As news spread about an active shooter on the FSU campus in Tallahassee, Anne-Mari Eriksen found herself among many worried parents desperately trying to reach their children at the school.
A deadly shooting on the campus of Florida State University left two people dead and six others injured after the gunman opened fire using a law enforcement-issued handgun. As the situation unfolded in Tallahassee, Anne-Mari Eriksen was among the many parents desperately trying to reach their children, hoping for reassurance amid the chaos.
What she didn’t expect was to learn—through a Thursday afternoon press conference—that her own son was the suspect.
Police identified the shooter as 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner of which authorities later confirmed he was the son of sheriff’s deputy Jessica Ikner and had used her department-issued firearm in the attack.
Eriksen maintains that she is the biological mother of Ikner. She and Ikner's father were previously engaged in a contentious legal dispute, and it appears that Ikner has primarily been raised by his father and Jessica. She expressed her anger in a Facebook post around 4 PM, just moments before her son was identified as the perpetrator of the crime.
Just two hours after Anne-Mari Eriksen shared a concerning message online, a friend responded: “Are you ok?”
In the now-deleted post, Eriksen expressed frustration and alarm over her son’s well-being and his family situation.
“Horrible when your alienating son's dad is as mentally unstable as he is, along with his LCSO cop wife, that they can't respond when you write to ask if everything is alright with my son, who studies ar [sic] FSU,” she wrote.
She continued: “That whole familly [sic] is nuts. He should write a book on how to parent badly, but he can't communicate.”
Then, in a shift of tone, she added: “Feel sorry for everyone at FSU and their kids.”
Deputy Jessica Ikner
Court records reviewed in connection with the case show a complex family history. Eriksen previously faced charges for taking her son out of the United States without consent during an ongoing custody dispute. She reportedly traveled with him to Norway, where both are dual citizens.
The case was one of several disputes documented over the years. At one point, Eriksen was issued a court order prohibiting her from contacting her son, his father, or his father’s wife, Deputy Jessica Ikner. Authorities later confirmed that Deputy Ikner’s service weapon was used in the Florida State University shooting.
The court order also restricted Eriksen from engaging with her son’s school, teachers, medical providers, counselors, and extracurricular programs. She was ordered to pay over $30,000 in restitution and sentenced to 200 days in jail—170 of which had already been served at the time of sentencing.
Throughout those legal filings, her son was referred to by the name “Christian Eriksen,” though it’s believed he later changed his name. His maternal grandmother made a public attempt to reach him at one point, posting a message referencing his Norwegian citizenship and encouraging him to visit Norway.
In the years following the court proceedings, Eriksen shared social media posts related to parental alienation. She appeared to express interest in reestablishing contact with her son. There is no indication the two had reconnected prior to the events at Florida State University.
On Thursday, two adults were killed in the campus shooting. Authorities confirmed that five others were wounded by gunfire, and one additional person was injured while attempting to flee the scene. The suspect was also injured and remains hospitalized. According to police, his injuries are serious but not life-threatening.
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell called the attack “heinous” during a press briefing and confirmed that the investigation is still active. Law enforcement continues to gather evidence and conduct interviews with witnesses and individuals who knew the suspect.
Multiple students have since come forward with accounts describing the suspect’s behavior in the months leading up to the shooting. Some stated that he was removed from a university political group after making statements that other members considered inappropriate and extremist in nature.
One former student, Reid Seybold, said the group had a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech and decided to revoke the suspect’s participation due to his rhetoric. Another student, Riley Pusins, who belonged to a different campus discussion forum, recalled that the suspect regularly attended meetings and often pushed boundaries in conversation, particularly during informal discussions.
Both students reported that while the groups were intended to be inclusive and nonpartisan, the suspect frequently expressed far-right political views and support for former President Donald Trump. According to university records, the suspect was a political science major and a registered Republican voter.
In a previous campus publication, the suspect was quoted speaking dismissively about protests following the 2024 election, stating there was little that could be done to stop Trump’s second inauguration. He described student protesters as “entertaining,” though not, in his view, effective.
According to a local church, the suspect was baptized in 2024. In the days before the shooting, he reportedly updated his Instagram biography to include a quote from the Book of Jeremiah: “You are my war club, my weapons for battle, with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms.”
On the day of the incident, several videos surfaced on social media showing students running across campus while gunshots rang out in the background. In one widely shared clip, a wounded individual is seen being carried by emergency responders. The footage captured the intensity and confusion of the scene as it unfolded.
The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Authorities have not released a formal motive. The university has since increased security measures, and crisis counselors have been made available to students and staff. Community members have begun organizing vigils to honor the victims.
Officials are continuing to interview witnesses, review digital records, and examine the suspect’s online activity and associations as they work to understand the events that led to the attack.
According to Leon County court records, in 2015, Phoenix Ikner’s biological mother violated a custody order by taking him out of the state. She told the boy’s father she was simply taking him on a spring break trip, but instead, she took him to Norway.
Phoenix was around 10 years old at the time of the kidnapping.
In March 2015, Anne-Mari Eriksen, Phoenix’s biological mother, took him to Norway, against the terms of their custody agreement, as detailed in a probable cause affidavit.
While in Norway, Phoenix’s father claims that Anne-Mari repeatedly avoided his inquiries about when the child would return to the United States.
During their time abroad, Phoenix—who was still known as Christian Gunnar Eriksen at the time—missed important school tests, medical appointments, and crucial medications for his diagnosed growth hormone disorder and ADHD, as outlined in the affidavit.
In the aftermath of something this devastating, there’s often a silence—not just the emotional kind, but the procedural one. The sirens fade. The news alerts slow. And behind it all, the legal system starts to turn, quietly, piece by piece.
The suspect is still in the hospital, recovering under police watch. Once he’s cleared by doctors, the process will move forward. Prosecutors are expected to file serious charges—likely multiple counts of murder, along with attempted murder and charges related to bringing a gun onto school grounds. The legal terms are predictable, but the path ahead rarely is.
One question investigators are already digging into is how the suspect got the weapon. Authorities say it belonged to his stepmother, Deputy Jessica Ikner, who works in law enforcement. She hasn’t been accused of doing anything wrong. Still, in a case like this, when a service weapon ends up at the center of a school shooting, how it changed hands becomes part of the story—and likely part of the case.
There’s also the matter of mental health. If the suspect has a history—therapy, treatment, a diagnosis—that could influence how things unfold in court. His defense team may push for a psychiatric evaluation. Sometimes that changes how a case is argued. Sometimes it changes how a sentence is decided. These are the kinds of questions courts are built to wrestle with, even when answers are messy or incomplete.
Beyond the criminal side, there may be civil consequences, too. If anyone—on campus or off—raised concerns about the suspect that weren’t taken seriously, that could open the door to lawsuits or institutional reviews. Those kinds of proceedings take time. They happen slowly, sometimes quietly, but they matter just as much.
For now, the focus is where it should be—on the people trying to pick up the pieces. Families burying loved ones. Classmates trying to feel safe again. Faculty figuring out how to talk to students. The legal system will do what it does: gather facts, file charges, prepare for court. But the emotional weight of this moment? That’s something only time and truth can begin to carry.
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