The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Product of the Crazy-Making Factory

Posted on | December 19, 2024 | No Comments

Notice the slogan on Natalie Rupnow’s T-shirt: “KMFDM,” a reference to Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid (“no pity for the majority”), a German rock band whose fans included Columbine High School gunman Eric Harris. Lyrics to KMFDM songs were posted on Harris’s website, and fandom of KMFDM was part of Natalie Rupnow’s obsession with mass murderers — kind of a red flag, if anyone was paying attention.

In the immediate aftermath of Monday’s shooting, there was a lot of ill-informed speculation about Rupnow’s motive, with some people claiming the 15-year-old was transgender, but there is no evidence of that. According to Anna Slatz, Rupnow had been in an online “relationship” with a boy for two years, but we don’t actually know anything about this boyfriend yet. However, the Washington Post has some highly relevant reporting about Rupnow’s family background:

According to The Post’s review of court records, Rupnow’s parents first married in 2011, about two years after she was born.
Mellissa Rupnow had been previously married and divorced, and she had another daughter with a different man to whom she was never married. Court records indicate that this girl — Natalie Rupnow’s half sister — had other permanent legal guardians. The Post was not able to reach the half sister, who is now 20.
Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow divorced for the first time in 2014, agreeing to joint legal custody of their shared daughter, Natalie, but specifying that she would live primarily with her mother.
The couple remarried in 2017 and divorced for a second time in 2020, again agreeing to share custody but, the court records show, dividing Natalie’s time more evenly between them. During this period, Natalie would spend two days with her father, two with her mother, then three more with her father, before reversing the schedule the following week.
Shortly after Rupnow’s parents split up for the second time, the couple remarried once more. But by April 2021 they were petitioning for a third divorce. A judge granted it a month later but noted that “parties [were] admonished concerning remarriage,” according to court records.
After seeking mediation to determine custody of Natalie, they agreed in July 2022 that they would share legal custody but that the girl would now live mostly with her father. By this time, Natalie Rupnow had been enrolled in therapy, which was supposed to help guide decisions about which parent she would spend weekends with, the records show.

The Post used the word “turbulent” to describe this situation, although chaotic might be more accurate. What kind of people would get married and divorced three times? Selfish, immature, thoughtless people — well, that’s inference, but if you know anything at all about child-rearing, you understand how important stability is to the development of the child’s sense of security. Children do best when they grow up in one home, with two parents. Being shuffled around from one parent to the other is damaging, and while Natalie Rupnow is an extreme example, it is not surprising to learn that he childhood was chaotic.

Most importantly, there is no politics here. People trying to turn Natalie Rupnow into a symbol of the Left or the Right, in order to score political points for their side, are misguided. This is not a crime with a clear political motive; this crime is a product of mental illness.

Or evil, if you’d prefer to call it that.



 

Shop Electronics at Amazon

Save on Groceries and Everyday Essentials

Shop Amazon Basics

Office & School Supplies

Category: Crime, Wisconsin

Comments