The suspected Highland Park mass shooter threatened suicide and tried to kill himself a few times going back to 2016, according to a report.
A woman whose sons hung out with Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, now 21, at a local skatepark said he was at her home often between 2016 and 2017 and was polite but clearly very disturbed, The Daily Beast reported.
The mother of two, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Crimo had not yet tattooed his face or made violent Youtube rap videos. But he seemed very lonely and unhappy, she said.
“He wasn’t always like this, and I would have never guessed that he would hurt a fly. Hurt himself? Yes. But hurt someone else? No,” the woman told The Daily Beast.
“He was a sweet kid,” she added. “But he hurt. He was very, very much a loner and depressed. And I think his emotional instability was kind of brushed under the rug by his family.”
Crimo faces life in jail after being charged with the seven murder counts — one for each of the victims he allegedly gunned down at last week’s Fourth of July parade in the suburb just outside Chicago,
According to the woman, Crimo threatened to kill himself and attempted suicide a few times when he spent time with her children.
Crimo’s parents’ lawyer George Gomez told the Daily Beast he was “not aware” of “anything like that happening in 2016.” He also said they “didn’t follow” their son on social media and did not know about his rapping.
Crimo, a wannabe rapper, threatened “everyone” in his family in September 2019, prompting cops to remove a dagger, sword and 16 knives from his home, Illinois State Police said.