Father of Abundant Life school shooter will stand trial for providing guns used in attack

MADISON – The father of the freshman who killed two people in a school shooting last year appeared in court July 24, with his attorney arguing he could not be held responsible for his daughter's actions that day or the fact she used guns he purchased for her.

Jeffrey Rupnow, 43, appeared for his preliminary hearing in Dane County Circuit Court, wearing a black suit, with his long hair in a slicked back ponytail. Rupnow has been charged with two felony counts of intent to sell a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 and one felony count of contributing to the delinquency of a child.

He did not speak during his the appearance.

His attorney, Lisa Goldman, argued Rupnow had not physically handed his daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, the guns on Dec. 16, 2024, the day of the shooting. For that reason, Goldman said he could not be held responsible for his daughter obtaining the guns and taking them to school with her at Abundant Life Christian School.

"The state's argument presumes that by telling her the gun safe combination was his social security (number) backwards, he's given her a weapon," Goldman said. "But that's not what this law says about the definition of give."

Despite this and other arguments, Dane County Court Commissioner John Rome found sufficient evidence for Rupnow's case to proceed to trial.

Goldman said Rupnow was at work on the west side of Madison, driving a recycling truck, when the shooting occurred, and he did not physically hand his daughter the guns out of the safe, even if she had managed to obtain the combination.

Goldman also argued her client did not contribute to the delinquency of his daughter, as he did not know about her communications online or her plans for the school shooting. However, police informed Rupnow of his daughter's "high-risk" online behavior in June 2022, according to a criminal complaint.

Jeffrey Rupnow, father of Abundant Life Christian School shooter Natalie Rupnow, appears for a preliminary hearing, July 24, 2025, at Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wi. OWEN ZILIAK/Wisconsin State Journal/Pool

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said because the guns had been purchased by Rupnow for his daughter — even using money provided to him by Natalie Rupnow — that the father had played a role in the deaths at Abundant Life.

"A felony was likely committed by the defendant in the purchase and giving of a firearm, a dangerous weapon, to a juvenile," Ozanne said. "(Natalie Rupnow) was 14 at the time of purchase. And that individual, being under the age of 18, discharged that dangerous weapon, causing the death of not just one, but two people."

In an interview with authorities cited in the criminal complaint, Jeffrey Rupnow said the day before the shooting he had retrieved his daughter's handgun from his gun safe for cleaning. He was uncertain whether she returned it to the safe.

That gun and another handgun were used in the shooting. Her father told police she must have retrieved the second gun from the safe.

Documents found in Natalie Rupnow's room after her death include statements describing humanity as "filth," and said she lived in a "population of scum." She used a racial slur before saying, "Some of you guys deserve to be dead." She believed, according to the court record, that humanity had forced her into a hole. 

She also appeared to idolize mass shooters, according to the complaint. She also wrote she was able to obtain the firearms she would use in the Abundant Life shooting as a result of "lies and manipulation, and my fathers stupidity," according to the complaint. Other notebooks showed maps of the school, how to best damage a body with a bullet, and apparent timelines for when she would begin her attack, according to the complaint. Authorities also found a cardboard model that resembled the school in her room.

Elsewhere in the police report, detectives discovered a camcorder revealing that Natalie Rupnow recorded videos of herself handling "what appears to be a black semiautomatic firearm." She narrates when the magazine well of the gun is loaded and when it's unloaded. 

Rupnow posted the $20,000 cash bail and is no longer being held at the Dane County jail.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Father of Abundant Life school shooter will stand trial for providing guns used in attack