Bail has been set for Jeffrey Rupnow at $20,000 cash after he was charged criminally in connection with the Dec. 16 shooting carried out by his daughter at Madison’s Abundant Life Christian School.
The 42-year-old Madison resident faces two felony counts of giving a dangerous weapon to someone under 18. He’s also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, another felony.
Rupnow appeared in Dane County Circuit Court via video on Friday afternoon from the Dane County Jail while wearing a blue jail-issued uniform.
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Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne asked Court Commissioner Scott McAndrew to set bail at $100,000 cash and called the facts of the case “unprecedented.”
“Mr. Rupnow purchased and provided firearms and allowed unlimited access to the internet to his minor child, knowing her concerning history and fragile mental health status,” Ozanne said. “There was no other person who knew the child better than the defendant. His actions and lack of judgment here contributed to the fatal and tragic mass violence incident at Abundant Life Christian.”
But Rupnow’s attorney, Bruce Davey, argued that request was too high and asked for his client to be released on a signature bond. He pointed out that Rupnow has no criminal history, works a full-time job and has longstanding ties to the community as a lifelong Dane County resident.
“He, in my understanding, was cooperative with the investigation in this matter,” Davey said.
If Rupnow is able to post his $20,000 bail, McAndrew mandated that he continue to be subject to electronic monitoring. He’s also barred Rupnow from possessing or buying guns and ordered him to stay away from Abundant Life Christian School.
Guns brought to Abundant Life were registered to shooter’s father, police say
The 15-year-old shooter brought two handguns to her school on the day of the shooting, police say. She used one of those guns to open fire on a study hall before shooting and killing herself, according to police.
Both of those guns were legally purchased by Rupnow, police said. Although those guns were officially in Rupnow’s name, the father told police he had given the firearms to his daughter as gifts, according to a criminal complaint filed by Dane County prosecutors this week.
Rupnow told a detective he gave one of those guns to his daughter as a Christmas present, court documents allege. He said his daughter had covered part of the cost of the other gun with her own money and he paid for the rest, according to the complaint.
He also said, on the day before the shooting, his daughter had one of the guns out of the family’s safe and was cleaning it. Rupnow said he couldn’t remember whether the gun ended up back in the safe after it was taken out, the complaint says.
In addition, Rupnow admitted his daughter may have known how to open the safe, prosecutors allege.
“The defendant stated [his daughter] does not officially know the combination to the safe however at one point in time he told her it was his Social Security number backwards just in case something would ever have happened to him, and she would need entry,” the complaint says. “The defendant stated it is possible that [his daughter] has observed him type the code in several times in the past.”
Erin West, a 42-year-old teacher at the school, and Rubi Vergara, a 14-year-old freshman, died in the shooting. Six other people were injured, including a teenage student who remains hospitalized in critical condition.
Legal expert: Parents of school shooters increasingly facing criminal charges
Rupnow is not the first parent to face charges after his child was accused of committing a school shooting.
In Georgia, Colin Gray is set to face trial later this year after investigators say he gave his son access to the gun that the 14-year-old used to kill four people at Apalachee High School in 2024. That father faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
And in Michigan last year, jurors found Jennifer and James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter after their 15-year-old son killed four people at Oxford High School in 2021. A judge sentenced the Crumbleys in 2024 to between 10 and 15 years in prison.
“It is a a sort of new approach to saying that other people who didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t use the firearm, that they too should face some type of criminal sanction for the acts of a minor,” John Gross, a clinical associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
The Crumbleys are believed to have been the first parents ever charged with manslaughter after their child committed a school shooting. In that case, Gross said the Crumbley parents may have an easier time arguing that their convictions should be overturned upon appeal.
“I am not sure if appellate courts will actually uphold those convictions,” Gross said of the Crumbley parents. “Those are homicide statutes where, again, traditionally, the person who is punished is the person who directly commits a homicide, and not somebody who may have contributed in some way to the person being motivated to or being able to commit the homicide.”
But, in the Rupnow case, Gross noted that the father is not facing any homicide-related charges. Instead, he’s charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor — a charge that “has been on the books in Wisconsin and other states for many, many decades, and that has been upheld,” Gross said.
“While some states are taking a more aggressive, I would say, approach to this in charging homicides, I think the charges here in Wisconsin will withstand scrutiny by an appellate judge,” Gross added.
Rupnow also faces two firearms-related offenses, alleging that he gave his daughter access to weapons that she was too young to legally possess. As described in the complaint, Rupnow’s storage of his guns seems to have amounted to “pretty irresponsible gun ownership,” Gross said.
“The point of having the gun safe would be to prevent a minor, someone under the age of 18, from gaining access to firearms that the father was legally entitled to purchase and have in his home,” Gross said. “So sharing that code with the daughter effectively negates the idea of having the gun safe at all.”
WPR’s Mackenzie Krumme and Kate Archer Kent contributed reporting.
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