If you or a loved one are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741
Long before police say he used a semiautomatic rifle to massacre spectators at this week’s Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb, Robert “Bobby” Crimo III was on a “downward spiral” that friends told The Daily Beast lasted for years but went unheeded by his family.
The mother of two of Crimo’s former skatepark friends said that the accused mass shooter came to her house frequently around 2016 and 2017 and was nothing but quiet and polite. She says at that point, he wasn’t yet cutting a disturbing figure as a wannabe YouTube rapper, with tattoos covering his face and music riddled with violent imagery.
ADVERTISEMENT
“He wasn’t always like this, and I would have never guessed that he would hurt a fly. Hurt himself? Yes. But hurt someone else? No,” said the mom, who asked to remain anonymous.
“He was a sweet kid,” she added. “But he hurt. He was very, very much a loner and depressed. And I think his emotional instability was kind of brushed under the rug by his family.”
According to the mom, Crimo threatened to kill himself and attempted suicide a few times when he spent time with her children. That Crimo struggled with suicidal thoughts and self-harm as early as 2016 hasn’t previously been reported. Attorney George Gomez, who is representing Crimo’s parents, Robert Crimo Jr. and Denise Pesina, declined to comment about whether Crimo attempted or threatened suicide in 2016.
“My office is not aware of anything like that happening in 2016,” Gomez said, adding that his clients “did not follow” their son on social media. “They didn’t know about his raps.”
The Lake County Public Defender’s Office declined to comment, referring all questions to the city’s communication arm. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Still, the mother of Crimo’s skatepark pals, like many other Americans fed up with this country’s wave of gun violence, is wondering how Crimo was able to execute a mass murder when he gave off so many warning signs to those close to him along the way—and why his father sponsored his gun permit application despite 2019 police reports showing he allegedly tried to kill himself and threatened to murder his family on separate occasions.
Crimo, 21, has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, Lake County State Attorney Eric Rinehart announced, noting that he anticipates filing more charges. During a harrowing bond hearing, prosecutors revealed that Crimo allegedly confessed to orchestrating Monday’s mass shooting and that he “seriously contemplated” carrying out a second attack soon after in Madison, Wisconsin.
While a motive for Crimo’s heinous crime remains a mystery, Assistant State Attorney Ben Dillon said Crimo told investigators that he “dressed up like a girl and covered his tattoos with makeup” to avoid recognition as he opened fire from the roof of a business overlooking the parade route.
Denise Pesina and Bobby Crimo Jr.
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Facebook/TwitterAfter the spree, Crimo allegedly told authorities that the Smith and Wesson M&P 15 used to carry out the attack accidentally fell out of his backpack—a mistake that authorities say was critical to his ultimate apprehension.
A review of Crimo’s social-media posts, online discourse, and music videos also point to an individual obsessed with violent imagery, mass shootings, and high-profile murderers. On several of his social media platforms under his alias “Awake the Rapper,” he posted several shocking music videos. Among them was a crude animation depicting a gunman being killed by police and another where Crimo is seen inside an empty classroom dressed in tactical gear and draped in an American flag. NBC News reported that Crimo had his own Discord channel that was disabled after the shooting. He also reportedly frequented a message board devoted to death, where he posted a beheading video.
“I think there’s a lot of balls dropped, no matter which way you look at it,” the mother of Crimo’s friends said. “Parents, the government itself. I mean, if what they are saying is true on the report that happened back in 2019, why would his father sponsor him to legally purchase these guns?”
She also disputed the family’s claims that there were no warning signs something could go horribly wrong.
“I thought it was a joke when his uncle came out and said ‘There were no signs of this. He was always this quiet kid, working in his apartment and behind the house.’ When it was like he had tried killing himself twice when he was hanging out with my [children], so how could you say there was no signs of this?”
“I remember the Bobby that was out skateboarding with my son or drawing, being artistic. I don’t know this Bobby. That’s what’s hurtful and where I feel bad. I think he needed help and couldn’t get the help, or it wasn’t being acknowledged that he needed help by the ones closest to him,” she added. “I think he just wanted to be loved, and there was a lot of stuff going on in the family dynamic between his mother and father,” she said. “And I feel like he just wanted to be wanted and not a burden on anybody.”
