preview

Rem Houser Analysis

Decent Essays
Open Document

John Russell "Rusty" Houser -- the gunman in Thursday's movie theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana -- earned a law degree, operated taverns, ran for public office and loved political debate. He was something of a public figure in Columbus, Georgia.

But he quietly landed in Lafayette this month, a 59-year-old man with a string of arrests and a record of "extreme erratic behavior," according to police and court documents. He had no known friends in town and was largely estranged from his family.

His brother, Rem Houser, told CNN on Friday he saw his sibling just last month.

"He just needed some money to continue moving on, living, surviving, so we gave him some, and that was the last we heard of him. We hadn't heard of him in probably 10 years prior to that, and hadn't heard from him since," Rem Houser said in Columbus. "We didn't know where he was, we didn't know anything about him, and so this was a complete shock." …show more content…

"Yes," Rem Houser said. "Reached out, and then closed the door immediately."

In 2008, relatives in Georgia sought a restraining order against Houser when he vowed to stop his daughter's upcoming marriage, according to court documents that mentioned a history of mental disorders including manic depression and bipolar disorder.

Houser's wife was so worried about his mental state she had removed all guns and weapons from their home, the documents said.

Houser, 59, spent much of his life in towns along the Georgia-Alabama state line. He grew up in Columbus but also had owned a house across the border in Phenix City, Alabama.

He left a paper trail of erratic behavior.

He was arrested on arson charges in the 1980s when he was accused of hiring a man to set fire to office of a lawyer who represented pornographic movie theaters, according to the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper in

Get Access
Related
Get Access