BETHEL PARK, Pennsylvania—Thomas Crooks and his sister Katherine Crooks graduated from the same high school only two years apart; however, their school yearbooks paint the attempted assassin as very different from his sister regarding school engagement.
Katherine Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School (BPHS) in 2020 in the siblings’ hometown of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Thomas Crooks graduated in 2022. Katherine Crooks—who went by Katie in her junior and senior yearbooks—appears active and engaged. Her brother, meanwhile, remains absent in extracurricular activities. He doesn’t appear in his junior and senior yearbooks at all.
Katherine Crooks entered BPHS as a freshman in 2016 and served on the yearbook staff.
She went on to serve on the staff every year until she graduated and appears in her class photo each year.
She worked on the student newspaper Bethel Park Hawk Eye as a photographer and served on the school’s Principal’s Advisory Council for Students (PACS).
A post on the high school’s social media pages shows her posing with a teacher with the caption, “Congratulations to BPHS Spanish Teacher Mrs. D’Alessandro and Senior Katie Crooks, who were named the January PACS Staff and Student of the Month! Thanks for making BPHS a better place! #BPProud.”
Congratulations to BPHS Spanish Teacher Mrs. D’Alessandro and Senior Katie Crooks, who were named the January PACS Staff and Student of the Month! Thanks for making BPHS a better place! #BPProud pic.twitter.com/w4quS9oADU
— Bethel Park Schools (@bpsdinfo) March 3, 2020
Thomas’ engagement at BPHS looks entirely different from his sister’s.
Two classmates told The New York Post that Matthew Crooks tried out for the school’s junior varsity rifle team during his freshman year. Former classmate Jameson Murphy recalled that he “was such a comically bad shot, he was unable to make the team and left after the first day.”
The school’s rifle club shows a co-ed group of about 15-20 students each year; the Crooks kids attended BPHS.
The Daily Star did not recognize Thomas Crooks in any photos of school trips or functions after he failed to make the rifle team.
He appears in his freshman yearbook in his class photo—which someone ripped out of the Bethel Park Library’s copy—and his sophomore yearbook. He is absent in both junior and senior yearbooks.
The yearbooks don’t show Katherine Crooks present everywhere in extracurriculars, but she remained engaged throughout high school. Being awarded Student of the Month shows that she excelled academically like her brother—who received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative.
Thomas Crooks, however, seems to have been more reclusive and a homebody outside of class. Several of the family’s neighbors attested to The Daily Star that they often saw him walking alone on his street. None of them remembered Katherine Crooks. Even the neighbor directly across the street told The Post she did not know she existed.
The Daily Star emailed Thomas Crooks and Katherine Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, asking for his perspective on the past few days but has not received a response.
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Jacob Grandstaff is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee. Follow on X @JDGrandstaff.
Photo “Katherine Crooks” by Bethel Park Schools.
Stop being a conspiracy theorist. No one would hire a 20 year old kid with no shooting experience to execute such a job. Do you really think someone trusted him to only graze Trump’s ear? Someone actually died. It is unbelievably disrespectful to the victim and his families to claim that this was a setup. Go to church and pray for God to replenish your braincells – you have a few missing.
Bullsh*t. This kid was setup. Everyone who actually knew him said he was nothing but kind to everyone. Liked programming and gaming. He liked helping elderly people in the nursing home. He never spoke about politics. Don’t know what happened but they needed a fall guy and they found one. Feel terrible for him and his entire family.