DETROIT (Feb. 14, 2023) — State officials Tuesday identified 43-year-old convicted felon Anthony McRae as the attacker who shot and killed three people and wounded five others at Michigan State University.
McRae, who was found off-campus after dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, was identified less than nine hours after police lifted a campus-wide shelter-in-place order following the mass shooting.
McRae has a history with firearms. He was sentenced to 18 months in state prison in November 2019 after being convicted of possessing a loaded firearm in a vehicle. He was released from supervision in May 2021.
He lives in a 960-square-foot home on the north side of Lansing, east of Capital Region International Airport. The home is owned by his father Michael McRae. A chain link fence blocks off the front driveway.
Megan and Tyler Bender, who live on the same street as Anthony McRae, said he moved in with his father about a year ago. They said Mike McRae, Anthony's father, is a scrapper well-known in the neighborhood.
"He's never done any harm to anyone," Megan Bender said. "He's just an old man, minds his business."
But police had been called to the residence before because of the sound of gunshots, Megan Bender said. Megan Bender said Anthony McRae would fire out of the back door of the home, she believed for target practice.
Based on where Anthony McRae was found, Megan Bender believed he was headed home. She had been listening to the scanner for most of the night and when she heard where police had said the suspect had died and later traffic indicating they were being dispatched to her street, she felt relieved Anthony McRae hadn't made it back to the neighborhood.
Suzanne Shook, who also lives on the block, watched police cars descend on a home down the street Monday night after the shooting, responding to the home of the man she's seen walking and biking down the street occasionally. She said it was a shock in a neighborhood that is usually "super quiet."
"It really catches you off guard when it's close to home like this," Shook said.
Anthony McRae also has prior addresses in Bear, Del., the same hometown as Barry Croft, the convicted ringleader of the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
