The shooter who killed two children and wounded 17 more people at a Catholic school in Minneapolis on Wednesday was identified by authorities as 23-year-old Robin Westman.
Westman attended the school she targeted, Annunciation Catholic, for at least one year and graduated in 2017, according to documents obtained by CNN. Her mother worked at the school from 2016-2021, and Westman grew up in the Twin Cities suburb of Richfield.
Cops said Westman appeared to post a manifesto on YouTube just before opening fire. The manifesto included a four-page note, which was captured by local ABC affiliate KSTP before the YouTube channel was taken down.
“I have wanted this for so long,” one page reads. “I am not well. I am not right. I am a sad person, haunted by these thoughts that do not go away. I know this is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”
Westman died by suicide in the school parking lot after she finished shooting. She shot through windows into a room where children were attending Mass during their first week of school. Westman visited the school one week before she opened fire.
“I bet they won’t anticipate an attack in the first week,” she allegedly wrote in her documents, according to local NBC affiliate KARE.
Westman also expressed an obsession with prior mass shooters, and school shooters specifically. In the YouTube video, she displayed a bullet magazine with the names of other school shooters written on it.
Westman legally purchased a rifle, shotgun and pistol to use in the shooting, investigators said. She had no criminal history and purchased the guns shortly before the attack, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.
In her YouTube video, Westman claimed to have met and supported Brandon Herrera, a pro-gun internet personality who built a brand as the “the AK guy” and who narrowly lost a Republican congressional primary last year.
Westman also alluded to much longer, more detailed ramblings in the four-page note she shared online. The video showed a variety of political messages, as well as racial and religious slurs.
“I wouldn’t recommend any of you to read my journals, unless you REALLY want to, but be warned,” she wrote.
As a young child, Westman was known by a different first name, Robert. She filed to legally change it as a 17-year-old.
Former Kentucky state lawmaker Bob Heleringer told The Associated Press that he is Westman’s uncle, but hadn’t seen Westman in several years.
“He was my nephew, and I wish he had shot me instead of innocent schoolchildren,” Heleringer said during a phone interview. “I barely knew him.”
