MADSON, Wis. — The father of a teenage girl who killed two people in a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School before taking her own life is facing charges.
Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, has been charged with two felony counts of giving a dangerous weapon to someone under 18 and one felony count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, WPR reports. Rupnow was arrested Thursday morning following a traffic stop by Madison Police. He appeared in Dane County Circuit Court via video on Friday afternoon from the Dane County Jail. Rupnow posted $20,000 bond and was released from jail on Monday. Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew mandated that he continue to be subject to electronic monitoring. He is also barred from possessing or buying guns and has been ordered to stay away from Abundant Life.
Rupnow’s 15-year-old daughter was a student at the Madison school when she opened fire in a study hall on Dec. 13, killing 42-year-old teacher Erin West and 14-year-old student Rubi Vergara. She then turned the gun on herself. The gun used in the shooting and another found at the scene were both purchased legally by Jeffrey Rupnow. During the initial investigation, he told police he had given the firearms to his daughters as gifts.
“Mr. Rupnow purchased and provided firearms and allowed unlimited access to the internet to his minor child, knowing her concerning history and fragile mental health status,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said during Friday’s hearing. “There was no other person who knew the child better than the defendant. His actions and lack of judgment here contributed to the fatal and tragic mass violence incident at Abundant Life Christian.”
Abundant Life Christian School Shooter Suffered from Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation
The criminal complaint against Rupnow details how his daughter struggled with her parents’ 2022 divorce, according to AP News. Rupnow told police that his daughter said she hated her life and wanted to kill herself. He also said she used to cut herself to the point where he had to lock up all the knives in the house.
Rupnow also told investigators that his daughter had been in therapy until the spring before the attack. Her mother, Melissa Rupnow, told detectives that the therapist told her that her daughter was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from the divorce.
Despite her mental health struggles, Rupnow told investigators that he took his daughter shooting with him about two years before the attack. He said he came to see guns as a way to connect with her but that he was surprised by how her interest in firearms “snow balled.” Two weeks following the shooting, Rupnow told a detective that his biggest mistake was teaching his daughter how to handle guns safely and urged police to warn people to change their gun safe combinations every two to three months.
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“Kids are smart and they will figure it out,” he said. “Just like someone trying to hack your bank account. I just want to protect other families from going through what I’m going through.”
The pistols Rupnow gifted to his daughter were kept in a safe but he said he told her that if she ever needed to access them, the lock combination was his Social Security number backwards. Ten days prior to the Dec. 13 shooting, Rupnow texted a friend stating his daughter would shoot him if he left “the fun safe open right now,” according to the complaint.
Abundant Life Christian School Shooter Had Manifesto
A search of the shooter’s bedroom following the attack led to the discovery of a six-page manifesto. In the document, titled “War Against Humanity,” the teen described humanity as “filth” and said she hated people who don’t care and “smoke their lungs out with weed or drink as much as they can like my own father.” According to the complaint, one of the girl’s friends told investigators that Jeffrey Rupnow was “frequently verbally abusive” and that she had told him that her father was a “drinker.”
The girl wrote about how her mother was not in her life and how she obtained her weapons “by lies and manipulation, and my father’s stupidity.” She said her parents “viewed her as a mistake” and that she was an outsider both at home and at school, accusing her peers of ridiculing her differences and isolating her further.
“They look at me but don’t see me. I am invisible until I do something they can’t ignore,” she wrote.
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The teen justified her actions as a “final statement” against a world she believed had failed her, stating, “If the world doesn’t care that I exist, it will care when I don’t.” She also said the shooting was her attempt to reclaim control over her life, which she described as dominated by feelings of powerlessness.
The girl also wrote about how she admired other school shooters. Acting Madison Police Chief John Patterson said she had been communicating online with people around the world about her obsession with school shootings and weapons.
Investigators also discovered maps of the Abundant Life Christian School and a cardboard model of the building. A handwritten schedule also detailed how she would start the attack at 11:30 a.m. and “wipe out” the first and second floors of the school by 11:55 a.m.
Father of Abundant Life Shooter Joins Growing List of Parents Charged in School Shootings
Jeffrey Rupnow isn’t the first parent of a school shooter to face charges. In April 2024, Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of the teen who shot and killed four people at Oxford High School in 202, were sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison. Both were found guilty of four counts of involuntary manslaughter, making them the first parents in the U.S. to be held responsible for their child carrying out a mass school shooting.
Prosecutors say 45-year-old Jennifer Crumbley was “grossly negligent” in giving a gun to her then-15-year-old son and that she had a duty under state law to prevent him from harming others. Killed in the shooting were 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin, 16-year-old Tate Myre, 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, and 17-year-old Justin Shilling. Prosecutors maintained throughout James Crumbley’s trial that he should have reasonably foreseen that his son was troubled and may resort to violence. Prosecutors said Crumbley purchased the gun used in the shooting for his son during a time when he was struggling emotionally after his best friend moved away.
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In Sept. 2024, Colin Gray, the father of the suspected Apalachee High School shooter who killed four people, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, the most serious charges ever filed against a parent of an alleged school shooter. Killed in the attack were 39-year-old Richard Aspinwall, 53-year-old Christina Irimie, 14-year-old Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, also 14.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said Gray “knowingly allowed [his son] to possess the weapon” used in the shooting and that the charges against him are “directly connected to the actions of his son.” In addition to two counts of second-degree murder, Gray has also been charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children. His son has been charged with four felony counts of murder and will be tried as an adult.
