Connor Sturgeon experienced “multiple concussions” as a high school athlete, raising questions about whether he suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) prior to carrying out Monday’s mass shooting at a Louisville bank.
The 25-year-old employee entered the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, armed with an AR-15-style rifle on Monday morning.
He opened fire in a first-floor conference room as executives gathered for their morning meeting – all the while livestreaming the massacre on his Instagram account.
Officers responded to the scene within minutes and exchanged gunfire with the gunman, shooting him dead.
Five victims, all executives at the bank, died in the horror attack while others – including a responding police officer – are fighting for their lives in hospital.
The motive remains unclear but new details continue to emerge about the man behind the attack.
Sturgeon grew up in Indiana and attended Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, where he was a star athlete playing basketball, football and running track.
But he also reportedly suffered many concussions.
A former classmate told The Daily Beast that Sturgeon suffered multiple concussions while playing football – so much so that he wore a helmet on the basketball court.
“The big thing I keep going back to is that in the first year of high school, we played football together in eighth grade, he was out most of the year because he had multiple concussions,” said the former classmate, who did not want to be named.
“Then he had a couple more in high school.”
The classmate said he wondered if his injuries were linked to Monday’s shooting.
“I’m not saying it’s the cause but I always think back to that… There were times I’d wonder, will this catch up with him? But never in this way,” he said.
“He’s the last person I’d expect would do this.”
In recent years, there has been a greater awareness of a link between athletes who suffer concussions – in particular football players – and CTE.
CTE is a brain disease caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions and non-concussive impacts, according to the Boston University CTE Center.
Symptoms of CTE can appear years after the sufferer is dealt repeated blows to the head and can include mood and behaviour problems including aggression and depression.
One especially notable example is that of Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end who was convicted of murder. After his death by suicide, researchers found he had severe CTE.
While it remains unclear if Sturgeon suffered from the condition, his former classmate spoke of his shock at what the 25-year-old went on to do.
“I know everyone always says this about shooters but I truly would have never expected it to be him,” he said.
In high school, he said that Sturgeon was popular and smart and earned the nickname “Mr Floyd Central” as his father was a coach on the basketball team.
After high school, Sturgeon went on to attend the University of Alabama to study finance.
While a student in Alabama, he detailed his struggles with self-esteem and making friends.
In a 2018 university essay for the university, Sturgeon wrote about his plan to “improve myself as a whole”.
“My self-esteem has long been a problem for me,” he wrote.
“As a late bloomer in middle and high school, I struggled to a certain extent to fit in, and this has given me a somewhat negative self-image that persists today.
“Making friends has never been especially easy, so I have more experience than most in operating alone. Furthermore, college has introduced a whole new atmosphere and new challenges, so it is easy to feel like I am not doing as well as I should be.”
He continued: “This semester, however, I think I have begun to mature socially and am beginning to see improvement in this area. I have found that taking time out to take stock of how I feel and what I can do to feel better has helped me be more social and in turn feel better about myself.”
During his time at college, Sturgeon worked as a summer intern at the Old National Bank before moving to Louisville and taking up a full-time roe there.
According to a LinkedIn account in his name, Sturgeon worked at the bank as a syndications associate and portfolio banker for over a year.
But a source told CNN that he had been notified that he was going to be fired.
In the lead-up to the attack, Sturgeon then began posting concerning posts on Instagram, according to local reports.
His account, which has since been taken down, included a meme photo captioned: “I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it”.
“I could burn this whole place down,” read another.
The shooter’s last post before the attack then read: “They won’t listen to words or protests. Let’s see if they hear this.”
On Monday morning, the gunman is said to have left behind ominous warnings about his deadly plans for his family and friends to find.
In police dispatch audio, a dispatcher is heard relaying to law enforcement officials on the scene that Sturgeon had called a friend before the attack and left a chilling voicemail saying he felt “suicidal” and planned to “kill everyone at the bank”.
Sturgeon had also written a note to his parents and a friend outlining his plans to open fire in the bank, a law enforcement source told CNN.
He then live-streamed his shooting rampage on Instagram on Monday.
Four victims died on the scene, before a fifth died in hospital later on Monday.
The victims, all executives at the bank, have been identified as: Tommy Elliott, 63, Jim Tutt, 64, Josh Barrick, 40, Juliana Farmer, 57, and Deana Eckert, 57.
Another eight victims were hospitalised including two police officers who were shot by the gunman after responding to the scene.
One of those officers – Louisville Metro Police Department Officer Nickolas Wilt – was shot in the head and is now fighting for his life in hospital.
