Scott Kramer had few answers Wednesday to the question on everyone’s mind: What led his 19-year-old son, described as well-liked and slyly funny, to walk into a Kennesaw FedEx distribution plant and shoot six co-workers before turning the gun on himself?
As a father, he has searched for clues to what might have turned the toddler he cuddled into the man who’s now a part of the growing chronology of U.S. mass shootings. So far he’s found none.
“I lived with my son every day of his life. I was a very involved father and I didn’t see it coming, so I don’t know how others could,” Kramer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Sometimes we never know. We have Virginia Tech. We have Aurora. Do they have an explanation for those? Do we know what was in their minds?”
Geddy Lee Kramer had no history of mental illness, according to his father. No financial problems, no romantic break-ups — nothing that would indicate the horror his son would unleash Tuesday morning.
“He liked to joke. He liked to fish. He liked to hike,” Scott Kramer said, speaking from his home in Acworth. “Nothing really bothered him. That is why this is such a shock to me.”
Police disclosed Wednesday that the younger Kramer left behind a suicide note, but offered no details about the contents of the letter.
Two of the shooter’s six victims remained hospitalized at Kennestone Hospital late Wednesday. A security guard, 28-year-0ld Christopher Sparkman, has undergone multiple surgeries and is still in critical condition. Kramer shot the Army veteran, who was unarmed, several times at close range.
Russell Brannen, father of Sparkman’s wife, told the AJC that while family members are cautiously optimistic about a recovery his son-in-law was “not out of the woods yet.”
Investigators say Kramer intended to do even greater harm to his co-workers, placing multiple Molotov cocktails within the sprawling shipping center.
But police have offered few other details about the shootings, even though their investigation will not lead to a prosecution, with the culprit dead. They have withheld the names of the other victims and have refused to offer any insight into Kramer’s motive. And a request for the 911 tapes by the AJC was denied Wednesday.
“We have victims of crimes who want answers, and we’re trying to get them,” said Cobb police spokesman Mike Bowman said. “We are trying to get closure to the families.”
Police did say that the shotgun used by Kramer appears to have been recently purchased. Officers found packaging for the weapon while searching his home.
Scott Kramer said he had no inkling his son even owned a gun. Theirs was not a “gun family,” he said.
“We’re a middle class family with middle class values,” Kramer said. His son “grew up not wanting for anything.”
Friends interviewed by the AJC said Geddy Lee Kramer seemed generally unflappable.
“He was the funny guy in class,” said 19-year-old Markeisha Higgins, friends with Kramer since 10th grade.”Once he got to know you, he was very funny. He wasn’t the depressed type of all. Geddy had a lot of friends and no enemies.”
Neighbor and friend Sebastian Maldonado last saw Geddy on Sunday, when they exchanged waves and grins. That was the norm, he said.
“He was a happy guy. He always had a smile. He never looked down in the dumps,” said Maldonado, 19. “He always lightened the mood, no matter what.
“He presented himself well. He was a good guy.”
Maldonado said he never heard Kramer discuss an interest in guns. Though Kramer felt underpaid for the long hours he put in at FedEx, Maldonado said he never heard his friend utter a bad word about his employer or co-workers.
“Yesterday, I was just in shock. I had a pain in my heart,” said Maldonado, a regular churchgoer. “I’m worried about his soul, about him going to hell.”
For his father, the nightmare is just beginning. He said he hopes Geddy will be remembered well, but knows that’s unlikely.
“He’s made his own bed,” Scott Kramer said.
“This has got to be about the victims, to ease their pain,” he added. “They are the ones who need sympathy.”
About the Author
