Wisconsin police search for answers in rare case of female school shooter
Police in Wisconsin on Tuesday were interviewing friends and family and examining the online presence of a 15-year-old girl to determine what drove her to open fire in a classroom at her private Christian school, killing a fellow student and a teacher before taking her own life.
The shooter, identified by police as Natalie Rupnow, who also went by Samantha, was a student at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital.
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In one key way, the Madison attack is an outlier among U.S. school and mass shootings: Women and girls are far less likely to carry them out than male attackers. Only about 3% of all U.S. mass shootings are perpetrated by females, studies show.
“Identifying a motive is our top priority, but at this time it appears that the motive was a combination of factors,” Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said at a press conference.
Barnes did not provide more detail, saying he didn’t want to jeopardize the investigation.
Investigators are examining her cell phone, computer and online posts as well as looking into verifying a possible manifesto that the shooter may have left behind.
Some details of Rupnow’s life have begun to emerge.
Police have confirmed the name of the street where she lived in Madison. Online records show someone named Jeffrey Rupnow lives on the same street, and a Facebook profile belonging to a Jeff Rupnow in Madison shows photos of a newborn daughter named Natalie Lynn from 2009, 15 years ago.
Jeff Rupnow’s cover photo, posted in August, shows what appears to be a teenaged girl trap shooting with a shotgun at a local club. In a comment on the site, Jeff Rupnow says he and his child joined the club in the spring and “have been loving all every second of it.”
Rupnow could not be reached for comment.
In the photo, the girl is wearing a T-shirt of the German band KMFDM. The teenaged shooters in the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado were known to be avid fans of the band, and one of the killers posted the band’s lyrics on his website.
At the time, KMFDM issued a statement condemning the attack, expressing sympathy for the victims and affirming its music was intended to stand against violence.
