year
yearbook photo. Ryan Wesley Routh was born on February 18, 1966, in
Greensboro, North Carolina, where he was a resident for most of his life. He had a sister named Nancy Meyers ( Routh). He attended
Guilford Junior High School (now Guilford Middle School) in the late 1970's. He earned an
Eagle Scout award in 1980. He attended
Northwest Guilford High School where he graduated in 1984. A former classmate of his said that Routh was social and had school friends, but he was not popular. He enrolled at
University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1988, then dropped out in 1990. In 1995, Routh attended
North Carolina A&T State University for two semesters, dropping out before finishing a degree program. In January 1989, Routh married Lora Frances Wilson, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. In the early 1990s, Routh opened a roofing business called
United Roofing, hiring 90 employees. He abandoned the business in the early 2000's. Routh's daughter and youngest son lived with him full time after the divorce, while his eldest son lived with Lora full time. Routh tried to get a skate park built near Greensboro in the mid 2000's. For confronting Bryant, Routh was honored as a "super citizen" and awarded a "Law Enforcement Oscar" by the Greensboro chapter of the
International Union of Police Associations. In 2018, Routh moved to
Kaʻaʻawa, Hawaii with his fiancé, Kathleen Elizabeth Shaffer, and his daughter and youngest son. There, they started a shed-building business called
Camp Box Honolulu.
Legal issues Routh had a lengthy criminal record, spanning 1984-2016. Routh had been convicted of over a hundred criminal offenses, and had been arrested at least eight times. Routh typically received parole or probation for these offenses, with no prison time. Routh had further been ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs related to more than 200 civil lawsuits. In 1984, Routh was charged for failing to report an accident. Throughout the 1990s, he was charged multiple times for tax delinquencies and fraud. He then put his hand on a machine gun he had with him, alarming the officer, Routh pleaded guilty to all charges, and was sentenced to sixty months' probation. He surrendered his weapons to the police who destroyed them. Routh agreed to undergo a mental health evaluation and accept recommended treatments. Soon after, he was arrested for threatening to blow up the police department. After the assassination attempt, the officer who initially pulled over Routh stated; "I figured he was either dead or in prison by now. I had no clue that he had moved on and was continuing his escapades." In 2003, he was convicted for driving without a license, carrying a concealed weapon and involvement in a
hit and run crash. On February 10, 2010, Routh was convicted of possessing stolen goods after Greensboro police searched three warehouses Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen tools, building materials, and other items from sites where he worked as a roofer. He was again sentenced to probation. In 2014, Routh was arrested for failing to appear in court. In 2019, Routh was subject to an investigation over a tip to the FBI alleging that he was in possession of a firearm. Later that same year, he was removed from a property for allegedly
squatting. In 2021, Routh called the police on a resident of a property where he was working, claiming the resident had punched him in the nose.
Claimed activities related to Ukraine '', 2022 Routh claimed on his social media accounts and in 2022 interviews to have made efforts to
recruit foreign soldiers for
Ukraine in its war against Russia. At various times Routh claimed to have fought Routh claimed that he flew to Ukraine to join the army after Russia's 2022 invasion, but learned that he was "not an ideal candidate" because he was in his mid-50s with no military experience. Later in 2022, Routh said that after his rejection, he began recruiting volunteers for the Ukrainian military. Routh complained of roadblocks to Ukraine admitting foreign fighters, stating, "Ukraine is very often hard to work with, they're afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy". Routh was filmed at an April 2022 protest in Kyiv. Routh was reported in 2022 and 2023 to have been associated with the International Volunteer Center, a
Lviv-based non-profit assisting foreign fighters. In 2024, after the assassination attempt, the group's founder, Ian Netupsky, said that Routh had never been affiliated with the organization. A former volunteer for
Ukraine's International Legion, Evelyn Aschenbrenner, branded Routh as "delusional" and a "liar" over his claims that he recruited for the Ukrainian organization, saying Routh was "not, and never has been, associated with the International Legion or the Ukrainian Armed Forces". Aschenbrenner said of Routh, "He was combative. He was argumentative. He refused repeatedly to understand basic army policy", adding, "There was
delusions of grandeur and [he was] very disconnected from reality." The International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine said in a statement that Routh had "never been part of, associated with, or linked" to it. Chelsea Walsh, a travel nurse who had met Routh in Ukraine, described Routh as "a threat to others" and a "ticking time bomb", and notified a Homeland Security agent upon her return from Ukraine. She claimed that Routh decided to dedicate his life to protecting Ukraine upon first hearing about the war in 2022, and that he would become "vengeful" and "angry" if he did not get his way. Sometime in 2023, Walsh reported Routh to the FBI. Routh claimed to her to have organized a protest outside President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's home and that he was jailed for it. Walsh repeated her concerns to the FBI and
Interpol. In November 2023, Routh returned to Hawaii. On September 12, 2024, three days before the assassination attempt, Routh exchanged messages with British-trained commandos from
Afghanistan about recruitment to the Ukraine military. == Assassination attempt ==