Family, Classmates Reflect On Fauquier Teen's Home Life: Reports

FAUQUIER COUNTY, VA — As Josh Norwood and a Fauquier County community deal with the grief caused by the death of Norwood's wife and young son, friends and family members also are struggling to determine what led Norwood's older son, Levi, to allegedly kill his mother and little brother.

The Fauquier County Sheriff's Office said Levi Norwood, a junior at Liberty High School in Bealeton, killed his mother, Jennifer Norwood, 34, and 6-year-old brother Wyatt and shot his father Josh Norwood, 37, last Friday.

After the killings, Levi Norwood. 17, allegedly fled his family's house in the community of Midland and traveled on foot about 10 miles, where he stole a car, according to the sheriff's office. Norwood then fled to Durham, North Carolina, in the stolen car, where he was caught shoplifting at a Target, police said.

Norwood is expected to be returned soon to Virginia, where he faces arraignment on the two murder charges in juvenile court. Scott Hook, Fauquier’s commonwealth’s attorney, will decide whether to leave the case in juvenile court or seek to try him as an adult.

Classmates of Levi Norwood are recounting stories that Norwood would tell them about his parents' views on race. Norwood feared bringing home friends who were African American because of his parents' racism, classmates told the Washington Post. In an interview with the newspaper, a classmate said Norwood's parents didn’t have a problem with Asian kids like him, but they would say derogatory things about black students.

Norwood's parents were "really prejudiced, as much as I hate to say this,” a relative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper.

When Levi was only 3 years old, Josh "used to say the n-word all the time,” the relative told the Post. The relative also said Josh Norwood was upset that Levi was dating a black girl.

According to the Washington Post article, published Wednesday night, a Facebook page allegedly belonging to Norwood includes a white supremacist motto known as the “14 words”: “We must secure the existence of our race, and a future for white children.”

In an interview with the Post, Josh Norwood denied being a white supremacist. He admitted to posting a white supremacist motto on his Facebook page in 2014 but said it was “nothing that I believe or stand for.”

In comments that he reportedly posted on the Fauquier Now website, Norwood also denied suggestions that he is a white supremacist. “I am far from a neo nazi, or anything like that,” he allegedly wrote.

"The fact of the matter is my wife and child are gone and this is not what is needed now, the memory of Wyatt and Jen needs to be the focus, not the evil murderer that took them away," Josh Norwood allegedly wrote in a comment on the Fauquier Now website.

After coming home around 6 p.m. on Valentine's Day and finding his wife and younger son dead, Norwood said he fired his own gun, which he carries with him, at the basement, according to the Post, then ran out of the house and asked a passing driver to call 911.

Josh Norwood told the Post he doesn’t know how his son got the gun. He keeps the family’s firearms in a double-locked safe to which the teenager didn’t have access, the father said.

An aunt of Josh Norwood, Victoria Eaton, told Fox 5 DC on Monday that Levi Norwood had trouble at home. "It was not an easy home life for him," Eaton said in the interview. "I very much want to hear what Levi has to say about the events that occurred."