Thomas Matthew Crooks began searching for terms related to bomb-making when he was 15. Five years later, on July 13, he had two homemade explosive devices in his car when he drove to Butler County, Pennsylvania, to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
It is unclear how or even whether Crooks planned to use the explosive devices. He did not detonate them before using an AR-15 rifle to fire eight rounds at Mr. Trump before a Secret Service sniper killed him.
Why Crooks built bombs he did not use is among the many mysteries lingering nearly two months after the assassination attempt. The biggest unanswered question is Crooks’ motive for firing the bullets, one of which grazed Mr. Trump’s right ear.
Another unknown is whether Crooks intended to harm anyone besides Mr. Trump or whether others were just caught in the crossfire.
Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, was killed. David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, were injured.
FBI investigators said they believe Crooks acted alone. The bureau said it had conducted nearly 1,000 interviews in its ongoing investigation and analyzed hundreds of hours of video footage.
The FBI described Crooks as a loner with few associates outside his family. His online search history shows a mix of ideologies and reveals that he searched for information on events for President Biden and Mr. Trump, and the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
Homing in on Trump rally
After Mr. Trump announced his plans for a July 13 rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds in western Pennsylvania, Crooks “became hyperfocused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity,” said Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI Pittsburgh field office.
Crooks lived roughly an hour south of Butler in Bethel Park. On July 6, he registered to attend the rally, searched for the distance from Lee Harvey Oswald to President Kennedy at the assassination in Dallas, and “where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show.”
Crooks traveled to the rally site the next day and spent about 20 minutes surveying the area. In the subsequent days, he searched for “AGR International,” a glass and plastics manufacturer with headquarters next to the Farm Show grounds, “ballistic calculator” and “weather in Butler.”
The day before the rally, Crooks visited a shooting range and practiced with the AR-15 he purchased from his father in October.
Crooks bought 50 rounds of ammunition at a gun store the day of the rally. The FBI said he fired some of the ammunition that day.
On the morning of July 13, Crooks spent more than an hour in the rally area and then traveled home. Around 1:30 p.m., he took a rifle and told his parents he was heading to a shooting range.
Crooks returned to the rally site and flew a drone from about 200 yards out from 3:51 p.m. to 4:02 p.m. The FBI said the drone’s flight path indicates its aerial views would have helped Crooks assess the security posture at the event.
Crooks never entered the event. Instead, he wandered the adjacent AGR complex outside the security perimeter.
Local police flagged Crooks as suspicious after spotting him using a range finder roughly half an hour before the rally began but lost sight of him before they could question him.
At 6:05 p.m., Crooks used HVAC equipment and a pipe to climb onto the roof of the AGR building closest to the stage. Lying on the back portion of the sloped roof, Crooks fired eight rounds toward the stage at 6:11 p.m.
He was immediately killed by a Secret Service sniper.
When police recovered his body, they found a remote detonator. The FBI later said the receivers on the explosive devices in his car were in the off position but otherwise capable of exploding. An explosive device found in his home was missing initiation system components and was nonfunctional.
Gun enthusiast
Questions remain about Crooks’ firearm training and how he was able to get within an inch of killing Mr. Trump from a distance of roughly 130 yards.
The Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, which has a 200-yard rifle range, confirmed Mr. Crooks was a member.
On the day he sought to assassinate Mr. Trump, Crooks was wearing a T-shirt from “Demolition Ranch,” a firearms-centered YouTube channel. Matt Carriker, the channel’s Texas-based creator, said in a video that he was “shocked and confused” but noted he does not vet the people who buy his shirts.
“This channel was never meant to incite violence or hate,” he said.
Starting in the spring of 2023, Crooks made more than 25 firearms-related purchases from an online vendor using an alias, the FBI found.
Mr. Rojek said Crooks’ family, particularly his parents, have been “extremely cooperative” in the FBI investigation and have provided all the information requested.
His parents have not been speaking to the news media.
Crooks’ online activity
Although the FBI is “not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive,” an analysis of Crooks’ online search activity helped provide “a clear idea of mindset,” Mr. Rojek said.
Crooks conducted multiple searches related to explosive devices. He looked into bomb-making as far back as September 2019 and continued into this summer. His search terms included: “detonating cord,” “blasting cap,” “how to make a bomb from fertilizer” and “how do remote detonators work.”
Crooks also searched for ammonium nitrate, nitromethane and other materials used to manufacture explosive devices. The components used in the explosive devices found in Crooks’ car were legal and readily available online, the FBI said. Investigators found six online purchases Crooks made, using aliases, of chemical-related materials used to create explosive devices.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said Crooks’ parents did not view his chemical purchases as a reason to believe he was planning an attack. “It’s our understanding from the parents and others that the shooter had a long interest in science and things like this and had been doing experiments and things like this,” he said.
In a statement for his induction into the National Technical Honor Society as a high school junior, Crooks said he had a lifelong interest in building things and that he and his father had built a computer together in 2017, The New York Times reported.
