The 2024 Madison, Wisconsin School Shooting
On the morning of Monday, Dec 16, 2024, a student opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. The female student, identified as 15 year old Natalie Rupnow, also known as Samantha or Sam, killed a teacher and a fellow student, injuring 6 others before killing herself, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said.
The student who was killed was identified in an obituary as Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison. She was “an avid reader, loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band,” according to the obituary. The Dane County medical examiner identified the teacher who was killed as 42-year-old Erin Michelle West.
An Abundant Life sophomore who knew West and saw her hours before the shooting, Mackynzie Wilson, told CNN that West “really loved her kids.”
“She was so excited to see her daughters grow up and what they were going to be and do with their lives,” Wilson said. West’s love for her children extended to “everyone at our school,” Wilson added. “She would have done anything for them… I just wish I could’ve gone back and given her a hug.”
Police said that when officers arrived, the shooter was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and died en route to a hospital. Barnes declined to offer additional details about the shooter, partly out of respect for her family. A motive for the shooting was not immediately known, nor was it clear if the victims were targeted, Barnes said.
Investigators believe the shooter used a 9mm pistol, according to The Associated Press, who reported that Rupnow had two handguns. Chief Barnes said he does not know how Natalie Rupnow obtained them, and declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation. No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes said.
Court records show that parents, Jeffrey Rupnow and Mellissa Rupnow, are divorced and shared custody of their daughter, but she primarily lived with her father. The records indicate that Natalie was in therapy in 2022, but don’t say why. She looks happy in photos posted to her fathers’ facebook page.
In the aftermath of the ongoing investigation, the day after the shooting, a California judge issued a restraining order under California’s red flag laws against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. FBI agents served Alexander Paffendorf after discovering Paffendorf was in contact with Rupnow, coordinating an apparent attack at a local government building meant to coincide with the school shooting.
The restraining order requires Paffendorf to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others. The order is a civil action, and not a criminal one, but allows officers to seize weapons, which they were seen doing.
"They had their full guns out all over the street," neighbor Alex Gallegos told CBS 8. "There were cop cars. I'd say about 15 cops here."
Gallegos saw police carrying out what he described as a "black gun box."
During an FBI interview, Paffendorf admitted to the FBI agents that he told Rupnow that he would arm himself with explosives and a gun and that he would target a government building, according to the Carlsbad Police Department, who also said that FBI agents "saw the messages from Paffendorf to Rupnow."
Little is known about either Paffendorf or Rupnow. Social media accounts first claimed that Rupnow was a trans activist, and then a radical feminist who wanted to kill all men, but according to a manifesto leaked to social media by the shooter’s boyfriend which has been attributed to the shooter, Rupnow was a white supremacist and racist in addition to being a rambling, barely coherent nihilist, brimming with both self hatred and a narcissistic superiority complex.
She writes that “Humanity is filth,” and even says her “family is scum,” writing that “I hate humanity for forcing me into this hole.”
She claims that her father never loved her, and never treated her with respect, and talks about her mother attempting suicide when she was 12, writing that, “I don’t care if she would have survived or died from it yet she was still here, doesn’t mean she was actually in my life.”
She also alludes to some sort of abuse, citing what is seemingly a specific event, though she remains vague about it, writing that, “I honestly don’t remember how old I was, I know I was young but yet I remember everything that still happened because it happens every once in awhile.”
She includes a note that says,
Nobody knows why I’m doing this,
I got the weapons by lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity.
I planned on shooting myself awhile ago but thought maybe it’s better for evolution rather than just one stupid boring suicide which hopefully ill reach that point.
I’ve planned this myself and nobody else.
I act alone.
There would have been no way to change what has happened.
You can’t never and will never know, you never cared too much to know anything about me. I’m glad you don’t know.
In August of 2024, Rupnow’s father took Natalie to a gun range where Samantha wore a KMFDM T-shirt:
The same shirt was worn by Columbine shooter Eric Harris, and Rupnow was reportedly part of the Columbine fandom we reported on in our History of School Shootings.
She apparently wore the shirt often; there are several pictures circulating of her wearing it. She cites being inspired by “Saints” like Harris, invoking a reference to far right terrorism.
The alleged manifesto directly names both Columbine shooters as well as Vladislav Roslyakov, a Columbine copycat shooter from Crimea, who also cosplayed as one of the Columbine shooters.
A Twitter account believed to have belonged to Rupnow posted a series of videos glorifying school shootings and hinting at one to come in the days leading up to the shooting.
The profile picture on that account is yet another Columbine copycat school shooter from Russia, Mikhail Pivnev, who was also 15 years old when he carried out his attack, supposedly “because his classmates offended him in different ways and he was annoyed with that,” his sister Daria Pivnev said.
Pivnev attacked his teacher with a meat cleaver and shot her in the head with an air rifle, shouting that he wanted to 'stage a massacre,' and giving students one minute to flee. Three other victims suffered various fractures as they tried to flee the classroom, according to the Daily Mail.
Natalie Rupnow’s manifesto, which she titled "War Against Humanity," also references Pekka Eric Auvinen, Arda Küçükyetim, and Vladislav Roslyakov.
Auvinen was responsible for the Jokela High School massacre on November 7, 2007, in the town of Jokela, Tuusula, Finland, Roslyakov was responsible for the Kerch Polytechnic College massacre in Kerch, Crimea, and Küçükyetim was a Turkish neo-nazi who committed a mass attack in Eskişehir earlier in 2024.