Killer told of ‘lil secret’ on social media and hinted ‘I’m about to...’
Gunman was bullied for a speech impediment and involved in screaming rows with his mother
ON TUESDAY morning, Salvador Ramos sent a message to a woman he barely knew online, telling her he had a “lil” secret to share.
Hours later, he massacred 19 children and two of their teachers in the second deadliest school shooting in America’s history. Before driving to Robb Elementary School, the gunman shared a picture of two semi-automatic rifles which he purchased, along with 375 rounds of ammunition, in the week before the shooting after turning 18.
The photograph failed to impress the woman he was conversing with who simply replied: “What your guns gotta do with me.”
In the aftermath of the attack in Uvalde, San Antonio, friends and neighbours have told how Ramos, who was bullied for years because of a childhood speech impediment, regularly “lashed out violently” at strangers. His home life was also “fraught” and he missed large periods of high school because he intermittently dropped out.
Nadia Reyes, a former classmate, described how he once posted a video of a screaming altercation he was having with his mother who appeared to be trying to kick him out of her house.
“He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b---- and say she wanted to kick him out,” Ms Reyes told The Washington Post.
“He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.”
Ramos had “a pretty rough life” with his mother, according to Ruben Flores, 41, a former neighbour, with regular screaming arguments that occasionally resulted in the police being called.
Before his rampage, Ramos shot his grandmother, Celia Martinez, who had reportedly taken him in after a rift with his mother.
The 66-year-old was not killed, but was in a serious condition last night.
Her husband, Rolando Reyes said Ms Martinez had taken her grandson to Applebee’s grill and bar to celebrate his birthday.
“I didn’t know he had weapons,” Mr Reyes told ABC News. “If I’d have known, I would have reported it.”
The woman he sent a message to on Instagram shortly before the shooting reacted with horror when she later learnt what he had done.
Before he launched the attack he tagged her in an Instagram picture of the guns he had bought, asking her if she would share them on her profile.
“What,” she replied. “What [have] your guns got to do with me?” The woman said she was “so confused” by his messages and behaviour.
At 7.30am the next day he messaged her saying: “I’m about to.” “About to what,” she replied.
“I got lil secret I wanna tell you,” he said later. “I’ll text you in an hour. But you have to respond.”
Following the attack, she said on social media: “The only reason I responded to him was because I was afraid of him. I wish I stayed awake to at least try to convince him to not commit [this] crime.
“He’s a stranger I know nothing about him, he decided to tag me in his gun post. I’m so sorry for the victims and their families.”
The gunman’s mother, Adriana Reyes, claimed her son “wasn’t a violent person” and said she was “surprised by what he did”. Speaking from the hospital where her mother is being treated for gunshot wounds to the face, she said: “I had a good relationship with him. He kept to himself; he didn’t have many friends.”