I don’t usually write about these events, but in this latest case I will make an exception by way of making a broader point.
Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the deadly mass shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison on Monday, was at times yanked between her parents’ homes every two or three days when they were separated, according to records obtained by the Washington Post.
Her mother and father, Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow, first married in 2011, two years after they had Natalie, who had recently started using the first name Samantha.
They divorced in 2014 and shared custody of Natalie, who they agreed would live primarily with her mother.
The couple then remarried three years later in 2017 — just to get divorced for a second time another three years after that, in 2020.
This time, they more evenly split custody of their daughter, with Natalie spending two days with her father, then two days with her mother, followed by three days with her father again in a schedule that would alternate weekly, the DC paper reported.
They married for a third time shortly thereafter — but by April 2021 were splitting up again.
A judge granted the divorce a month later but noted that “parties [were] admonished concerning remarriage,” according to court documents.
In July 2022, a mediator ruled that the couple would again share custody of Natalie but she would live primarily with her father.
By that time, Natalie, just 12 years old, was going to therapy sessions that were meant to help determine which parent she would spend her weeks with, according to court records.
There’s more awfulness yet, all of it as dysfunctional as dysfunctional gets, but the above ought to make for a good enough start. With an upbringing as unstable as that, and as common as such familial instability has come to be nowadays, the real wonder is that more of these poor waifs aren’t picking up a piece and going all “I Don’t Like Mondays” on the rest of the world. The closer is about as stinging a wry jab as I think I’ve ever seen.
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Kee-rist. So, Mom already had one kid out of wedlock before this girl (who was taken away and raised by others), and had one failed marriage in her pocket. My guess is that Mom basically rides the cock carousel and that all three of the divorces were prompted by her inability to be a stable adult human being. This girl didn’t have a chance.
Perzackly. From the sound of it, Mom (a misnomer if ever there was one) did exactly whatever the hell she pleased, whenever she felt like doing it, and the kids be damned. TOTAL narcissism, TOTAL self-absorption, TOTAL disregard for consequences–pure end-stage “liberalism,” nothing more nor less. The woman should have been involuntary sterilized long, long ago.
The truly appalling (and disturbing) thing is, there are who even knows how many more young women out there in the same boat as her pitiable daughter. Talk about your bitter fruits of a poisoned tree.
There have always been bad/dysfunctional parents, and we’ll always have them. What has changed is society encouraging mental illness, the kind that causes a 15 year old to take the lives of others.
Agreed.
Also, what’s up with the name change to Samantha? Perhaps she told most people then that her name was “Sam”?
Not much explanation for the name switch, so who knows.
Wonderful “reporters” we have.
They disclose the name change but never think to follow that up.
Or did they and found the answer… Problematic?
Yea, the story is probably a tell of mental illness…