Wisconsin police said Tuesday they are trying to verify whether a manifesto circulating online actually came from the 15-year-old girl behind the deadly shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison.
Police Chief Shon Barnes said officers are looking at electronic devices belonging to shooter Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow to see whether the girl authored the writings that discuss being bullied at school, a strained relationship with her parents and how she acquired the 9 mm pistol used in the attack.
“Some of you have asked whether or not she was troubled, or whether or not she was troubled at school. We do not have those records,” Chief Barnes said during a Tuesday press conference. “On the question of bullying, we’re talking to students to understand [whether] bullying was one of those multiple factors” that led up to the shooting.
Authorities said Rupnow killed one student and one teacher before she turned the gun on herself during her Monday morning rampage at the pre-K-12 school.
Six other people were wounded, police said. Two of those who survived were in critical condition.
None of those victims’ identities have been shared by Tuesday afternoon, which became a point of contention between local officials and reporters during the Tuesday press conference.
“It is absolutely none of y’all’s business who was harmed in this incident,” said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. “Please, have some human decency and respect for people who lost loved ones. Just have some human decency, folks. Leave them alone. Don’t feed off their pain.”
Chief Barnes did correct a comment he made Monday that the original 911 call came from a second-grade student. He said the first call actually came from a second-grade teacher.
The author of the supposed manifesto identifies herself as Samantha Rupnow and claims she acquired the pistol through “lies, manipulation and my fathers [sic] stupidity.”
“I planned on shooting myself awhile ago but thought maybe its better for evolution rather than just one stupid boring suicide which hopefully ill reach that point,” the document reads, which was posted on X by a journalist from independent media outlet Reduxx. “I planned this myself and nobody else. I act alone.”
The six-page document refers to “humanity as filth” and the author’s parents as “scum.” The author also says her parents had multiple divorces and her father struggled with alcoholism, and that both parents “admit they didn’t want me.”
The author further says she was teased and pushed around at school in the document, and said this continued even after changing schools.
“I know this will happen anywhere and anytime in my life, but it’s annoying. I’m starting to realize you will all die and perish and be forgotten in 20 years or less,” the manifesto reads.
