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Tell me this.
How long had you known this young man?
How long had he been friends with your son?
My son's known him probably a year,
a year in a half.
He knew his brother first.
And then he was introduced to Nick through ROTC.
Right.
And I met him a couple of times prior to him moving in.
He spent the night at our house.
And he was nothing but respectful.
A good kid.
And when it came down to my son asking if he could move in,
we sat down with him.
I sat down with him prior to him moving in.
And let him know there would be rules and stipulations
when he moved in.
If he moved in.
Yeah, and this is your son JT.
JT, good morning.
Morning.
And your son is the kind of young man
that if there's a kid that's kind of isolated
kind of hurting and having a difficult time,
he's the kind of young man that would reach out
to that sort of kid, right?
Yes sir.
Now, his mother was dying, and in fact did pass
in November, is that correct?
Yes.
And was this a sudden death, or a long illness?
Do you know?
I'm not sure.
It was unexpected to him.
Okay. It was a surprise.
She had a flu that turned into pneumonia.
Do you know?
Yeah she died of pneumonia.
It did set on pretty quickly.
What we do know is that his father, adopted father,
had died about 12 years before.
And his mother was really the only figure in his life.
She was a very doting mother,
and they were very very close and when she died,
he was really rudderless.
He had nobody really to be there for him.
And that's where these folks came in.
They opened their home, they got him into a different school
they got him a job.
They kind of brought him into their home
because he had no other place to go.
One thing we do know that's fairly common
among people that perpetrate this kind of violence
is they often have lost a loved one,
sustained a serious loss in their life
in the months leading up to the violence
and that's the case here.
He had lost his only real anchor in his life.
First he was adopted.
That has certain psychological dynamics to it.
Then his adopted parents, he lost them.
Now, he lived with another woman for a short period of time
before he came to your home, correct?
Yes sir, yes sir.
And that didn't work out. Do you know why?
It had to do with the fire arms he had
and she had a toddler in the house.
And it just, there was a lot of people in the house
it just wasn't a good fit for him.
Did it concern you that he had guns?
No sir, I'm not afraid of guns.
I respect guns.
But one of the stipulations for him moving into my home
was he had to get a gun safe.
Okay. And he did.
Yes sir.
And how many guns did he move into your home?
Approximately five or six.
Okay. And were these rifles? Or pistols?
All rifles.
All rifles.
Yes sir.
Did he have the AR-15 when he moved in there?
Yes sir, he did.
Okay and this was locked up in a safe?
Yes sir.
Who had the key?
I had the key.
Okay.
I assumed I had the only key.