The FBI found that Crooks searched for Mr. Trump’s campaign schedule as far back as late September 2023. From April to July, he looked for events for Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, including more than 60 searches within 30 days before the attack on Mr. Trump.
Crooks used a couple of foreign-based encrypted email accounts. FBI investigators found they were used primarily to purchase firearm components, chemicals and other explosives.
Few political views
Little and conflicting information is available about Crooks’ political views. When he turned 18 in 2021, he registered as a Republican.
Earlier that year, on Mr. Biden’s Inauguration Day, Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a Democratic-aligned political action committee. A spokesperson for the group told CNN that the donation came from an email campaign about tuning into the inauguration and that it was the only contribution associated with that email address, which was unsubscribed from its lists two years ago.
The FBI found a social media account associated with Crooks. Some of the more than 700 posts from 2019 and 2020 reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes and espoused political violence. In late August, the FBI was still working to determine whether Crooks, who would have been in his midteens at the time, authored those posts.
Although the FBI did not specify the site, the CEO of Gab said his company turned over records for an account with the username EpicMicrowave, thought to be Crooks, showing different political leanings.
“To the best of Gab’s knowledge, as of 2021, Crooks was a pro-lockdown, pro-immigration, left-wing Joe Biden supporter,” CEO Andrew Torba posted on X.
What was Thomas Crooks’ mental state?
A lot of questions remain about Crooks’ mental state. His parents are licensed counselors, and his father worked at a local behavioral health provider, according to The New York Times.
The outlet separately reported that Crooks looked up “major depressive disorder” on a cellphone found at his house. The FBI has not ruled out mental health issues but said on a July 29 media call that it had no information or evidence of mental health treatment, institutionalization, medications or anything else confirming any disorders.
The FBI and other law enforcement officials reportedly told Mr. Trump during his witness interview that Crooks may have been struggling for years with an undiagnosed disorder.
Citing interviews with Crooks’ family and others who knew him, investigators told Mr. Trump that Crooks would routinely sway back and forth while standing at the bus stop for high school but never received a formal diagnosis related to the behavior, ABC News reported.
Investigators also told Mr. Trump that Crooks was strikingly intelligent. They said he scored higher than 1500 on his SAT and could name every U.S. president.
Rep. Mike Kelly, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the House task force on the assassination attempt, told Punchbowl News that the FBI said Crooks started exhibiting strange behavior in the days before July 13.
Crooks was “walking around the house talking to himself” and “flapping his arms,” Mr. Kelly said. “There was some indication that something was wrong.”
‘A lot of care’
Crooks graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County in May with a two-year associate degree in engineering. He planned to attend Robert Morris University, a private, four-year university outside Pittsburgh.
One of his community college instructors, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that Crooks was polite and went “above and beyond” in school. She recalled an assignment to redesign a toy for people with disabilities in which Crooks used a 3D printer to create a chess set for the blind.
“He put the Braille on it. He talked to experts in the field,” the instructor said. “He really took a lot of care.”
One of Crooks’ co-workers at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center told CNN he was “the sweetest guy.”
The co-worker, who declined to be identified, described working with Crooks, a dietary aide, in the week before the shooting to find an easier way for nursing home residents to open ranch dressing packets.
Crooks never expressed political views at work and wasn’t “a radical,” the co-worker said. “It’s hard seeing everything that’s going on online because he was a really, really good person that did a really bad thing, and I just wish I knew why.”
The co-worker also went to Bethel Park High School with Crooks, who graduated in 2022 and received a $500 award for math and science in the school’s annual recognition program that year.
Bullied or not?
Former high school classmates who spoke with various news outlets described Crooks as a quiet loner but gave disparate accounts of whether he was bullied.
Jason Kohler said Crooks had “no facial expression” when he walked through the school hallways and was bullied by other students. “He wasn’t, like, with the clique, so he always had, I guess, a target on his back,” he told CNN.
Another former classmate, who asked not to be identified, said Crooks was shy but had a group of friends who were fairly conservative, some of whom would wear Trump hats. “I just couldn’t believe he did something that bold, considering he was such a quiet and kept-to-himself kind of person,” she said of his attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump.
Mark Sigafoos, who shared two classes with Crooks, recalled him as quiet but “very kind.” He told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “He was a nerdy kid, but I don’t think he was as harshly bullied as some people are saying.”
Mr. Sigafoos did not recall Crooks making political overtures in class.
Max R. Smith, recalling his experience with Crooks in a sophomore American history course, told the newspaper that Crooks “definitely was conservative.”
Mr. Smith cited a mock debate in which students signaled their support or opposition to a given proposal by standing on a specified side of the classroom.
“The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” he said.
The Bethel Park School District said in a statement that the notion that Crooks was relentlessly bullied in school is “a painful misconception.” They keep detailed records that show he “excelled academically, regularly attended school, and had no disciplinary incidents, including those related to bullying or threats.”
According to school district records and recollections of some students, Crooks never tried out for or was rejected by the high school’s rifle team. “It is possible that the shooter informally attended a practice, took a shot, and never returned,” the district said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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