“I feel guilty that this happened”: Highland Park shooting suspect Robert Crimo’s neighbor feels guilty for turning him down

On Tuesday, July 5, a neighbor of Robert Crimo, the aspiring rapper accused of carrying out the Highland Park massacre, expressed her regret at turning him down for a date years ago.

In an interview with the New York Post, the neighbor, who identified herself as Amy, explained to reporters that she had romantic feelings for the suspected gunman. She speculated that her rejection may have pushed him to perpetrate his alleged role in the Highland Park parade massacre.

Amy said:

“I feel like I hurt him. I feel like I might have been something like a broken glass that stabbed him, that might have hurt him. So I feel guilty that this happened.”

The Highland Park massacre left seven dead and over 45 injured. It is among over 300 mass shootings the US has seen in 2022.

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Robert Crimo's neighbor, Amy, opens up about him

According to Amy, she lived near Robert Crimo's father's home, but they first met while working together at Panera in March 2020. She said that due to their similar interests, they quickly developed feelings for one another.

Amy said:

“I felt like we’re the same person. We liked anime [and] similar music.”

She described a different side of the Highland Park shooter. While the aspiring rapper's online history depicts a swathe of violent content evoking America's gun culture and phenomena of mass shootings, Amy said she never knew him to have any violent tendencies.

She said:

“He never told me about his social medias, or his mom, or political views, owning guns or his suicide attempt. I never knew about that. Looking back, I think he wanted to keep it from me.”

Amy said that while she had feelings for Robert Crimo, she could not act on them due to her fairly conservative parents.

She said:

“He said he liked me. I was like ‘But I don’t date. I can’t date.”

According to Marca, however, Crimo and Amy only drifted apart after he told her about his aspirations to open a deli. Amy said that Crimo eventually revealed to her that the only reason he did not pursue this dream was that he wanted to spend time with her. She claimed that as a result, he stayed at Panera.

Seeing this, Amy thought that cutting ties would be beneficial for Crimo, finally pushing him to try and build the foundation for his deli. She said:

“I [didn’t] want to be in his way. So I thought maybe if I stopped talking to him, he would do it.”

Amy said they stopped talking after that. She said:

“Every day I would see him go by and he wouldn’t say hi or bye anymore."

Robert Crimo is currently in police custody. He has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. If convicted, he faces a mandatory life sentence.