Years before Salvador Ramos died in clashes with police, after shooting his own grandmother and taking the lives of at least 21 people at an elementary school in Texas, United States, Stephen Garcia had already lost his best friend.

The two have always been classmates, but their friendship had started in eighth grade, when they were little older than the 19 children that Salvador, a native of North Dakota, killed on Tuesday in Uvalve, US state of Texas. The shooter was “the coolest kid, the shyest kid,” Stephen told The Washington Post: “I just needed to come out of the shell. She was a person like all of us.”

The number of children killed in a shooting at a Texas elementary school rises to 19. Suspect killed by authorities

From then until they started high school, the two were inseparable. “We played, he bought sandwiches at the store, we drank granitas and ate TakisStephen recalled to the same newspaper: “We were normal kids, just two lazy kids.”

Salvador Ramos, constant victim of bullying, became the target of homophobic comments after posting a photo in which she used black eyeliner. The clothes she wore, perceived as typically feminine, were the main focus of the attackers’ attention. The friend defended him. They were inseparable: Stephen’s mother cooked for both of them, Salvador’s grandmother “was a sweetheart” for him, and his grandfather called his grandson’s friend to earn some money repairing air conditioning machines.

Everything changed when Stephen García went with his mother to another city. They were both in high school. Salvador began to skip school, he let his hair grow, he began to dress in black and wear military-style boots, his friend describes: “Like a serial killer,” he concluded. “He started to be a different person,” he told The Washington Post, “he just got worse and worse.” At one point, Salvador simply stopped showing up in class and started working in a restaurant Fast food.

Stephen says that he made an effort to keep in touch with his friend: he believes that he had turned him into “a normal boy” and that, without the connection between them, Salvador could return to the inside of the shell. The last time the two spoke was a month or two ago, but the call was brief, Stephen recalled to The Washington Post: Salvador said he was hunting with his uncle and didn’t have time to talk to his friend.

This Tuesday, while he was in algebra class, his cell phone began to receive a flood of notifications: messages from other friends in Uvalve and news from the local press. Salvador Ramos’ name jumped on the screen and Esteban was speechless. “I think he needed mental help. And to resolve the relationship with the family. and of love“, admits the friend. But he never thought that the lack of all that would culminate in the attack on Tuesday.

The United States already counts 10 mass shootings this year alone. In 2021 there were almost 700

The conflictive relationship of the “Careca” with the family

It is that the relationship between Salvador Ramos and his mother would not be peaceful, a neighbor of the family, Rubén Flores, testified to The Washington Post. On Hood Street, where they lived, they called her “Pelón” — “bald” in Spanish, because he used to have very short hair. From time to time, Salvador would sleep over at Rubén’s and his wife’s house to spend time with the couple’s son; and he was a constant presence at the Flores family gatherings. But they separated when Salvador’s relationship with his mother deteriorated.

Four years ago the son of Salvador and Rubén stopped being friends. In recent months, the 18-year-old moved in with his grandmother, who also owned the house where his grandson lived with her mother and his sister. When he ran into his neighbor on the street, the woman revealed to Rubén that she was in the process of evicting Salvador’s mother. On Tuesday, the grandmother was the young man’s first victim.

Salvador gave cryptic clues about the attack on social networks

The conversation between Rubén and Salvador’s grandmother took place on Sunday. The day before, the boy would have posted on his Instagram account — however deleted on the social network, but replicated by other users — photographs with two AR15 automatic rifles.

You will have bought them shortly after your 18th birthday, celebrated on May 16 — one the next day, another on May 20, the KPRC-TV television channel reported, citing data from the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They may correspond to at least one of the two weapons Salvador used to carry out Tuesday’s attack on the elementary school, Gov. Greg Abbott admitted. On the 18th, he also purchased 375 rounds of 5.56 ammunition, a family of bullets commonly used by NATO forces.

This Wednesday, in statements to ABC News, the grandfather of Salvador Ramos said that the family was unaware that his grandson – whom he described as a quiet teenager who spent most of his time alone in his room – had bought weapons. “I didn’t know he had guns. If he had known, he would have denounced it, “Rolando Reyes assured. Salvador’s grandfather has a criminal record and, as such, he could not have weapons at home.

Salvador also had a Tik Tok account with a single publication: an image of a smartphone game, Subway Surfers, whose objective is to help the protagonist in an eternal race and overcome the obstacles that come his way. Salvador left a description in this publication: “Children must be afraid in real life.”

In one of the photos published on Instagram, Salvador identified a girl that he would only know from the digital world. Although the account was still active, it was also deleted, but other similar accounts are being created, the girl published the exchange of messages he had with the boy between May 12 and a few hours before the attack this Tuesday. That first day, Salvador sent a private direct message with a question and this started a conversation that anticipated the attack.

“Are you going to repost my photos of the guns?”

– Than? What do your weapons have to do with me?

– I just wanted to identify you. [na foto].

– But why?

– I dont know. Thanks for identifying you.

“No, it’s really scary.

– How?

— I hardly know you and you identify me in a photograph with some weapons.

“Ugh, so it seems.

On the morning of the attack, nine hours before a mere exchange of greetings between Internet users, Salvador he warned the young woman, in a mysterious way, of what was about to happen. And the dialogue initiated by the attacker at 5:43 am, apparently always in writing, was the following:

– I’m almost.

– Than? Almost to what? Good day.

“I’ll tell you before 11 am. Good day.

– Good day. Than?

I’ll text you in an hour.

– Okay okay.

“But YOU MUST ANSWER. I have a little secret. I want to tell you.

— I may be taking a nap because I’m very sick, but if I’m awake I answer.

– Swear.

‘I swear.’

It was 9:16 a.m. on Tuesday when Salvador communicated again: “I’m going to go on the air.” That would have been the young man’s last message before, at 11:32 am, he went to Robb Elementary School, where he murdered at least 19 children and two adults. At 13:16 local time, when the girl replied to the message — “What? Hello”—, there was only silence.

After publishing screenshots showing this dialogue, the young woman clarified that she did not know Salvador: “He’s a stranger, I don’t know anything about him. He decided to identify me in the publication with weapons. I feel very sorry for the victims and their families. I really don’t know what to say.” According to her, the young woman only decided to respond to Salvador’s messages because she was “afraid.” “I wish I had stayed awake to at least convince him not to commit his crime. I didn’t know,” she explained.

In response to a comment on the Instagram stories where the young woman published these statements, in which an Internet user pointed out that they identified her as Salvador’s girlfriend, the young woman reiterated: “I don’t know him, I’m not even from Texas”. There are no official indications from the US authorities that this person had any direct participation in Tuesday’s attack: Pete Arredondo, police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, announced that Salvador “acted alone during this heinous crime.”

But the account is under scrutiny on social networks because it has characteristics that may indicate the practice of catfishing — creating false identities to deceive others, usually by posing as someone with a love interest for the victim. First of all, because of the username, which is reminiscent of the phrase “Send nudes” (a request to send intimate photos) and the posts, all of them of a girl in sensual poses, which are repeated in other Instagram accounts.

The girl with whom Salvador exchanged messages on Instagram was not the only one to receive signs of an impending attack. A former schoolmate with whom the attacker used to play XBox admitted to CNN International, on condition of anonymity, that he also received photos of the weaponry from his friend.

“He was texting me here and there, and four days ago He sent me a picture of the semi-automatic shotgun he was using and a backpack full of 5.56 ammo.“, confirmed the young man. When Salvador was questioned about the reason for being in possession of this material, the striker replied: “Don’t worry about it.” And he added: “I’m very different now. You wouldn’t recognize me,” he added.