---
category: Terrorism
created: 2026-05-21
date: 2024-12-16
location: Madison, Wisconsin
summary: On December 16, 2024, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow killed two people at Abundant
  Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin in an attack traced to radicalization
  through WatchPeopleDie and 764/Terrorgram-adjacent content.
tags:
- Event
- NVE
- TerrorgramCollective
- TrueCrimeCommunity
- SaintsCulture
- Wisconsin
- USA
- SchoolShooting
updated: 2026-05-21
---

On December 16, 2024, [Natalie Rupnow](/people/natalie-rupnow/) (15) attacked Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin during a mixed-grade study hall, killing substitute teacher Erin M. West (42) and fellow student Rubi P. Vergara (14) and wounding six others before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound during transport to hospital. Investigators recovered a manifesto titled "War Against Humanity" from her home. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) classified her as a [nihilistic violent extremist](/concepts/nihilistic-violent-extremism/) whose radicalization ran from the [WatchPeopleDie](/organizations/watchpeopledie/) gore website through [764](/organizations/764-network/)-affiliated and [Terrorgram Collective](/organizations/terrorgram-collective/)-adjacent content.

### The Attack

Rupnow entered Abundant Life Christian School during school hours and opened fire in a study hall that contained students from multiple grades. West and Vergara were killed at the scene. Six additional students and one teacher sustained wounds; two students were hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. Rupnow died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while being transported to hospital.

She used firearms owned by her father, Jeffrey Rupnow (43), who kept them in a safe but had shared the combination with her. The day before the attack he removed a Sig Sauer pistol from the safe and asked her to clean it.

### Radicalization and Online Network

ISD and ADL researchers documented that Rupnow held 16 social media accounts, nearly all containing references to past mass shooters. Her documented radicalization pathway ran from [WatchPeopleDie](/organizations/watchpeopledie/) (account created June 2023) through white supremacist, misogynistic, and antisemitic online spaces, into 764-affiliated content and a Telegram group connected to [Arda Küçükyetim](/people/arda-küçükyetim/)'s August 2024 [Eskisehir mosque stabbing](/events/2024-eskisehir-mosque-stabbing/) livestream, which was itself affiliated with Terrorgram Collective.

Her manifesto described humanity as "filth" and expressed admiration for past mass shooters, fitting the misanthropic nihilist profile that ISD uses to distinguish [NVE](/concepts/nihilistic-violent-extremism/) cases from ideologically coherent IMVE. The True Crime Community (TCC) fandom and the SAVF (Soyjak Attacker Video Fandom) subculture, both of which treat mass killers as cultural figures for consumption and glorification, were documented as central to her online activity.

### Rupnow and Solomon Henderson

The WatchPeopleDie account registration dates and social media overlaps placed Rupnow in the same online milieu as Solomon Henderson, the 17-year-old who killed one student at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee on January 22, 2025. Both created WatchPeopleDie accounts in June 2023, and the two had followed each other on X. PBS Wisconsin reported that their online presence overlapped in at least the WatchPeopleDie and X contexts.

Nashville Metropolitan Police Department's January 2026 investigation into Henderson found no evidence of co-conspirators or direct coordination between Rupnow and Henderson. The shared online spaces reflected convergent radicalization through the same platform ecosystems rather than a coordinated connection.[^1]

### Legal Outcomes

Because Rupnow died at the scene, she faced no criminal proceedings. In May 2025, Dane County prosecutors charged her father Jeffrey Rupnow on two counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to a minor and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. A Dane County Court Commissioner ordered him to stand trial on July 24, 2025. The charges carry a combined maximum of 18 years in prison.

Rupnow's mother died of an apparent suicide following the shooting.[^2]

[^1]: ISD. "Terror without ideology: The rise of nihilistic violence." https://www.isdglobal.org/digital-dispatch/terror-without-ideology-the-rise-of-nihilistic-violence-an-isd-investigation/; PBS Wisconsin. "Madison and Nashville school shooters appear to have crossed paths in online extremist communities." https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/madison-and-nashville-school-shooters-appear-to-have-crossed-paths-in-online-extremist-communities/
[^2]: PBS Wisconsin. "Judge orders Abundant Life shooter's father to stand trial." https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/judge-orders-abundant-life-shooters-father-to-stand-trial/; WPR. "Mother of Abundant Life shooter dies of apparent suicide." https://www.wpr.org/news/mother-abundant-life-christian-school-shooter-apparent-suicide