Meanwhile, one friend of Crimo told The Daily Beast that she reached out to Crimo’s dad on Facebook around 2015 after he “said some concerning things about wanting to overdose.” The pal claims that instead of responding to her message, his father blocked her. Weeks later, she claims, a mutual friend visited Crimo’s home and again voiced concerns. “He felt a lot of times that his parents didn’t care about him,” the person added. (Gomez told The Daily Beast that his clients deny any knowledge of suicidal thoughts Crimo might have had that year. “The mother has expressed to me that, to her knowledge, no one came up to her and expressed concerns. The father is in the same boat,” he said.)
“From what it sounded like, his parents worked a lot,” the friend said. “If they weren’t home, they were working, and when they were home, they were resting or sleeping. So Bobby was always out doing his own thing. He felt alone and misunderstood. He said a couple of times he wished he was like other kids. He was, but he didn’t think so.”
In an April 29, 2019, Highland Park Police incident report obtained by The Daily Beast, officers were called to the Crimo home for a well-being check. There, officers learned he was “known to use marijuana” and had a history of suicide attempts. One of those instances, which occurred a week prior to the call, was an “attempt to commit suicide by machete,” the report states.
Mourners react at a memorial site for the victims of the Highland Park mass shooting.
Jim Vondruska/Getty ImagesMonths later, on Sept. 15, 2019, Highland Park police returned to the house after an individual warned that Crimo had “stated he was going to kill everyone” in his family. The police report states that when officers arrived at the house, both Crimo and his mother said he had been depressed and had “a history of drug use.”
“Robert was not forthcoming as to the language that he used on [the day of the threat] nor was his mother,” the report states.
The report added that Crimo’s father was the one who told police about the son’s collection of knives that were being stored in a “tin can lunch box, along with a 12-inch dagger, and a 24-inch Samurai type blade” in his bedroom closet. Crimo told police at the time that he was not going to harm himself or others.
The weapons were removed from the home and police filed a “clear and present danger” form and a report was filed to the Illinois State Police. While local authorities warned Crimo could pose a danger, state police ultimately decided he did not meet the criteria to deem him an immediate threat.
At the time Crimo was applying for his Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, his only criminal offense was a January 2016 ordinance violation for possession of tobacco. Police also noted there were no mental health reports submitted to state police.
Gomez told The Daily Beast that Crimo’s father’s “position is that he did not see anything out of the ordinary” with his son. He also insisted that his client disputes the claims in the 2019 police report, noting that he did not show up at the house “until after the police had arrived.”
“He got there when things were wrapping up,” Gomez said. “I’m not too sure when he got there, but he was not aware of the threats the police report claims Crimo [his son] made.”
The lawyer added that the elder Crimo was still unaware of the threats at the September 2019 incident when he sponsored his son’s firearm permit application that ultimately allowed the younger Crimo to buy several guns—including the one he bought online and picked up from local gun dealer Red Dot Arms, The Daily Beast exclusively reported on Wednesday.
In interviews with the New York Post and ABC News, the elder Crimo dismissed any idea of wrongdoing in aiding his son to obtain his FOID card—insisting that he was simply following the law. “He bought everything on his own, and they’re registered to him,” the dad added to the New York Post. “You know, he drove there, he ordered them, he picked them up, they did his background check on each one.”
The Illinois State Police have not indicated whether the elder Crimo could face charges for his role in helping his son obtain a firearm, though legal experts indicated to The Daily Beast that it is a possibility. Especially since the form the father had to sign to sponsor the license indicates he is “liable for any damages resulting from the minor applicant’s use of firearms or firearm ammunition.”
Civil defense attorney Stephan Blandin told The Daily Beast that it is “bizarre that the father would sign for an obviously mentally troubled kid”—and noted that he believes the father will face charges for his role in aiding Crimo’s access to firearms. “I think this will serve as a chilling effect for parents who are thinking of helping their children obtain firearms,” he added.
Gomez, however, insisted that his clients are “not concerned about any kind of criminal charges” and that they are actively cooperating with authorities.
