something we’re going to work on today,’ Barnes told CNN.
‘We’ll also be looking through (Rupnow’s) effects, if she had a computer or cell phone, to see if there are any transmissions between her and someone else, and that will give us an idea of what type planning.’
Chief Barnes said they’re trying to put together a timeline of the shooter’s last hours before she went to the school.
Barnes said they’ve asked the ATF to expedite determining the origin of the gun used in the shooting and how the 15-year-old got her hands on it.
He said he’s not certain if the weapon was owned or possessed by her parents.
Asked if her parents could be charged with a crime, Barnes said they were voluntarily giving information, but he also wanted to look at whether the parents were negligent.
But at this time, he said that doesn’t appear to be the case.
