From the outside, Connor Sturgeon had it all.
He was a high school basketball star and came from a middle class family in Indiana. He started his career in banking and worked his way up in finance.
But on Monday, the promising trajectory came crashing down spectacularly: Sturgeon, 25, took an AR-15 rifle to the Louisville bank where he worked and killed five of his senior colleagues. Nine others were injured, including two police officers – one of whom had only been with the police for 10 days, and was shot in the head. Sturgeon was shot and killed by officers at the Old National Bank.
“I know everyone always says this about shooters,” said a high school friend.
“But I really never expected it to be him.”
Connor Sturgeon (far right) is pictured with his parents Todd and Linda, and his younger brother Cameron, a professional model
Sturgeon can be seen in his LinkedIn photo, where he lists his work as he climbs the financial ladder
How Sturgeon went from a high school sports champion and a sensitive, emotionally intelligent college student to a mass murderer is now under police investigation.
The key is the suicide note Sturgeon left for his family.
His mother Linda and his younger brother Cameron – a professional model signed by New York’s Next Model Management, one of the world’s largest agencies – rushed to the bank and arrived shortly after Sturgeon began his attack.
The 25-year-old had apparently told them he was fired and was going to “shoot down” his workplace.
Linda and Cameron Sturgeon approached police outside the bank, a police officer told the dispatcher on the audio obtained by the scanner Heavy.
Connor Sturgeon, 25, is seen in action representing Floyd Central High School in Floyds Knobs, Indiana – 10 miles from downtown Louisville
The responding officers described a chaotic scene, with an “officer right in front of the bank” and gunfire in the background.
But the police will also want to understand in detail how his life unraveled in such a devastating way.
Sturgeon’s parents Linda and Todd live in Greenville, Indiana: he attended high school in Floyds Knobs, 10 miles from downtown Louisville.
Todd Sturgeon’s Indiana roots run deep: he attended liberal arts college DePauw University before becoming a history teacher, and coached the University of Indianapolis basketball team for 15 years.
He left in 2007 after seeing his son at basketball camp and realizing “maybe he’d rather spend more time with his own sons than other people’s.”
Todd Sturgeon went on to coach the Floyd Central basketball team – with his son Connor a star player.
Sturgeon was a 6ft 4′ sophomore in high school when his father took the job. His younger brother was in high school at the time.
He retired from coaching in April 2022, aged 57, at the end of a triumphant spell with the team.
Todd’s retirement was reported on local news saying at the time that he thought “the program would be in a better place when we have someone new who is excited, enthusiastic, guns blazing and ready to come in and take the program to another lift level. hopefully.’
Connor had certainly made his mark on Floyd Central – he played basketball, football and track in school.
Sturgeon was a star off the track, as well as a talented football player and basketball player
Sturgeon is seen with an athletic award in 2016
In 2015, he was named a National Merit Scholar.
He was popular and athletic and was nicknamed ‘Mr Floyd Central’.
Still, a friend suggested that all was not as rosy as it seemed.
“The main thing I keep coming back to is freshman year of high school we played soccer together in eighth grade, he was absent most of the year because he had multiple concussions,” the friend shared The everyday beast.
“Then he had a few more in high school.
“I’m not saying it’s the cause, but I always think back on it.
“There were times when I wondered, will this catch up with him? But never this way. He’s the last person I’d expect to do this.’
After graduating from Floyd Central in 2016, Sturgeon attended the University of Alabama and graduated in 2020, the university confirmed.
His friend said he went to college “to live the SEC life” — a reference to the Southeastern Conference sports leagues.
But he knelt down to work – and began to think deeply about his emotional state and mental health.
In a 2018 essay for college dug up by The Daily Beast, Sturgeon wrote of his quest to improve his “discipline, accountability, and self-esteem … so that I can better myself as a whole.”
Sturgeon said he struggled to make friends – despite his friends seeing him as popular and a star athlete – but expressed his optimism in his writings.
“My self-esteem has long been an issue for me,” he wrote.
“As a late bloomer in middle and high school, I struggled to fit in to some degree, and this has left me with a somewhat negative self-image that persists to this day.
“Making friends has never been easier, so I have more experience than most at operating alone.
“Plus, university has introduced a whole new vibe and new challenges, so it’s easy to feel like I’m not doing as well as I should.
“This semester, however, I think I’ve matured socially and I’m starting to see improvement in this area.
“I’ve found that taking the time to take stock of how I’m feeling and what I can do to feel better has helped me be more social and, in turn, feel better about myself.”
Sturgeon suffered multiple concussions, his high school friend said, and was sometimes unable to compete due to his head injury
Around that time, a user on a Reddit forum who used the same social media name as Sturgeon tried to support a struggling person.
The account believed to be Sturgeon replied to a thread in ‘r/ShowerThoughts’ about being severely depressed, writing, ‘Hey man, I understand how rough it is and how meaningless life can seem. Just keep fighting. Keep sharpening.
“In sport and in life, I discovered that doing everything you can to help those around you made me feel my best.
“Cheer on your teammates, help those closest to you, and keep an eye out for those you care about and everything will work itself out, brother.”
He graduated in 2020 with a master’s degree in science and a major in finance.
Sturgeon’s LinkedIn said he completed three summer internships between 2018 and 2020, before joining Old National Bank as a syndication clerk and portfolio banker.
He started as a commercial development professional at the bank in June 2021 and transitioned to his most recent role in April 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In 2022, he left his family home in Greenville, Indiana and moved to Louisville.
“I am certified in the RMA Lending Decision Process, hold a Masters in Finance from the University of Alabama, and am on the Young Professionals board for Junior Achievement of Kentuckiana,” he wrote on his profile.
He also hosted a basketball-focused podcast with two friends, The everyday beast said and tweeted about the NBA.
He also posted messages of support for the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, as well as criticisms of police brutality and of Donald Trump.
Sturgeon seemed to be involved in local community affairs.
Last year, he wrote on LinkedIn about participating in the Focus Louisville program.
“I can’t thank the folks at Leadership Louisville enough for their work over the past few days.
“Focus was an eye-opening experience about many of the problems around Louisville and the people working to solve them.
“One of the biggest takeaways was the number of people working to make a positive impact, at places like Junior Achievement, Goodwill, and JCTC.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and for meeting so many wonderful people as both speakers and classmates.”
Sturgeon was living in the Camp Taylor neighborhood of Louisville with a male roommate at the time of Monday’s shooting.
The two-bedroom house sold for $203,000 in April 2022: it was unknown who bought the house.
Sturgeon worked at Old National Bank (pictured Monday), but was told he was being fired
Police have been seen at the scene of Monday’s shooting in Louisville
A police officer stands outside the Sturgeon family home in Louisville
Neighbors said the pair were modest and did not cause any trouble.
“I can’t say anything bad about the man,” said a neighbor, Kera Allgeier.
‘Very quiet, gentle. They’ve invited us to summer cookouts a few times, you know, very friendly. I just don’t understand.’
Allgeier’s husband Michael said he saw Sturgeon enter the house with his girlfriend, and agreed that Sturgeon seemed perfectly normal.
He “seemed like a very normal guy – he waved at me every day,” he said The everyday beast.
‘And he would go his way, and I would go mine.
‘Calm down man. You saw him and his girlfriend carrying groceries into the house, he just seemed like a regular guy.’
His girlfriend is not mentioned.
Officers entered the home on Monday and left with what appeared to be a computer and boxes of equipment.