For Thomas Crooks, the suburban Pittsburgh nursing home where he served meals and washed dishes for $16 an hour was another solitary corner of a nearly invisible life. He was polite but distant, a former co-worker said, ate lunch alone in the break room and rarely spoke with anyone.
A week after Mr. Crooks opened fire at the rally and was killed by the Secret Service, his ideology and motives remain a vexing question for investigators and the people who crossed paths with him. In dozens of interviews, former classmates, teachers, and neighbors said they still could not square their memories of Mr. Crooks.
I've looked at horrific pictures of an individual that I stood six inches away from, shaking his hand, calling on him in class, said Xavier Harmon, who saw Mr. Crooks almost daily in the computer technology class he taught at a technical school.
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