“All Crimo Jr. does at the end of the day is help [his son] go through the process of obtaining the card,” he added, noting that other family members have expressed to the media “nothing out of the ordinary” about the younger Crimo. “Right now, they are trying to digest what is happening at the moment,” Gomez said.
For her part, the mother of Crimo’s skatepark friends knew Crimo’s parents and believed the teenager’s home life wasn’t ideal and lacked stability. While technically still married, the parents lived in separate homes. According to the acquaintance, Crimo’s mother, Denise Pesina, “wanted to be divorced and move on with her kids, but I don’t think that was ever really an option for her unfortunately.”
She said Pesina “was definitely devoted” to her son and “did the best she could.” But where Pesina was non-confrontational, her husband was the opposite and exhibited anger, she said. “I think they worried about what the outsiders thought versus what their son actually needed,” she said.
“For me, I don’t want any of my words about Bobby [Crimo] to contradict the fact that what he did was wrong,” the woman continued. “He needed help.”
She isn’t the only parent speaking out. Michele Rebollar, the mother of Crimo’s late best friend Anthony LaPorte, said she remembers the quiet and awkward teen speaking at her son’s funeral in August 2017. Video of the service reviewed by The Daily Beast shows Crimo telling fellow mourners that LaPorte’s friendship made him feel “like I wasn’t alone anymore, like I had somebody there, like, that was actually there.”
“It’s horrific,” Rebollar told The Daily Beast of Crimo’s bloodshed. “There’s no justification, he could have got help, he could have told somebody, but if you’ve never had somebody to tell, how do you even know who to tell, if no one’s ever been there for you?”
Court documents suggest that Crimo’s well-being may have been on the backburner for his parents on multiple occasions. In 2002, Pesina pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor child endangerment charge after leaving then 2-year-old Crimo alone in a car in a Toys “R” Us parking lot.
The Aug. 31, 2002 warrant, obtained by The Daily Beast, states that Crimo was left in the closed car for about “27 minutes, while the windows were rolled up, the car was off and the temperature outside was about 79” degrees. A decade later, Pesina also pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in Lake County.
Police records obtained by The Daily Beast also showcase the tumultuous relationship between Crimo Jr. and Pesina that their three children endured. Records show that between 2010 and 2014, police were called to the Crimo family home at least nine times in response to domestic disputes.
The Highland Park Police Department reports indicate that many of the incidents involved allegations of physical or verbal altercations between Crimo’s parents and further provide context into the childhood of the future alleged gunman.
In one August 2010 altercation, Crimo Jr. told police that his relationship with Pesina was “failing” and that his intoxicated wife had hit him. Pesina, however, told police that her husband had “disrespected and belittled” her after mocking her appearance and drinking habits. Police ended the contentious situation by offering Pesina an informational packet about domestic violence—which the mother stated she’d already received after a different incident days earlier.
A month later, police again returned to the Highland Park home in response to another fight between the couple. The report states that Crimo Jr. accused Pesina of “trash talking,” and throwing all of his belongings off of his dresser. In a written statement, Pesina stressed her husband has been making “mean statements to me like always.”
The reports reveal that police were called at least twice to respond to reports of the couple trying to drive while intoxicated. In a June 2011 incident, Crimo Jr. insisted that Pesina tried to drive while picking up their daughter. Two years later, Pesina reported to the police that Crimo Jr. tried to drive to work while under the influence.
Facing increased scrutiny in wake of their son’s arrest, the couple is not only coping with his position as an accused mass murderer, but also the heartbreak of the town they live in and love, their lawyer told The Daily Beast. “There’s mixed feelings, but their main focus is to cope with the situation and to help in any way possible,” Gomez said. “That’s their main goal is to help and get some understanding.”
“You wake up and see your son on the news,” Gomez continued. “You didn’t have any type of inclination or any type of thought he was capable of doing this or was going to do this on July 4. The family are in shock.
“They’re residents of Highland Park,” he added. “They’re shocked, they’re sad, and they’re furious about the situation.”
—with reporting by Leigh Giangreco
