DAYTON, Ohio—Caitlyn Johnson dated Connor Betts for several months until she broke up with him in May because she found his interest in mass shooting and other behaviors disturbing, she said.
“I started to get uneasy when he called me drunk and was talking about wanting to hurt people,” the 24-year-old college student said, adding that she urged him to get help but could only do so much.
Early Sunday morning, Betts killed nine people including his own 22-year-old sister, and injured more than two dozen others in a 30-second burst of gunfire before he was killed by police.
Ms. Johnson said she didn’t alert authorities because she didn’t want to believe he was capable of hurting others.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday it was launching its own probe into the shooting focusing on violent ideologies that the shooter had been exploring before the attack.
The FBI has found evidence of the attacker “very specifically seeking out information that promotes violence,” said Todd Wickerham, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office.
Police have said it is too early to ascribe a motive to the shooting but that it didn’t appear to be racially motivated.
Ms. Johnson’s account adds to an emerging portrait of Betts as a troubled but sometimes magnetic person. Some acquaintances said he was funny and outgoing; others who knew him longer referred to a menacing side that often came out in off-putting jokes.
In high school, he compiled a list of people he wanted to harm. More recently, he performed in a rock band called Menstrual Munchies, according to friends and Ms. Johnson.
Police cautioned against focusing on a threatening list that was a decade old.
“It seems to just defy believability he would shoot his own sister,” said Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said. “So we just don’t know.”
Ms. Johnson said she was drawn to Betts for his sense of humor and ability to talk to anyone. They met in psychology class at Sinclair Community College.
A turning point came one day when they met for lunch and he said he wanted to deliver a letter to a friend.
The sweet gesture turned ominous when he showed her the message and explained that it was for a former girlfriend: “Welcome to your neighborhood. You can’t escape your past.” He had signed the letter, “Your neighbor.”
Ms. Johnson said Betts thought the letter was funny, but she told him he couldn’t deliver it. They drove to a parking lot and burned the letter, she said, while he told her for the first time that he often had dark thoughts.
“The way he explained it to me is that he had uncontrollable urges that he knew weren’t good ideas, but he had to do them,” Ms. Johnson said. “And when he did them, he always felt terrible after.”
Betts held many politically liberal views, Ms. Johnson said; he also told her he was an atheist. In his Twitter feed, he tweeted condemnation of right-wing conspiracy sites and indicated support for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Betts, who was 24, graduated from Bellbrook High School in 2013 and was a member of the drama club and marching band, according to former classmates and school records.
He enrolled at Sinclair Community College in the fall of 2017 and studied psychology, according to the school, and participated in the psychology club and the National Society for Leadership and Success.
“There are no records, at this time, to suggest that he presented any risk to himself or others,” said Deena John, a spokeswoman for Sinclair. “We continue to grieve with the rest of our community and for the victims and families impacted by this tragedy.”
Records released by the Sugarcreek Township Police Department show officers had contact with Betts in December 2015 when the then 21-year-old lost control of a car and slid into a ditch.
In photos posted to his mother’s Facebook page, Betts and his sister pose together, sometimes leaning toward each other or with an arm slung around the other. Betts’s parents couldn’t be reached for comment.
Betts’s sister, Megan Betts, had worked for about six weeks at the Missoula Smokejumper Visitor Center, in Montana, as a tour guide. Kevin Hamilton, a spokesman for the association, said that in her application to the group, Ms. Betts “said she wanted to make her mark on the world.”
“She really loved the outdoors and it’s just so tragic,” Mr. Hamilton said.
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