Authorities said Crooks fired an AR-style rifle at Trump from a rooftop near a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, killing one person and seriously wounding two in the crowd.
Trump, who will officially become the Republican presidential nominee two days later, suffered an ear injury.
A Secret Service sniper on another roof later shot and killed the gunman.
Despite the massive investigation and media attention that followed the shooting, little information has been publicly released about Crooks’ interests, beliefs or why he climbed to the top of a building, pressed himself against the roof and opened fire with a gun that his father had legally purchased 11 years earlier.
When investigators approached Crooks’ body after the shooting, they discovered he had a cellphone in his possession, which was initially sent to the Pittsburgh FBI office, but the office didn’t have the technology to quickly open it, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
Authorities sent the cellphone to an FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, on Sunday, the people said.
In Quantico, FBI agents quickly accessed the phones using technology from CellBright Inc., a company well known among law enforcement agencies for helping them access data on phones seized or recovered in criminal investigations, according to people familiar with the matter.
Technology experts say the phone is a relatively new model and has new software, which could make it harder for police to access older phones. In many federal investigations, it can take hours, weeks or even months to open a suspect’s phone.
In the Crooks case, which was an immediate priority for both the FBI and Cellebrite, the contractor’s technology allowed the lock to be opened within 40 minutes, according to people familiar with the matter.
Decoding the phone did not solve the case, according to people familiar with the case: While the phone provided some clues, it did not provide direct evidence of a motive or what investigators called “damning information” about a plot or accomplices.
Crooks’ home life and relationship with his parents are also of particular interest as investigators try to understand his thinking, two people familiar with the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation, which is still in its early stages.
Both parents had health problems and the boy lived with them, but so far investigators have not found any indication that they were closely monitoring the boy’s activities or interests in the days or months before the shooting, officials said. Investigators got the impression the couple were loving parents but may not have been particularly attentive to the details of their son’s life, the officials said.
Several family members have not responded to interview requests from The Washington Post since Sunday.
Kelly Little, 38, who lives across the street from the Crooks’ house, said Tuesday she remembers seeing a “Trump” sign in the Crooks’ yard in the past. She couldn’t remember exactly when the sign appeared, but said it stood out because political signs are rare in her neighborhood.
Little has lived in that section of Bethel Park with her sister and their two sons since 2018. Local teenagers and children loved to congregate on her lawn, but Crooks, a 2022 graduate of Bethel Park High School and a top math student, said, — I wasn’t inclined to go out with them.
Instead, Little would often see him heading out for walks almost every day, with a backpack and loud headphones on, smiling and waving at her.
“He’s just a normal kid from the neighborhood,” she said. “A quiet, silly kid.”
Little said Crooks’ parents rarely went outside, and as far as she knew, they didn’t socialize with other families in the neighborhood, which she said wasn’t unusual.
Her 17-year-old son, Liam Campbell, said he saw Crooks’ parents get into a red car and drive off Monday night, and that he also remembers “seeing a couple of political signs in their yard.” The signs were “MAGA-related, Trump-related,” Campbell said.
Jim Knapp, who worked at Bethel Park for 30 years and was Crooks’ guidance counselor during his final three years at the school, described his former student as “quiet,” “intelligent,” “cooperative” and “well-spoken.”
Knapp said he noticed Crooks spending most of his time with a group of about five boys. As a sophomore, Crooks would often sit alone in the cafeteria. Knapp said he later learned Crooks’ schedule that year didn’t match up with the schedules of his closest friends.
Knapp said he checked in with Crooks and asked if he could join him at lunch, to which Crooks responded, “No, it’s OK, Mr. Knapp. I’m sitting here by myself,” then went back to playing games on his phone, Knapp recalled.
The counselor said the behavior was normal for high school students. He said that from third to fourth grade: Crooks had lunch with his friends.
Knapp said she chose to speak publicly about her relationship with Crooks because of reports that Crooks had been bullied in high school, an allegation the counselor has vigorously denied. “I can assure you he was not bullied in school,” Knapp said. “If he had been bullied, I would have known.”
Knapp also said he was confident Crooks had never been disciplined. As a guidance counselor, Knapp met with students at least twice a year. Knapp said he had met Crooks’ parents many times and knew the family relatively well because Crooks’ sister worked in the guidance counselor’s office.
He said his parents attended the school’s open house event each year to check out their children’s schedules and get to know the teachers in each subject. “The teachers were very nice,” he said.
Knapp said Crooks was eager to go to college when she graduated from high school. She worked in a nursing home and graduated in May with an associate’s degree in engineering science from Allegheny County Community College in western Pennsylvania, a college spokesman said.
Crooks was planning to attend Robert Morris University. Pittsburgh a university spokesperson made the announcement this fall.
Davis reported from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
