As a parent, you want to do your best. You focus on your child, ensuring they're emotionally safe, properly socialized, and academically challenged — anything to set them up for success.
It's hard to fathom a dark outcome: that your child would grow up to assassinate someone, or be accused of doing so.
That's what Luigi Mangione's parents experienced last week, as the 26-year-old suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was charged with murder as an act of terrorism. And the parents of Natalie Rupnow, a 15-year-old who the police say killed two and injured six others at a Wisconsin school before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Working with parents who've watched their kids sink into dangerous behavior, a family therapist named Rachel Goldberg said it's hard for them to heal. She said parents must strive to find self-compassion and "separate their identity from their child's actions," no matter how challenging.
Parents of shooters experience remorse and confusion
In her 2016 memoir, "A Mother's Reckoning," Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters, wrote about struggling to call her son a "monster" after he killed five people in 1999. "When I hear about terrorists in the news, I think, 'That's somebody's kid,'" she wrote in the book.
Peter Rodger, whose son killed six people in Isla Vista, California, wrestled with similar confusion and guilt. He remembers sitting in horror, watching the retribution video his son posted on YouTube before stabbing, shooting, and driving into bystanders in 2014. "Elliot was far from evil," Rodger told ABC that year. "Something happened to him. He was the most beautiful, kind, sweetheart of a boy."
Such an event "forces us as parents to contend with our worst fears," Annie Wright, another family therapist, told Business Insider. "The lack of control, at some level, over who they become."
Mangione's family is wealthy and well known in their community as the owners of a golf club and as philanthropists. He attended the Gilman School, a prestigious private school in Baltimore, where he graduated as valedictorian and was described by his peers as "very social" and "very into sports."
Goldberg said that a parent's imagined worst-case scenario is usually that their child would become a lonely, unemployed adult living in their basement. If a child does the unthinkable, recovering as a parent can feel impossible.
Limits to a parent's control
Kids don't need to be out of the house to be mysteries to their parents. In the wake of the Wisconsin shooting, authorities are combing through Rupnow's online activity in search of a motive, finding a version of her life seemingly concealed from others, like her fascination with the Columbine shooters.
Once a child is over 18 and financially independent, parents' control over their lives becomes even more tenuous. In the Mangiones' case, their son stopped responding to messages for months before he was arrested.
For parents watching their adult kids slip into alarming behavior, their options are legally limited, Goldberg said. Often, their best defense is talking to their kid, but "it really depends how much their adult child is willing to let them in."
Wright said that involving third parties can help. Parents can try family therapy or find licensed professionals who can help manage their child's physical or emotional pain. Parents can also call their local authorities in extreme cases, such as when their child is in immediate danger or endangering someone else.
Goldberg said the best thing parents can do is know their child as well as possible and act when something feels off. "Don't wait until it gets really bad if you can possibly intervene earlier," she said.
Even then, sometimes, intervention falls short.
The Isla Vista shooter was in therapy from the age of 9. Peter Lanza, the father of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooter, said his son had been assessed by mental-health professionals multiple times.
Pain a parent can't fix
Loneliness and isolation can often be red flags when analyzing a child's behavior. Still, Mangione, who started a gaming club in college and was part of a fraternity, appeared surrounded by people.
This made it harder for him to disappear fully: In July, when he cut off contact with his family, cousins and friends reached out on social media. In November, his mother filed a missing-person report in San Francisco, where Mangione has some relatives.
Mangione had spondylolisthesis, a painful spinal condition. He frequented Reddit communities related to back pain, describing his symptoms as "absolutely brutal" and "life-halting." That can be isolating, Goldberg said, even for someone with a seemingly solid network of friends and family.
"It is a very lonely place to be in pain all the time because you can't really be present with people," he added.
In 2022, when Mangione lived in a Hawaiian surf community, he experienced sciatica, debilitating nerve pain, in his leg. R.J. Martin, who owned the co-living space, told The New York Times that Mangione "knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn't possible."
While parents can do a lot to relate to a child's pain, such as listening and doing their best to understand the nuances of what their child is going through, "empathy alone can't bridge every gap," Wright said.
Parents can still protect themselves
Goldberg's clients, particularly parents of kids with issues around substance misuse, struggle to move past their guilt. Acceptance can take a lifetime.
"They live in fear of getting a phone call from the police or hospital; they question everything they have done," she said. "They often feel incredibly helpless and stuck."
Wright said the resulting grief from something like this could be "extraordinarily complex" and "often includes sorrow, not only for the victims and their families but for the loss of the child they thought they knew."
She suggested therapy and, for those with religious affiliations, seeking spiritual leaders they trust. Parents can feel so many conflicting emotions, and it's important to "allow these emotions to coexist without rushing to tidy them up," she said.
This is especially hard for the parents who felt they tried their best.
Upon learning of Mangione's arrest, his family released a statement contrary to the document found with their son during his arrest. "We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson, and we ask people to pray for all involved," they said. "We are devastated by this news."
Some parents try to find meaning in the tragedy. Klebold wrote her memoir and participated in press interviews. Chin Rodger, the mother of the Isla Vista attacker, started speaking at threat-assessment trainings. She hopes people will get better at identifying the red flags of someone going through a mental crisis.
Still, some just wish it never happened. Lanza blames himself for overlooking warning signs. "You can't get any more evil," Lanza told The New Yorker in 2014. "How much do I beat up on myself about the fact that he's my son? A lot."
Correction: December 23, 2024 — An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the Columbine shooting's death toll. Sue Klebold's son killed five of the 13 people who died in the attack, not all 13.
