The woman who shot up Joel Osteen’s mega-church with an AR-style rifle used to intimidate neighbors by brandishing guns and crossbows while throwing Nazi salutes — and only referred to the young special-needs son she took with her on the attack as “the boy.”
Before the shocking attack on the Houston-area Lakewood Church Sunday, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, had terrorized her neighborhood in Conroe, Texas — with police called multiple times to the home she shared with her mother and her 7-year-old son, according to neighbors.
“Her way of intimidation was to bring the gun cases in and out, crossbows,” one neighbor told Fox 26.
“She’d come out, have her gun cases, do heil Hitler [salute], flip you off, call you the b-word, or something. It was something every day.”
Another neighbor claimed that Moreno even tried to run them over with her car.`
Moreno, who had a documented history of mental illness, took her son to the shooting Sunday.
He was left fighting for life after being hit in the head as police shot and killed his mom.
Moreno shared the boy with her ex-husband, a registered sex offender — and demonstrated “no attachment to the child,” according to divorce records cited by the local station.
Instead of calling the 7-year-old by his name, Moreno referred to him as “the boy” and made “no eye contact with him,” the filings stated.
The woman, who had a lengthy rap sheet, used both male and female aliases, raising questions about whether she was transitioning — but investigators who looked at past police reports found that Moreno identified as female, Houston Police Commander Chris Hassig said.
Records in Harris County showed that Moreno, under the names Jeffery Escalante-Moreno or Jeffery Escalante, was charged in six criminal cases from 2005 to 2011.
The charges ranged from forging a $100 bill, to stealing socks, hats and makeup, to assault for kicking a detention officer.
Moreno entered Osteen’s Lakewood Church between services Sunday afternoon with her son in tow and opened fire from an AR-style rifle with a “Palestine” sticker affixed to it, officials said.
Two off-duty officers working security at the church — Houston cop Christopher Moreno, who is not related to the shooter, and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Agent Adrian Herrera — returned fire and fatally shot her.
The woman’s son took a bullet to the head during the exchange, according to the police.
Investigators do not yet know if the 7-year-old boy was accidentally shot by one of the off-duty officers.
A 57-year-old innocent bystander also suffered a gunshot wound to the hip but has since been discharged from the hospital.
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