PORTLAND, Ore. — The mother of a gunman who killed nine people and himself at an Oregon community college allowed her troubled son to have guns and acknowledged in online posts that he struggled with autism, but she didn’t seem to know he was potentially violent.
Laurel Harper’s online posts date from a year ago to nine years ago and offer new insight about the gunman, 26-year-old Christopher Harper-Mercer, and his relationship with his mother.
The Associated Press didn’t speak with Harper about the postings, but in them she offered an email address that is linked to her.
Harper and son shared an apartment outside Roseburg. Investigators have recovered 14 firearms – six found at Umpqua Community College, where the killings occurred, and eight at the apartment. Neighbors of mother and son in California, where they lived before moving to Oregon in 2013, have said Harper-Mercer and his mother would go target shooting together.
Investigators say Harper-Mercer’s mother has told them her son was struggling with mental health issues.
In her online postings, Laurel Harper talked about her love of guns and her son’s emotional troubles but there are no hints of worry he could be violent.
“I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags. No one will be ‘dropping’ by my house uninvited without acknowledgement,” reads a 3-year-old posting.
She was referring to a Glock handgun and to military-style rifles. A Glock and a military-style rifle were among the weapons seized after the Roseburg shooting rampage.
Laurel Harper wrote in another posting: “I love the long guns & I have an AK-47 en route.” She complained about gun-control efforts in “lame states.”
She posted several times that her son had Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. One posting reads: “He’s no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless. He’s very intelligent and is working on a career in filmmaking.”
She wrote that she read aloud to her unborn son from Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.”
Investigators have not yet said whether they suspect a motive in last Thursday’s shooting rampage, where Harper-Mercer killed eight students and a teacher before killing himself.
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