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John Russell Houser: No Facebook, Twitter Or Instagram Manifesto Found For 59-Year-Old Drifter, Movie Theater Killer [Photos]

By Paula Mooney
Published on: 01:37 PST, Jul 24, 2015

As soon as the name “John Russell Houser” was made public as the initially un-named movie theater shooter in Lafayette, as reported by the Inquisitr, the familiar drill of trying to find out more information behind the man’s motive began.

However, according to the Guardian, no “manifesto” for John Russell has yet been found by police that would explain why he took the lives of two people and himself. Houser’s age, 59, and the fact that he was a “kind of a drifter,” as reported by ABC News, might have something to do with the fact that there’s no online rambling manifesto for John, as is sometimes found for younger web users.

Nor have any Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts yet been pegged to Houser, who hails from Phenix City, Alabama. John had been living in a Motel 6 over the past weeks and Russell was reportedly “estranged” from his family — but cops don’t know why he came to Lafayette and performed the shootings. Phenix City is a small city in Alabama, with slightly more than 32,000 residents as of 2010.

Photos of Houser can be found on Twitter a-plenty. Houser, who had all sorts of things to disguise his identity — such as glasses and wigs — was planning to leave the scene, because those items were found in John’s hotel room. Authorities also discovered Houser had changed a license plate on his car, as Houser was intending to flee the scene of the shooting, but instead killed himself.

A Google Image search for John Russell also turns up photos of Houser, but right-clicking on those images and performing a “search Google for this image” inquiry doesn’t turn up additional Facebook, Instagram nor Twitter profiles. As such, John likely kept a low or non-existent online profile. Authorities are asking the public for more information about Houser, likely to uncover his motives and political views and the like. Folks who knew the man could shed more information on why he calmly shot up a movie theater, killing two people — as nearly 100 people gathered to watch the movie Trainwreck.

No Twitter accounts with Houser’s full name exist, while plenty of Twitter accounts named “John Houser” exist, none appear to contain the photo belonging to the shooter identified by police. Additionally, a Facebook search for Houser turns up plenty of men with the same name, while the full name search on Facebook turns up no users with that full name.

Instagram returns no users for the Instagram.com/johnrussellhouser account.

[Image via Lafayette police]

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