Wisconsin religious school shooter had two handguns with her but only used one inside the attack that killed a teacher and a student and injured six others, the city's police chief told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison killed a fellow student and a teacher Monday, before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition Wednesday.
“We may never know what she was thinking that day, but we will do our best to try to add as much information as possible to our public,” Barnes said.
The slain student was identified in an obituary released Wednesday as Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison. She was a freshman and “an avid reader, loved art, sang and played keyboard in the family worship band,” according to the obituary.
The name of the teacher who was killed has not been released.
Barnes released the name of the shooter, Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, hours after the shooting Monday.
Barnes said the coroner would release the names of those killed, but state law prohibits releasing the names of those injured.
Police, with assistance from the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and talking to the attacker's parents and classmates in an effort to determine a motive, Barnes said.
Police do not know if anyone was targeted or if the attack was pre-planned, he said.
While Rupnow had two handguns, Barnes said he did not know how she got them and declined to say who bought them, citing the ongoing investigation.
No decisions have been made on whether Rupnow's parents could face charges in connection with the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes said.
Online court records show no criminal charges against her father, Jeffrey Rupnow, or her mother, Mellissa Rupnow. They are divorced and have custody of their daughter, but she primarily lived with her father, according to court documents. Divorce records show that Natalie was in therapy in 2022, but they don't say why.
Female shooters are rare
The shooting was the latest among dozens across the US in recent years, including particularly deadly ones in Newtown, Conn.; Parkland, Fla.; and Uvalde, Texas.
But the Madison attack is an outlier because only about three percent of US mass shootings are committed by women, according to studies.
School shootings have become an almost daily occurrence in the United States, with 322 of them this year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. That's the second-highest total in any year since 1966 – only 349 last year.
School shootings by female teenagers have been relatively rare in the US, with males in their teens and 20s committing the majority, said David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Emily Salisbury, associate professor of social work at the University of Utah, studies criminology and gender. She said women usually turn their anger on themselves because American culture has taught them that women don't hurt people, leading to eating disorders, self-harm and depression.
It's hard to speculate without knowing all the facts in Rupnow's case, Salisbury said, but a girl who goes to the level of violence she showed suggests she's been seriously traumatized or She suffered violence herself.
“There needs to be more encouragement, more encouragement for girls and women to be violent,” Salisbury said. “It's very likely that she's experienced some form of violence in her life that can cause serious mental illness.”
Abundant Life is a non-denominational Christian school – prekindergarten through high school – with approximately 420 students.
Salisbury said the public should not assume that the school's religious teachings mean its students are above bullying and excluding each other.
“They're kids,” Salisbury said. “How can these (religious) values be taught or discussed in the classroom in that school culture, kids are online all the time. Kids create their own culture through social media.”
