I spoke to someone who knows the family of the Minneapolis trans mass shooter. According to this source, it was James (Jim) Allen Westman — not Mary Grace Westman — who was the most affirming of Robert (Robin)’s gender dysphoria. Jim is very liberal, as I saw on his social media before he deleted it. After the divorce, the couple’s five children allegedly looked to him for affirmation on choices their mother wouldn’t support.
“Mary Grace was very conservative and Jim was not,” the source says. She had been involved in pro-life activism, having given up her first baby (before the marriage) for adoption. “Because of this dynamic, the kids always went behind Mary Grace’s back to Jim for approval of doing things she didn’t approve.”
The online mob rage against Ms Westman grew as Minneapolis Police said she wasn’t returning contact with them from her home in Naples, Fla. She also retained a criminal defense lawyer. But it is not unusual for someone not to speak to law enforcement without retaining counsel. Her Florida home was visited by the FBI after the shooting, but no one appeared to be there, according to local media. She was reportedly on her way back to Minnesota to be with her children.
Mr Westman, 62, lives in Minneapolis and is a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) application developer for tech company Esri. The company is a world leader in developing software for digital maps. He remarried after the divorce.
“[Robert] was the youngest of five children and experienced a difficult divorce between his parents,” the source says. “Shortly after she signed the form for Bobby, she moved to Florida after he turned 18. She was heartbroken over all of this.”
The shooter himself admitted in his manifesto that his mother was not initially supportive, and he resented her for it.