MADISON, Wis. — The daddy of a Wisconsin teenage woman who killed a trainer and fellow scholar in a college capturing was charged with felonies Thursday in reference to the case, police stated.
The capturing occurred at Plentiful Life Christian Faculty in Madison final December.
Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, of Madison, was taken into custody round 3:45 a.m. Thursday, police stated.
Rupnow was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a kid and two counts of offering a harmful weapon to an individual beneath 18 leading to demise. All three fees are felonies, punishable by as much as six years in jail every. He was scheduled to make an preliminary look in courtroom on Friday.
Rupnow’s daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, opened fireplace on Dec. 16, 2024, at Plentiful Life Christian Faculty, killing a trainer and a 14-year-old scholar earlier than killing herself. Two different college students have been critically injured.
In response to a prison grievance, Rupnow informed investigators that his daughter was traumatized by her mother and father’ divorce and received into capturing weapons after he took her capturing on a good friend’s land. He stated he purchased her two handguns and informed her the entry code to his gun protected was his Social Safety quantity entered backward.
Investigators found writings in her room during which she describes humanity as “filth,” hated folks, received her weapons by means of her father’s “stupidity” and needed to kill herself in entrance of everybody. She constructed a cardboard mannequin of the varsity and developed a schedule for her assault that ended simply after midday with the notation: “ready 4 death.”
Police recovered a 9 mm Glock handgun that her father had purchased her from a research corridor the place she opened fireplace and one other .22-caliber pistol that her father had given to her as a Christmas current in a bag she had been carrying by means of the varsity.
Twelve days after the capturing, a Madison police detective obtained a message from Jeffrey Rupnow saying his greatest mistake was educating his child protected gun dealing with and urging police to warn folks to vary the codes on their gun safes each two to a few months.
“Kids are smart and they will figure it out. Just like someone trying to hack your bank account.’ I just want to protect other families from going through what I’m going through,” he stated.
Jeffrey Rupnow is the most recent dad or mum of a college shooter to face fees related to an assault.
Final 12 months, the mom and father of a college shooter in Michigan who killed 4 college students in 2021 have been every convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mom was the primary dad or mum within the U.S. to be held accountable for a kid finishing up a mass faculty assault.
The daddy of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally capturing 4 folks at a Georgia highschool was arrested in September and faces fees together with second-degree homicide and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon.
In 2023, the daddy of a person charged in a lethal Fourth of July parade capturing in suburban Chicago pleaded responsible to seven misdemeanors associated to how his son obtained a gun license.
Killed within the capturing have been Plentiful Life trainer Erin Michelle West, 42, and scholar Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14.
Plentiful Life is a nondenominational Christian faculty that gives prekindergarten lessons by means of highschool. About 420 college students attend the establishment.
