"He was very quiet and evasive," said Nancy Freeman, who has lived in the same neighborhood for 50 years. "I had no reason to think he would act different except for one conversation. Just like what one of the people in the paper said, he began to act different."
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Freeman says he would often do handyman jobs for other neighbors. He worked occasionally with Jin Molnar who said DePape wanted to keep to himself.
"He kind of made it clear that he didn't want to engage socially with people," Molnar said. "He would respond to a question or to an inquiry, but he wouldn't elaborate on it."
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Court Documents show DePape lived in a garage. Residents say he lived there for at least two years. They say he started to get interested in conspiracy theories.
"He was looking to some ideas that were out there in politics and the social sphere to solve some really deep seeded personal problems of his," Molnar said. "I think he was transferring his own frustration confusion and failures and inabilities to the outside world."
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Molnar said he hoped he could have intervened, but when someone doesn't want to interact socially, there is not much he could have done.
"I didn't maybe try harder to be a buddy with him or get in with him or talk to him about things," Molnar said. "But then again, he was an adult and he made it clear what his preferences were about associating with people."
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