A neighbor of the suspect in the Highland Park mass shooting revealed on Tuesday that she is in love with the alleged killer and feels guilty for rejecting him several years ago.
“All I think about is him,” Amy said, refusing to give her last name, of suspected murderer Robert “Bobby” Crimo III.
“I didn’t go to sleep last night and I haven’t eaten in two days,” Amy told The Post in an interview on Tuesday night.
The 21-year-old lives near Crimo’s father’s house but said she first met Crimo, also 21, as a fast food colleague at Panera in March 2020.
The pair became friends when they worked together at the eatery for about a month before the chain restaurant closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In that short time, Amy and Crimo — who have been charged with seven first-degree charges for the Fourth of July horror — developed feelings for each other, she said.
“He said he liked me,” Amy said, but added that they never dated because her “strict” parents wouldn’t let her.
“I was like, but I’m not dating. I can’t date,” she said.
Still, the partnership gave her and Crimo plenty of opportunities to talk and get to know each other’s interests.
“I felt like we were the same person,” she said. “We loved anime [and] similar music.”
Amy said she had no idea Crimo, an aspiring rapper, had an interest in guns and other weapons and hadn’t known about his previous suicide attempt.
“He never told me about his social media, or his mother, or political views, possession of guns or his suicide attempt,” she said. “I never knew about that. Looking back, I think he wanted to hide it from me.”
Amy said that Crimo did talk about his dream of opening a sandwich shop with his father, however. According to the Chicago Sun Times, his father owned and operated Bob’s Pantry & Deli in Highland Park from 2013 to 2018.
More coverage of the Highland Park parade shooting
Crimo reportedly said he would postpone the ambition so he could continue working with Amy at Panera.
She told him not to sacrifice his dream for her.
“L [didn’t] want to get in his way,” she said. “So I thought if I stopped talking to him, he would.”
She feared that breaking ties with him would make him angry. Finally, he stopped waving to greet her as they passed each other nearby.
“Every day I saw him go by and he didn’t say hello anymore,” Amy said. “I feel like I hurt him. I feel like I was like a broken glass that stabbed him, that could have hurt him. So I feel guilty that this happened.”
She believes that something must have broken him to cause him to shoot innocent people – resulting in the deaths of seven people.
“He was kind of the last person I’d suspect,” Amy said. “Obviously something pushed him to this.”
Crimo was charged Tuesday with seven first-degree murders for his alleged parade massacre. He faces a mandatory life sentence if convicted.