Dylann Roof's stepmom insists he grew up in a "good family," but was sucked in by evil he encountered online.
It’s hard to believe that the smiling little boy with the dinosaur Christmas present would grow up to be Dylann Roof, the accused church killer.
His stepmother, Paige Mann, released childhood photos of Roof, saying he was once "a sweet kid" who grew to be "a painfully shy loner" and a germaphobe.
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She helped raise him and gave him that distinctive bowl-cut hairstyle - which he has kept since he was three years old.
"I just want to show you that he had a good family," the stepmom said. She said Roof spent long hours on his computer and fell prey to what she calls "Internet evil."
A DailyMail.com photo shows Dylann Roof's father, Franklin Roof, shirtless and displaying tattoos and nipple rings. Franklyn and his ex-wife were married for ten years but divorced in 2009. Another photo shows Roof's father and stepsister leaving church Sunday after an emotional service in which the nine victims of the Charleston massacre were memorialized.
Candace Trunzo, senior news editor for DailyMail.com, told INSIDE EDITION, “[Paige Mann] claims in the court papers that Franklin was very controlling...that he was certainly verbally abusive. One can imagine that Dylann probably had a bit of a hard time in a family that was pretty fractured.”
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