FLORIDA — Court documents reveal Phoenix Ikner, the 20-year-old alleged shooter behind a deadly daytime shooting rampage at Florida State University, grew up with years of family drama that included a custody battle, which took him more than 4500 miles away from his home in Tallahassee when he was just a child.
According to a probable cause affidavit in Leon County courts, in 2015, Ikner, who went by Christian when he was a kid, was illegally taken to Norway by his biological mother, Anne Mari Eriksen. Both had Norwegian and U.S. citizenship.
At the time, his birth mom told his father they were “traveling to South Florida for spring break,” according to the affidavit.
But instead, she “fled the country” with Ikner, which was in violation of the parents’ custody agreement, according to records available on the Leon County Clerk of Courts website.
Court records also reveal that dad learned his son had been taken overseas during a phone call with him a few days later.
Despite claiming she would bring him back at the end of spring break, his birth mom didn’t and “had no intention of returning Christian to Tallahassee” according to court records that also revealed mom had “mentioned possibly moving to Miami at some point.”
According to the affidavit, when dad reported the kidnapping, he told authorities his son has “developmental delays and special needs which he feared would not be taken care of without access to his doctors here in the United States.”
He said his son was on medication for “several health and mental issues,” including “a growth hormone disorder and ADHD.”
A few months later, mom was arrested at Fort Lauderdale International Airport when she returned to the U.S.
She was ultimately found guilty and served 200 days in county jail
Also in 2015, Eriksen was accused of violating a temporary injunction by contacting her son’s school and “constantly contacting” his pediatrician. That case was dismissed.
Court records also show that in October 2015, Ikner’s birth mom filed a lawsuit against the boy’s dad, Christopher Ikner, Ikner’s wife, Jessica Ikner, who is a deputy sheriff in Leon County, and a few other relatives. Eriksen accused them of harassment and slander over years of litigation in family court.
In her complaint, Eriksen alleged “the emotional and psychological harm done to the minor child will be evident for years.”
7 months later, her lawsuit was dismissed.
Lucas Luzietti took a national government class with Ikner at Tallahassee State College two years ago and said Ikner was very political and extreme.
“He had very radical views,” Luzietti recalled. “He would joke about the deaths of minorities. He said Rosa Parks was in the wrong and then he also said that Joe Biden was an illegitimate President, which we actually got into an argument about in class,” said Luzietti.
Investigators now say Phoenix Ikner was the lone gunman who, on a sunny morning before easter weekend, pulled the trigger in the middle of FSU’s campus that injured five, killed two and continues to devastate countless more.
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