EXCLUSIVE The twisted past of Idaho shooter Wess Roley, a rent-dodging Holocaust denier expelled from high school for terrorizing classmates
Wess Roley, 20, launched a deadly attack on first responders on Sunday after deliberately setting a bush fire at Idaho beauty spot Canfield Mountain to lure them in.
Now DailyMail.com can reveal that the baby-faced shooter had a troubled past that included bullying gender-fluid kids at his Arizona high school, making disturbing neo-Nazi comments and posting Holocaust-denying TikTok videos.
And after moving to Idaho in summer 2024 after a year living with his grandfather Dale, 66, in Vinita, Oklahoma, his life spun further out of control – with a former roommate telling DailyMail.com that he made threatening gang signs, had no friends and cheated him out of a month's rent when he was told to move out.
Roley had also fallen out with his father Jason, 39 – a heavily tattooed motorcycle enthusiast whose Facebook page carries several pictures of him in Hell's Angel gear – who lives in remote Priest River, Idaho, with his second wife Sara, 35, and their two young children.
'When he first moved in with me, he was just real quiet,' TJ Franks, 28, told DailyMail.com in an interview at his modest apartment home in Sandpoint, Idaho, 60 miles north of Coeur d'Alene.
'He didn't really do a whole lot. He just kind of kept to himself and worked. But then, towards the end of his stay here, we started noticing changes in his behavior.
'He shaved all his hair off. He was keeping really late hours at night.'
His former roommate, TJ Franks, 28, told DailyMail.com that Roley's behavior had grown increasingly bizarre before he finally asked him to move out in January. While Roley complied, he left without paying the last month's rent
The two had shared an apartment in this building in Sandpoint, Idaho, but their relationship began to deteriorate after Roley used Franks' nail clippers without permission, constantly hogged the TV and played video games into the early morning hours
Other difficult behavior included using Franks's personal items such as his clippers without permission, monopolizing the TV and playing video games deep into the small hours.
Franks added: 'He left his vehicle running out here for like, 12 or 13 hours, so the landlord called me and wanted me to check on him, and I knocked on his door.
'He was just sleeping, but he jumped up and said he had no idea that it was running – there was a lot of weird stuff like that.'
According to Franks, Roley – who was living out of his van when he died – didn't appear to have any friends at all and frequently complained about wanting a girlfriend.
But he did nothing to get one, instead spending most of his time off taking lonely rambles along the 3.5-mile Mickinnick Trail – telling Franks he felt most at home in the forest.
The pattern is similar to one observed his former classmates in Arizona, with one North Phoenix Prep School graduate telling DailyMail.com that that he would bully other students – including cruelly nicknaming one girl 'Horse Teeth' – and had few friends of his own.
More disturbing were his neo-Nazi outbursts and penchant for doodling swastikas and other Nazi symbols in his school notebook.
'He was weird,' recalled the student. 'At one point, in 10th grade he got a girlfriend who was Jewish.
One classmate at the prep school recalled a time in 10th grade when Roley got a Jewish girlfriend and the couple proceeded to spread Nazi propaganda
Roley's disturbing behavior from scalated to a deadly breaking point on Sunday when he set a bushfire to lure first responders before ambushing them – fatally shooting two firefighters and wounding a third
'They both were spreading neo-Nazi propaganda. Wess's notebook was notorious for having doodles of swastikas and satanic symbols in it.
Later in November 2021, the then-10th grader Roley was expelled after threatening both the school and his classmates.
His tattooed, dyed-hair girlfriend also left the school and was never heard from again by classmates.
The student also added: 'Looking back on how Wess was in school, while I am shocked that someone I went to school with did this horrible act, I am not entirely surprised by it.'
Asked about Roley's neo-Nazi past, Franks insisted he had never said anything 'racial' in front of him but did say he had shown a consistent disdain for authority.
'He did say that he has a problem not with authorities but authority,' Franks told DailyMail.com.
'He has a problem with authority, but he was not a political person. You know, I would talk to him about something that I saw on the news.
'When I did, he would just kind of laugh and he would say, "it's all bull crap anyway".'
Ultimately, Roley's behavior became too much for Franks to tolerate, and he asked him to move out, which he did at the end of January this year.
'That's the last I ever talked to him,' Franks said. 'Me and him were getting into it over the things that were happening towards the end of his stay here because it was just not good, so we didn't really stay in contact.
'On the last day, he said bye and that he was going down to Coeur d'Alene for a job. I did try contacting him to get his last rent payment and the house key, but he wouldn't pay it.'
Roley lived at this house with his parents in Phoenix, Arizona, before relocating to Oklahoma to stay with his grandfather, Dale, 66. He eventually moved to Idaho, where he lived in Sandpoint, a 30 minute drive from Roley's apartment in Sandpoint
Dave Tysdal, 47, was the third firefighter hit and is currently in hospital in critical condition
After that, police say he lived a transient lifestyle and was the subject of several welfare and trespass calls but did nothing unduly troubling until the Sunday shootout that claimed the lives of Kootenai County Battalion Chief Frank Harwood, 42, and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison, 52.
Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Fire Engineer David Tysdal, 47, was also badly hurt in what cops described as 'a total ambush' but is expected to survive.
Neither of Roley's parents could be contacted for comment but late Monday night, dad Jason posted a tribute to the dead firefighters and changed his Facebook profile photo to a badge that read: 'In loving memories of our fallen heroes.'
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