PALM BAY, Fla. – A year after a man killed a priest, the priest’s sister, his own grandfather, and also wounded two officers, there could finally be an answer why Palm Bay police said Brandon Kapas went on the shooting rampage.
On Jan. 28, 2024, police said they killed the 24-year-old gunman after he shot first and killed his grandfather who intervened.
Police were called to a family member’s house about Kapas acting aggressively.
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Police said Kappas had a lot of guns and ammo in his car. It turned out, the car was registered to a retired priest who bought Kapas that car.
When police tried talking to that priest, however, they found Father Bob Hoeffner and his sister, Sally Hoeffner, were dead too.
Ever since then, the community has speculated what might have set the shooter off.
News 6 reporter James Sparvero checked back in with police and got a report we’ve never seen until now. In the 76-page case report, the Kapas family told police that although Kapas never said anything, they believed that Father Hoeffner abused him.
Kapas and Hoeffner met when Hoeffner was a priest at Kapas’ Catholic school, St. Joseph’s on Babcock Street.
Police heard from one of Kapas’ old classmates who said Hoeffner had the boys over at his house to help with yard work.
That person then said Hoeffner inappropriately touched him on three separate occasions, but he didn’t know if that ever happened to Kapas, too.
The night before the shooting, the police said that Kapas texted Hoeffner that he was coming over.
Text messages from Kapas’ phone read in-part, “You have woken up all of Egypt.. Ancient ones know what you have done..”
As police got to the crime scene, investigators went into the office at Hoeffner’s house where they said they found a folder with notes about abuse.
“There were 46 white pages of handwritten notes consisting of stories of child sexual abuse,” the report reads.
News 6 reached out to the Diocese of Orlando for a response to the report. The Diocese of Orlando responded Friday with the following:
We continue to mourn with the Palm Bay community for the loss of these four lives and the officers who were wounded. We pray for all involved.
We will not speculate about the motivation of the tragic events that occurred one year ago.
Diocese of Orlando
In his long career, Hoeffner was also a priest at other Central Florida parishes.
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