Jared Lee Loughner

Jared Lee Loughner (born September 10, 1988) is an American mass murderer who pled guilty to 19 charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with the January 8, 2011, Tucson shooting, in which he shot and severely injured U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, and killed six people, including Chief U.S. District Court Judge John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, a member of Giffords' staff, and a 9-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green.

Loughner shot and injured a total of 13 people, including one man who was injured while subduing him.

Acquaintances say that Loughner's personality had changed markedly in the years prior to the shooting, a period during which he was also abusing alcohol and drugs.

Loughner attended Mountain View High School in Tucson, Arizona and dropped out in 2006.

Around this time, when he was about eighteen years old, those who knew him noted a change in his personality.

Kelsey Hawkes, who dated Loughner for several months in high school, later said she was shocked after hearing of his arrest.

"I've always known him as the sweet, caring Jared," said Hawkes, 21 at the time and then a student at the University of Arizona.

Loughner has a history of drug use, having been arrested in September 2007 for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

According to court records, Loughner had two previous offenses: in October 2007, he was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia and on October 13, 2008, he was charged after defacing a street sign in Marana, near Tucson (a charge that was dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009).

The police report noted that he drew a stylized CX, which Loughner said were Christian symbols.

Zach Osler, a high-school classmate of Loughner's and his closest friend, indicated that Loughner's life began to unravel after his high-school girlfriend broke up with him.

He began to abuse alcohol and other drugs, including cannabis (marijuana), cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms, LSD, and Salvia divinorum (a Hallucinogen legal in Arizona).

Former classmate Caitie Parker remembers Loughner as a "pot head".

After struggling with drugs for more than two years, Loughner gave up alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs in late 2008 and has not used since, according to one of his longtime friends.

The U.S. Army confirmed that Loughner had been rejected as "unqualified" for service in 2008.

According to military sources, Loughner admitted to marijuana use on numerous occasions during the application process.

In the months leading up to the shooting, Loughner's parents became increasingly alarmed at their son's behavior; at one point, they resorted to disabling his car every night in order to keep him at home.

On one occasion, his father confiscated his shotgun and both parents urged him to get psychiatric help.

Loughner also became obsessed with controlling what he perceived to be lucid dreams.

He had been suspended from Pima Community College in September 2010 because of his bizarre behavior and disruptions in classes and the library.

After his arrest, two medical evaluations diagnosed Loughner with paranoid schizophrenia and ruled him incompetent to stand trial.

He was placed on medication while in jail, as part of his treatment.

Loughner's former classmate and friend Tong Shan stated that her last encounter with Loughner was in October 2010, after he was suspended and dropped out of college and just before he purchased the semi-automatic handgun used in the shooting.

She said that while Loughner was "anti-government," he never appeared violent, nor did he mention his plans to buy a gun.

At some point, Loughner was fired from his job at a Quiznos restaurant, with his manager saying he had undergone a personality transformation.

After this, Loughner briefly volunteered at a local animal shelter, walking dogs, but he was eventually asked not to return.

The shelter manager later said, "He was walking dogs in an area we didn't want dogs walked...he didn't understand or comprehend what the supervisor was trying to tell him. He was just resistant to that information."

From February to September 2010, while a student at Pima Community College, Loughner had five contacts with campus police for classroom and library disruptions.

Some of his teachers complained to the administration about his disruptions and bizarre behavior, as they thought it a sign of mental illness and feared what he might do.

On September 29, 2010, college police also discovered a YouTube video shot by Loughner, in which his spoken commentary stated that the college was illegal according to the United States Constitution.

"I haven't seen him in person since '07," Parker recalled in early 2011.

"I'm looking back at this [as] a 14–19-year-old...who knows if any of us knew what for sure we were yet?"

He was again judged incompetent in May 2012.

In August 2012, Loughner was judged competent to stand trial, and at the hearing, he pleaded guilty to 19 counts.

In November 2012, he was sentenced to life plus 140 years in federal prison.

Jared Lee Loughner is the only child of Randy and Amy (née Totman) Loughner.

They were described by a neighbor as a very private family.

Amy Loughner worked for the Pima County Parks Department as a horticulturalist.

Randy Loughner was a retired gasoline truck driver, but journalists did not determine if he worked outside the house at the time of the shooting.

While Loughner had friends in high school, neighbors noted that in the following years, he kept more to himself and rarely spoke to others.