DETROIT — The father of the man who police say killed three Michigan State University students and wounded five others before taking his own life said he doesn't know his son's motive, but he is praying for change, including stricter gun control laws, so people can't get guns as easily as his son bought two 9 mm pistols.
Michael McRae, 67, told The Detroit News this week that he is praying for something to change in America, even as 43-year-old Anthony McRae was accused of being behind the nation's 67th mass shooting in 2023. He said he doesn't know where his son bought the guns after he told The News last week he thought they were purchased at the Lansing pawn shop Dicker and Deal, where a general manager said there was no record of such a sale in the past year.
"We keep praying to God it stops, to stop this stuff from happening,” said McRae, who was raised by a minister and has gone to a Christian church his whole life. “Change the gun laws. Change the gun laws so they make it where nobody can buy guns no more. … People buy guns like it don’t mean nothing. They get guns, buy guns and go around and do crazy stuff like this. You don’t make a change, you will never get there."
The Michigan Legislature's Democratic majority and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have vowed to pass universal background check requirements for people who want to buy firearms, a safe storage standard for guns in the home and "extreme risk" protection orders, also known as a red flag law, to allow guns to be taken away from people deemed a risk to themselves and others. They haven't advanced bills to ban gun purchases. It is not clear that any of proposed measures would have affected Anthony McRae's ability to legally obtain or use a weapon.
Michael McRae added that better security needs to be in place at all schools.
McRae made the comments during a 75-minute telephone interview, offering the first in-depth account of the life of Anthony — who moved to Michigan with his parents 20 years ago from New Jersey and has been depicted as a loner before he shot students at Berkey Hall and then the student union before leaving campus and shooting himself when confronted by police about 5 miles from campus.
Killed were MSU students Arielle Anderson, a 19-year-old Harper Woods resident who was studying to be a surgeon; Alexandria Verner, a 20-year-old Clawson resident studying integrated biology and anthropology; and Brian Fraser, 20-year-old Grosse Pointe resident studying business. Five other students are still hospitalized with major injuries including Guadalupe Huapilla-Perez, a junior in the business school; John Hao, a 20-year-old student from China who is pursuing a career in sports management; and Nate Statly, a junior studying environmental biology and zoology.
"I am hurt," said Michael McRae, who worked as a janitor for GM for 30 years. "Everybody is hurt. ... I still don't believe it. I didn't raise him like that. I raised him in church. I don't know what was on his mind."
He said he wasn't close with his son and didn't know what he was thinking as he holed up in his bedroom.
"I don't know nothing about his life," McRae said, even though his son has lived with him in his Lansing home for years. "All I know is I loved him, I raised him, he was a good kid. I fed him, took good care of him. I don't know nothing about his business."
But he said his wife Linda's death 2 1/2 years ago at the age of 62 had an effect on Anthony.
"He was a mama's boy," McRae said. "When she died, he started changing."
Anthony McRae was moodier and would stay in his room all day long, playing video games, he said.
All three students who were killed have been memorialized and buried, but Anthony McRae has not been, according to his father. Michael McRae said he is planning to cremate his son and bury his remains near his mother, who died at Sparrow Hospital in 2020 after being in a coma for 44 days following a stroke. Linda Gail McRae is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Dimondale, southwest of Lansing, according to her obituary.
McRae said he received a $1,500 donation this week from the American Red Cross in Michigan to assist in paying for the costs to bury his son. While he is grateful, he said the money still will not be enough.
David Olejarz, spokesman for the American Red Cross in Michigan, declined to confirm that McRae had been assisted, citing privacy concerns. But he offered a statement.
“When emergencies occur, the American Red Cross delivers help to everyone who needs it as part of our humanitarian mission," Olejarz said. "Our assistance is provided without discrimination, regardless of nationality, race, citizenship status, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or political opinions. Since the tragic events of Feb. 13, the Red Cross has been engaged with local officials to provide support services for those impacted.
"Our team continues to work alongside local officials with our volunteer case workers, health services, disaster mental health and spiritual care team members offering support to impacted community members."
'Don't know what triggered him'
Michael McRae lives in northern Lansing. Around the perimeter of his house is a fence and two panels of chain-link fence that were padlocked last week with a metal chain.
Neighbors have described his son, Anthony McRae, as a "hell-raiser" who practiced target shooting out his back door at the home where he lived with his father and mother, who moved to Michigan in 2003. Lansing Police Department officials have said at media briefings they didn't make any runs to the home over reported gun shots.
Anthony McRae also was charged with multiple gun-related crimes in 2019, including carrying a concealed pistol without a concealed carry permit. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor as law enforcement officials dismissed a more serious felony charge that likely gave him the ability to own guns.
Police also suggested Anthony McRae had a mental illness. Officials with the Ewing Police Department in New Jersey investigated threats that Anthony wrote in a note found in his pocket about two public schools in their township, where he had lived decades ago, and determined McRae "had a history of mental health issues."
But Michael McRae said his son was a "good kid" — not a "monster" as some have tried to portray him — and did not have a mental illness.
"I don’t know what triggered him," McRae said. "I didn’t raise him like that."
From New Jersey to Michigan
Michael McRae is a native of Trenton, New Jersey, where he met his wife when she was 15 and he was 17. They married three years later on July 7, 1976 in a Robbinsville Township, New Jersey, church after she proposed to him, he said. At the time, she had just graduated from high school. Their first child was a son they named Michael.
Two weeks later, McRae said he landed a job with GM, doing janitorial work at a plant in Trenton, New Jersey's capital. Linda Gail McRae also worked for GM in Trenton, and Wilmington, Delaware, according to her obituary. McRae said she was a cook.
Anthony McRae was their second child, born on June 10, 1979. The couple had another child, a daughter, who was born in 1980.
The couple moved to Michigan in 2003 from New Jersey, where they spent most of their lives and a few years after the Trenton GM plant shut down in 1997. Anthony moved with them and lived off and on with the couple during those 20 following years, Michael McRae said.
Anthony moved away to live in Cincinnati on his own and to get away, but Michael McRae couldn't remember the years and didn't know what his son did there. He simply gave his son a blessing and told him to call.
"He would come back and live with us," Michael McRae said. "You have to help your kids out. When they need help, you help them out."
Anthony never married and didn't have any children, he said.
Anthony also didn't go to college, but his father said he encouraged his son to work. He was unemployed at the time of the shooting, but had worked at a Meijer distribution warehouse in Delta Township. He was a dishwasher at other local businesses, Michael McRae said.
Anthony also went to church, but Michael McRae declined to name the church, citing concerns about the media coming to the worship house. He noted it was a church in the Baptist tradition.
Numerous attempts to reach other family members of Anthony McRae were unsuccessful. But his older brother, Michael McRae, has spoken out once since the tragedy, expressing shock at Anthony's actions and depicting him as a loner, according to the Detroit Free Press.
How he learned of shooting
Michael McRae said he learned about the shooting on Feb. 13 when a neighbor called and told him. He doesn't watch the television news because he listens to music to relax before going to sleep.
"I didn't believe it," McRae said. "I still don't believe it."
Police showed up soon after the neighbor called, in a car and helicopters, made him come outside the home with his hands up, he said. Detectives interviewed him while the police searched his house.
Since then, he has said he has been crying about his son.
"But my tears won’t bring him back," McRae said. "I have to stay strong and keep my trust in God."
Asked what he has say to the families of the MSU students his son killed and wounded, McRae did not hesitate.
"God knows I am sorry this happened," he said.
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