Featured Image Credit: Jeff Rupnow/Facebook/Scott Olson/Getty
Topics: Crime, Gun Crime, Mental Health, Social Media, US News
Liv Bridge
Topics: Crime, Gun Crime, Mental Health, Social Media, US News
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
A social media account linked to the suspect in the Wisconsin school shooting hints the teen had a disturbing fascination with death - and had uploaded a chilling post just moments before her rampage.
Natalie 'Samantha' Rupnow, 15, reportedly injured six and killed two people, a pupil and a teacher, when she took a handgun into the K-12 Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin on Monday (December 16).
Police initially said a second-grade student called 911 just before 11am, though they confirmed this week it was actually a second-grade teacher who called for help.
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Officers stormed the school minutes later, where they discovered multiple victims with gunshot wounds.
Rupnow, who had been a student at the school and went by the nickname 'Samantha', died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, chief of Madison Police, Shon Barnes, confirmed in a conference on Monday night.
While an alleged document that is believed to have been the suspect's 'manifesto' has been circulating on social media, photographs and other social media accounts reportedly linked to the disturbed Wisconsin teen have also come to light.
A photograph of the youngster on her father's Facebook page shows her aiming a rifle at a shooting range while wearing a t-shirt of the German industrial rock band, KMFDM.
The band was also a favorite of notorious Columbine killer, Eric Harris, who was seen wearing the band's shirt before he and Dylan Klebold gunned down 13 people in the 1999 massacre.
Also similarly to Harris and Klebold, Rupnow turned the gun on herself after the atrocity.
Another photograph on her father's Facebook page appears to show the teen cuddling with the family's dogs.
But other distressing posts uploaded to a Twitter account and a Tumblr page, believed to have belonged to the suspect, have also surfaced.
The posts suggest Rupnow had a disturbing fixation on death and school shootings, even going so far as to idolize killers.
The Twitter account had a range of sick videos, from an unknown person committing suicide at a gun range to a 2015 school stabbing attack in Sweden.
Meanwhile, the blogging page shared images of weapons, made references to other massacres such as a 2007 school shooting in Jokela, Finland, and the Parkland high school shooter, Nicholas Cruz, and had a profile picture of a screenshot from footage of another shooting.
A CashApp account, also reportedly linked to Rupnow, featured a picture of the Columbine shooters, while Spotify playlists were 'themed' around suicide and murder.
One final post uploaded to the Twitter account, mere minutes before Rupnow allegedly opened fire on campus, shared an image of a person making an 'OK' sign in a bathroom cubicle.
The gesture is believed to be linked to other school shooters, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The eerie posts suggest that the teen could have been inspired by deadly school shooters - which were also a key theme in the alleged manifesto.
However, police have been unable to verify the authenticity of the document, but said they are 'looking into her online activity'.
The cops said Rupnow could have been driven by bullying on Tuesday but said it's too early to determine if her parents could be charged with a crime.
"There are always signs of a school shooting before it occurs,” the police chief said.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.