INDIANAPOLIS — For the first time, central Indiana is hearing from Sheila Hole, mother of the 19-year-old who opened fire at a FedEx facility on April 15, killing eight and leaving seven others injured.
FOX59’s Angela Ganote sat down with her for an in-depth, one-on-one interview about the red flags she saw, her efforts to get help from law enforcement officials and health professionals, her opinion about how her efforts were received, and how she feels about her son now.
These are extended clips from the interview.
A shooting victim’s relative reached out to her
Sheila Hole said she prays for the victims’ families every day, asking that they’ll be OK.
She won’t grieve for her son because of what he did, she said, but she grieves for the victims.
One of the victim’s relatives reached out to her to say they were sorry for her loss, and she couldn’t believe someone would be able to do that.
“It was the first time anybody cared. After everything, one of the victim’s families cared more than anybody I begged for help for,” she said. “I didn’t want them to have any feelings as far as feeling sorry for me.”
FedEx shooter’s mom: “I’m not here to victimize him”
Sheila Hole told Angela Ganote she is angry at her son.
She described the efforts she made to get Brandon Hole help for his mental health issues and to protect herself from his physical abuse.
She sought help from IMPD, the FBI, hospitals, therapists and counselors, she said, to prevent what she believed at the time would be a suicide attempt, not a mass shooting.
“I didn’t sit on the phone and say ‘my baby might hurt himself’ or something like that. I went beating on doors, knocking them down if I had to, crying,” she said. “And for that to happen … you’re at your last straw.”
Red flags and warnings before the mass shooting
Brandon Hole was on the FBI’s radar prior to the mass shooting, speaking with Sheila on the phone and later coming to visit the home.
An agent told her Brandon hit every red flag for a mass shooter, she said, but her son was never officially red-flagged under Indiana state law, which would have barred him from purchasing a gun.
Sheila Hole described an attempt to return a gun to her son that had previously been confiscated.
She also talked about Brandon’s father, who had his own issues with mental health and committed suicide.
Why she went with Brandon to the gun store
Angela Ganote asked Sheila Hole to explain why she went with her son to the gun store when he purchased the weapon he would eventually fire at FedEx.
She assumed he was red-flagged and would be turned down for a gun, and was concerned about how he would react to that news, the mother said.
“I was trying that day to make sure he didn’t come out of that place, take that car and start ramming people. Because he was going to be angry, because I was 100% sure he was red-flagged.”
Mom says she was never interviewed as part of the shooting investigation
Sheila Hole said she begged to be interviewed by the FBI during the subsequent investigation, but that conversation never happened.
“You’d think they’d come to me and say … ‘What happened? Where did you go wrong, Sheila? Where did we go wrong,” Hole said. “They chose not to talk to me and concluded an investigation.”
