The missing mom of church shooter Robin Westman made a panicked dash from her Florida apartment back to Minneapolis hours before it was raided by the FBI, Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.
Mary Grace Westman, 67, left the Naples condo on Wednesday as she hurried to fly back to Minnesota on the same day FBI agents were filmed arriving there hoping to speak with her.
She was so panicked she phoned a neighbor believing she had left the place unsecured with the patio door unlocked.
That neighbor called Collier County Sheriff’s Office to ask them to check if everything was OK at the three-bedroom condo on the first floor of a small block, the report states.
The mom also left her blue-gray Mini Cooper S parked under an awning, as revealed in Daily Mail photos.
Mary Grace, who retired in 2021 from working at Minneapolis’s Annunciation Catholic Church where her transgender child killed two young children and injured 17 others, has now lawyered up.
She has retained criminal defense attorney Ryan Garry, known for his work with NFL star Colin Kaepernick in cases related to protests at the death of George Floyd in 2020.
It comes as school employees at Annunciation Catholic School, where Mary was a former staffer and Robin opened fire on Wednesday, offered details into the would-be killer’s childhood.Â
Mary Westman, seen with her sisters Nancy, Margaret and Diane, fled her Florida apartment for the airport on the day of the horror, Daily Mail can exclusively reveal
Mary worked at the school where her transgender child Robin shot two children dead and injured 18 others on WednesdayÂ
Robin Westman was identified as the deranged killer who opened fire on WednesdayÂ
A fellow employee said that Mary struggled to accept Robin’s decision to come out as transgender around five years ago, and confided in school officials that she didn’t know how to handle it.Â
‘She said, “I don’t know how I feel about this.” I think she was struggling with her Catholic faith,’ a former employee told NBC News.
She said that Westman was a lonely child at school who did not seem to have any friends when she taught the killer, who was then known as Robert, in the eighth grade.
The employee added that Westman was often disruptive in her classroom at Annunciation Catholic School, the same school where the killer opened fire on Wednesday morning.
They described the student’s behavior as escalating to the point where Mary would be called in to speak with the principal, and she ‘appeared nervous’ in some meetings. Â
She was mentioned numerous times in Robin’s twisted manifesto left online before the shooting, including one where the killer wondered how she missed the red flags in his behavior.
‘I feel like my mom would have seen it coming due to my rocky past with violent threats,’ she wrote.
‘The other day my stepmom… said she could feel a ‘dark energy’ around me… if only you know.’
The mother – who was pictured attending anti-abortion protests outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in St Paul in 2005 – is said to be distraught over the shooting.
Mary Grace Westman’s Mini was left at her condo in Naples, Florida, as she made her mad dash to the airport and a sign saying ‘Thankful and Blessed’ hangs next to her front door
Mary, the mother of shooter Robin Westman, 23, was said to have confided in teachers that she was unsure how to handle it when the would-be killer came out as transgender around five years ago
Teachers said that Westman was a lonely child at school who did not seem to have any friends, and had behavior problems that often saw Mary (seen together) called into the schoolÂ
‘She is completely distraught about the situation and has no culpability but is seeking an attorney to deal with calls like this,’ attorney Ryan Garry told Fox News.
Police revealed in a press conference Thursday that they hadn’t heard anything from Westman’s mom.
‘We have not been successful in talking to the shooter’s mother,’ Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. The police chief did not provide any further details.
The shooter, who previously went by Robert until changing names in 2019 to reflect ‘identifying as a woman’, killed two children and injured 18 other people in the shooting at the school church.
The killer used three guns in the attack – all of them obtained legally.
Police said they are not aware of any gun training the killer may have had.
Westman was a former student at the school and graduated in 2017, according to a yearbook.
The killer also likely attended services at the church where her mom worked until her retirement in 2021.
The mass shooter’s immediate family has made no public comments since Westman was unmasked as the killer who targeted children while they sat praying in the church pews.
Local outlets reported that the former church employee was in disbelief when she learned her child was the killer.
Neighbors at Mary Westman’s home on a quiet street in Minneapolis – less than a mile from Annunciation Catholic Church – told the New York Post they had always seemed like a ‘great family’.
Stephen Jeglosky told the outlet his ‘jaw dropped’ when he saw the news, revealing he last spoke to the family around two years ago when they were celebrating a graduation.
Jeglosky recalled that the Westman family stopped him to ask him to take some photos of their celebrations, and they ‘seemed like a great family’.
Westman’s father James Westman told police the shooter had recently gone through a break-up
Family photos show parents Jim (second left) and Mary Grace (second right) and the killer (far right)
‘There were kids running around, parents drinking, music playing. Their little Chihuahua nipped me in the ankle,’ he added.
‘They gave me a beer, and I went on my way. I guess you never know who somebody is.’
Westman was the youngest of three to Mary and her husband Jim.
The family lived in Hastings, Minnesota, before the parents divorced in 2013, according to court records.
Westman’s father James – who worked for software company Esri according to a now-deleted LinkedIn page – still lived close to the shooter, and the scene of the shooting.
James appeared devastated when police descended on his home Wednesday.
A neighbor saw him sitting with his head in his hands on the sidewalk, being comforted by his partner.
Jim told police Robin had recently broken up with a ‘significant romantic partner’ and had been staying with a friend, according to a search warrant.
Police seized a Condor tactical vest with ‘various attachments not related to law enforcement/security,’ from the home.Â
Officers also recovered two external media storage devices and a collection of documents.
A man who lives across the street from Jim described the Westman family as ‘good neighbors’.
The neighbor said he would often cross paths with Jim and Robin’s stepmother, noting how they would ‘say hello to each other’ and share quick chats.
He claimed Jim once shared landscaping rocks with him and that the Westman children frequented the house regularly.
Jim worked for Esri, a company that creates geographic information system software, according to his now-deleted LinkedIn profile.
Mary’s brother, Robert Heleringer, a longtime Louisville member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, told the AP he was Westman’s uncle but hardly knew the shooter.
