Ryan Routh, who has been charged with attempted assassination, ‘definitely would have pulled the trigger,’ says woman who raised alarms.
KAAAWA, HAWAII, and GREENSBORO, N.C.—Mysteries enshroud Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old man charged with attempting to kill former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course.
But one thing about Routh is clear to humanitarian aid worker Chelsea Walsh, a travel nurse who met him overseas.
Walsh, who warned U.S. authorities that Routh was dangerous more than two years ago, now says this about the foiled assassination attempt: “The Ryan I know, he definitely would have pulled the trigger without a second thought; I think they got him just in time.”
A few hundred yards away from the spot where Trump was golfing on Sept. 15, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel jutting through a brush-covered fence. The agent fired, causing the hidden gunman to flee. Police later arrested the suspect, identified as Routh.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Walsh said federal officials should have done more to stop Routh sooner, based on alarms she and others raised about the eccentric man who gave her the creeps in Kyiv, Ukraine.
She met him through international networks that were assisting Ukraine after Russia invaded in early 2022.
Many of Routh’s actions—ranging from his militant advocacy in Ukraine to the alleged assassination attempt—defy easy explanation. So does Routh’s path to infamy. It began in his native North Carolina, then wound its way to Hawaii, Ukraine, and eventually Florida.
Interviews, public records, and news accounts reveal a once-promising life that crumbled under the weight of legal, financial, and apparent personal turmoil.
Strange but Harmless?
Walsh and others who knew Routh told The Epoch Times that his demeanor seemed odd; people wondered what was going on beneath his tousled shock of dishwater-blond hair.
On first blush, Walsh and others dismissed his quirkiness as benign.
But Walsh detected something sinister in Routh soon after meeting him in Ukraine on May 25, 2022—a date she knows because it’s memorialized in a text message from him.
