Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Pennsylvania man who killed a bystander and seriously wounded two others in a failed assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, had no friends as a teenager and used the alias “Bob Dole” while ordering suspicious packages before an anonymous donor paid for his body to be cremated, according to federal documents viewed by Fox News Digital.
The records turned over to the Senate show Thomas’ actions were a surprise to his family, and his motive is still a mystery.
Crooks, 20, typically collected packages addressed to the Dole alias before his father, who worked late, came home.
He was shot and killed after opening fire at a Trump rally in July 2024. A family attorney told investigators that he had been cremated shortly thereafter — paid for by an anonymous donor, according to the documents.
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After the shooting, his father, Matthew Crooks, took an early retirement, and his mother, Mary Crooks, went on leave from work to process the situation.
The documents, compiled as part of the investigation into the 2024 shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, also include interviews with his father, who told FBI agents the gunman “never identified anyone as a friend throughout middle school and high school.”
When agents interviewed Crooks’ parents the day after the shooting, his father told investigators that although his son socialized with classmates, the gunman told him they were not his friends.
In the months before the shooting, Crooks’s father observed him talking to himself. His father, who worked in the mental health field, said he did not see other signs of a potential mental illness.
Although his father described him as a straight-A student who scored a 1400 on his first SAT attempt, without studying, he told investigators he son feared he might not get into college and showed a change of behavior between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. He became quieter and had a hard time speaking with teachers.
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At one point, he floated the idea of joining the military to work on nuclear submarines, but it was unclear how serious he was about that ambition.
After studying, he retook the SATs and scored over 1500, according to the documents.
Crooks adopted the Dole pseudonym after his father’s checking account had been hacked and fraudulent gambling charges appeared, Matthew Crooks told investigators.
This is a breaking news story. Stick with Fox News Digital for updates.
Fox News’ Jon Street contributed to this report.
