Investigations into Sunday’s tragic shooting at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood megachurch in Houston have uncovered troubling news about the suspect.
Police identified 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno as the shooter. Some news outlets reported yesterday that Moreno is a transgender man named Jeffrey Escalante Moreno.
However, Christopher Hassig of the Houston Police Department attempted to clear up the discrepancy of her gender, explaining that she used aliases. He said:
She has utilized both male and female names, but through all of our investigations to this point, talking with individuals, interviews, documents, the Houston Police Department reports she has been identified this entire time as female, “she, her,” and so, we are identifying her as Gennesse Moreno, Hispanic female.
KHOU also interviewed a woman identified as Moreno’s former mother-in-law.
The fact she wasn’t allowed to kill anyone else was a great blessing. She threatened her husband’s life, she threatened mine, she threatened to kill her own son, and we still couldn’t get intervention. We’ve asked for help from CPS or Child Protective Services, Family Services. We’ve asked for help from police and received it many times. But she was still allowed to own guns.
The suspect had a 19-year criminal history involving assault, drug violations, and gun crimes. Neighbors in Conroe, Texas, say that they had warned officials about the Moreno many times.
Authorities say that the boy accompanying Moreno was her seven-year-old son. He was shot in the head during the exchange of gunfire in the church and is in critical condition.
Six women held a news conference late Monday on their street to describe Moreno’s past four years of threatening and harassing behavior, and to criticize what they described as failure of authorities to respond to their concerns.
The women did not disclose their identities for fear of retaliation. The video below contains some of their statements.
Neighbor 1: Nobody should have died. Nobody should have been hurt. This should have been handled years ago.
Neighbor 2: We cannot do anything more than what we did. We tried to stop this. We tried to help her, we tried to help us, and we tried to help the public.
Neighbor 1: [after seeing Moreno unloading firearms from an SUV, this neighbor said that Moreno warned:] Don’t you come closer. Don’t come closer. You know, I’ll shoot you.
Hassig also told press that after a search of Moreno’s home, investigators found materials that could be used to make explosives as well as “antisemetic writings.” He said she had a history of mental illness.
