WYOMING, Mich. – In an exclusive interview with FOX 17, Brady Oestrike's former roommate describes the mental issues and dark thoughts of the accused murderer in the Wyoming Craigslist killings.
Rachel Morris says she wasn’t surprised by the triple murder.
"Knowing what tormented him, knowing the bad dreams and bad things he saw in his dreams and the depth of pain in his poetry, I wasn`t surprised that something traumatic and violent like this happened in his life,” she said.
Oestrike, 31, is accused of killing Brooke Slocum, 18, who was eight months pregnant, and Charlie Oppenneer, 25, before taking his own life.
Morris says she saw a side of Oestrike few others did when the two lived in his house on Taft Avenue back in 2012.
"He described a lot of bad dreams," Morris says. "He described a lot of thoughts that were dark and disturbed him." She says Oestrike was very intelligent and worked a lot.
Though the house was filled with guns and swords, Morris says she wasn't frightened of him until he made a horrific confession one day.
"He told me that he was having thoughts about killing me and that he was warning me," she said.
"He's like, 'These thoughts are happening to me.'"
Morris says she prepared to move out and encouraged Oestrike to see a mental health professional. "He had said he studied it and believed that he was schizophrenic," she said. Oestrike was terrified of people finding out and tried to hide his issues from his friends and family. "He was just so scared that he would lose his job and his position and his standing with his workmates."
That's why Morris is speaking out now - hoping that Slocum, Oppenneer, and their unborn daughter did not die in vain. She urges people in similar situations to get help. "I do believe that he could have gotten help. He could have maybe stood up to those fears," Morris says.
"But fears are hard to deal with. And I think in the end, the fears and the thoughts that he was having won - and Brady didn`t."
