The sources said Friday that Thomas Matthew Crooks‘ phone had searches on it regarding the Oxford High School shooting and gunman, who was 15 when he fatally shot four students and wounded several others in suburban Detroit in 2021. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The attack also led prosecutors to charge his mother and father, Jennifer and James Crumbley, with involuntary manslaughter.
This year, they became the first parents in the U.S. to be held partially responsible for their child’s school shooting, and were sentenced in April to 10 to 15 years in prison.
That same month, Crooks, 20, performed internet searches about depressive disorder, the law enforcement sources said. In May, he did research on explosive materials and chemical compounds for such a device.
At some point, he also looked up an article about improvised explosive devices and the Department of Homeland Security.
There were more than 14,000 links and links to images found on his phone, the sources added.
Among the images investigators said they found on his phone was of Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shortly before the shooting began after Trump took the stage at about 6 p.m.
The former president survived the attack, which left a former fire chief dead and two other attendees injured.
The gunman, who used an AR-15-style rifle, was killed amid the chaos at the Butler Farm Show, and the aftermath of the shooting has placed scrutiny on law enforcement’s failure to secure the scene and other breakdowns in planning.
The gunman’s motivation remains elusive, with investigators saying they believe he acted alone and there was no obvious political ideologies that he could be linked to.
Public records show that he was a registered Republican but in 2021 donated $15 to a progressive voting effort. Investigators also found the gunman had made searches this month specific to Trump, a rally and the Democratic National Committee, according to a senior law enforcement official.
