On June 9, Kevin James Loibl walked out of the St. Petersburg home he shared with his father and brother, got into a cab and paid the driver $200 for a round-trip ride to Orlando.
With him, he brought toiletries in a small backpack, two handguns, a tactical knife and a ticket to see Christina Grimmie perform at the Plaza Live Theater the next night.
After the concert, he got in line to meet Grimmie, a star on the TV show “The Voice,” and then shot her four times.
Grimmie’s brother leaped after Loibl, but the man was able to break away, back up against the wall and shoot himself in the head, a recently released Orlando police report said.
Wearing a “distinctive” red, white and blue shirt, Loibl could be seen in the back of the theater in photos and video shot during the concert, the report said.
Police said he was found with two gun holsters clipped into the back of his pants, two full 9 mm magazines in his pockets and a tactical knife strapped to his ankle.
Grimmie’s family said she had never received any threats or “undue attention from any overaggressive fans,” the report said.
No one in her family could remember seeing him before at any other concerts.
Loibl’s brother and father told investigators that they had never heard him talk about Grimmie and said Loibl had never been diagnosed with a mental illness or threatened to hurt anyone.
His brother told officers that Loibl did “live like a hermit” and hardly ever left his room except to go to his part-time job as a member of the Geek Squad at Best Buy.
When they searched Loibl’s bedroom, investigators noted a thin mattress on the floor, bare walls and windows that were covered in heavy aluminum foil and thick curtains.
According to the co-worker, Cory Dennington, Loibl's obsession started six months to a year before the shooting. Dennington said he believed Loibl “spent most of his waking hours watching (Grimmie) on YouTube as well as constantly monitoring her social media accounts.”
Despite following the singer’s life online, Loibl himself did not have any social media accounts, police said.
Loibl described Grimmie as his “soul mate” and told Dennington that he’d lost 50 pounds, gotten LASIK surgery and hair implants and his teeth whitened to improve his appearance for her, the report said.
Loibl also bragged to his co-workers about playing online games with Grimmie -- a claim police could not verify.
All the weapons Loibl used were purchased legally, but his family, friends and co-workers did not know he had them, investigators said.
The last time Dennington saw Loibl was on June 5, and when detectives asked what Loibl's demeanor was like that day, Dennington told them, “In hindsight, a lot of weird things and a lot of sad things.”
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