The father of the man accused of killing 22 people and injuring dozens more in a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas on Saturday is a licensed professional counselor who wrote a memoir about a nearly 40-year addiction to drugs and alcohol. Bryan Crusius, father of Patrick Crusius, bills himself on his website as a mental health expert whose “mission is to bring the highest level of care possible to any who wish to be free from addictions, codependence, PTSD and trauma.”
His Richardson, Texas-based practice involves acupuncture, sound and energy healing and meditation with “tones of quartz crystal bowls and isochronic beats.” According to the Texas Department of State Health Services records, his license is valid until February 2020.
Videos by PopCulture.com
In his self-published book, Life Enthusiasm: A Path to Purpose Beyond Recovery, Bryan wrote about his struggles with addiction, detailing how they cost him his marriages to his first wife as well as to Patrick’s mother, Lori. The New York Post reports that Bryan and Lori divorced in 2011, when Patrick was 12.
Bryan, 63, wrote that he fell into drug addiction in his teens and moved onto abusing pills, like Vicodin and those prescribed for ADHD. “I was always the one daring everyone else to go over the top in the partying category by taking the extreme amounts of whatever we had, whether Quaaludes, alcohol, magic mushrooms, or something else,” he wrote in his book, as reported by the Daily Mail.
He also claimed in one passage to have spoken with Jesus Christ. “Christ greeted my with a smile,” he wrote. “He pulled his robe aside again with his right hand to reveal the flaming heart of love and compassion. He addressed me thus: ‘Bryan, you have chosen the Path of the Heart,’” he wrote.
In 2012, Bryan reportedly set up a GoFundMe page for guitar teacher Eric Keyes, who Bryan wrote was shot by a “mentally ill person.”
Patrick Crusius has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bond at the El Paso County Detention Facility for opening fire at an El Paso Walmart last Saturday and killing 22 people. District Attorney Jaime Esparza said his office will seek the death penalty.
Additionally, US Attorney John Bash said that the Justice Department is “seriously considering” bringing federal hate crime and federal criminal charges. A manifesto proclaiming white nationalist and racist views believed to be written by Crusius was posted on 8chan, an online messaging board, less than 20 minutes before the first 911 calls came in. The four-page document rails against Hispanics and immigrants, blaming them for taking jobs away and the blending of cultures in the U.S.
Weeks before the shooting, Crusius’ mother called the Allen, Texas, Police Department because she was concerned about her son owning an “AK” type firearms, lawyers for the family told CNN this week. She was allegedly worried about her son owning the weapon given his age — 21 — maturity level and lack of experience handling such a gun.
She was allegedly transferred to a public safety officer who told her that her son was legally allowed to purchase the weapon. The mother did not provide her name or her son’s name, and police did not seek any additional information from her before the call concluded, the lawyers said. It’s not known whether the gun the mother described was the weapon used in the attack.
