A California man has been detained and is being investigated in what authorities are saying was a coordinated attack with the Wisconsin school shooter. Text messages were exchanged.

A 20-year-old California man was detained for allegedly planning a mass shooting at a government building in a parallel and coordinated attack with the teenage girl who gunned down two people at a Wisconsin Christian school on Monday, according to a report.

Alexander Paffendorf, of Carlsbad, exchanged messages with Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15, about targeting a local government building while she shot up the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, according to agun violence restraining order obtained by CBS 8.

“During an FBI interview, Paffendorf admitted to the FBI agents that he told Rupnow that he would arm himself with explosives and a gun and that he would target a government building,” the two-page emergency restraining order from the Carlsbad Police Department states. – New York Post

We don’t know yet which building the Carlsbad resident planned to attack. Thankfully, he didn’t go through any of it. Thank God! We also don’t know the details of the text messages.

Whoa the Wisconsin school shooter case just took a new bizarre turn! Alexander Paffendorf allegedly planned an attack on a government building with her.
—
He was served with a restraining order by the FBI after investigators learned he allegedly communicated with Natalie… https://t.co/jWJfSq0Sp0

— Rachel Alexander (@Rach_IC) December 19, 2024

How did they meet? Obviously, online, but where? And once you meet online, how does a conversation like this even come up? I’m pretty confident they didn’t meet on some dating site; she was 15. The “dark” web, maybe? Go find that group of people. How long had they been texting? Is this even real? The FBI probably knows and remains tight-lipped. We’ll never know now.

An account named @Slatzism on X has an extensive thread about supposedly contacting the shooter’s boyfriend. I can’t embed the X post here, but you can scroll through her account and find the post that starts with the sentence, “I have made contact with the alleged boyfriend of the Wisconsin shooter.” Here’s the link to that thread.

Is this the same guy? I have no idea. Based on the way Slatzism writes about him, probably not.

It’s an extensive thread, and Slatzism has posted the full so-called manifesto of the shooter. On the last page, Rupnow claims she acted alone.

Again, will we ever know the truth about any of this? People who deserve to know everything are the family members of 14-year-old Rubi Vergara and substitute teacher Erin West, who were murdered on December 16, 2024.

Other victims of the shooting that day and who were injured are still in “grave condition,” according to the above report.

I’m old enough to remember when school shootings were so shocking. The first one I can recall is the Columbine school shooting. It was on the news for days, weeks even. Now? We just skim over and on to the following headline. Shameful.

Hopefully, a reporter somewhere will stay on this story and keep us updated. I’d like to know more about this so-called connection between Rupnow and Paffendorf. Wouldn’t you want to know more? What are your thoughts?

Feature Image: Corey Coyle, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons/cropped