The left-wing gunman who opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice had a teenage foster daughter who committed suicide in 1996 by setting herself on fire, according to a report.
Wanda Ashley Stock, 17, had only been living with James Hodgkinson, 66, and his wife for a few months when the teen doused herself with gasoline and burned to death, the Daily Beast reported.
In the wake of her death, the Hodgkinsons told a local paper in Belleville, Illinois, that she was a “very practical, level-headed girl.”
Several years later, the family fostered another teen girl, whom they later lost custody of after Hodgkinson was accused of abusing her.
In 2006, he charged into a neighbor’s home where the foster daughter was hanging out with a friend, then-19-year-old Aimee Moreland, and smacked the pal in the face “with a closed fist,” according to the Daily Beast.
At one point, he allegedly pointed a shotgun at Moreland’s boyfriend and popped off one round.
Hodgkinson was also seen “throwing” the foster daughter “around the bedroom,” according to a police report. When she tried to escape, he “started hitting her arms, pulling her hair, and started grabbing her off the bed.”
“According to his foster daughter, he was always angry,” Moreland told the Daily Beast. “She was really unhappy there. She had come over to get away from them.”
During the dispute, Moreland said, she jumped in a car with her friend, but Hodgkinson opened the vehicle’s door and hit her, then used a knife to cut the seat belt off his foster daughter.
He was arrested for domestic battery and discharge of a firearm, but the charges were later dropped.