PHOENIX

What drove Phoenix duo to murderous Texas plot?

Sean Holstege and Matthew Casey
The Republic | azcentral.com
Elton Simpson was identified as one of the two gunmen shot and killed Sunday night after they tried to approach a contest held to mock the Prophet Mohammed in Garland, Texas. This photo shows Simpson with members of the Glendale Washington High School basketball team in 2001.

Relatives and acquaintances ­offered new glimpses Wednesday into the mind-set of two Phoenix men killed this week by a police officer as they ­attempted to carry out a planned attack at an anti-Muslim cartoon contest in Texas.

Elton Simpson, 30, and Nadir Soofi, 34, endured personal trials that shaped their lives and put them on a deadly path toward a Dallas suburb.

Specifically, the FBI accused ­Simpson of waging jihad in Africa, while Soofi struggled to keep his son and his business.

The roommates burst into the news Sunday when they tried to pull off plans to shoot attendees at a contest for Prophet Muhammad cartooning, an ­exercise offensive to many Muslims.

Federal authorities continue to probe the men's pasts for evidence of ties to Islamic terrorist groups.

Although ISIS, also known as the ­Islamic State, claimed to be behind ­Sunday's plot, counterterrorism ­officials cautioned that the group has a history of taking credit for attacks that it did not direct.

No evidence had surfaced that ISIS inspired them to begin shooting at police Sunday in Garland, Texas.

Soofi's relatives said he was a devout Muslim, but never a radical. They said Simpson, the son of a plumber in Illinois and a teenage convert to Islam, must have brainwashed Soofi.

But an attorney who represented Simpson in a federal case disputed that, saying, "He never seemed to be a ­leader."

One woman who worked with Soofi said he seemed scarred by a parental custody battle.

It remains unclear why or how the roommates came to embrace violence.

Soofi was born in Dallas and lived in Garland in his early years. His father was a Pakistan native. In the Phoenix area, Soofi ran a carpet business and a pizza parlor.

In 2012, a California company sued Soofi and the north Phoenix Cleopatra Bistro Pizza. Plaintiffs claimed he had unfairly profited from pirated pay-per-view sports broadcasts. They wanted $170,000 in damages.

In January 2013, the court ordered Soofi to pay $2,000. He removed his ownership in the company.

In the summer of 2013, Soofi entered a custody battle for his son. Both he and the boy's mother declared in court documents that there had been no domestic violence and both agreed to share legal responsibility for their son, who was born in Arizona.

Soofi disclosed in court that he had started driving taxis for Total Transit a year earlier. He claimed he earned $2,500 a month before taxes, but had $2,300 in monthly bills.

By then, Soofi was living in the North 19th Avenue apartment with his former pizza-parlor employee, Elton Simpson. It was the same apartment the FBI raided Monday.

The boy's mother listed herself as a "homemaker" with no income. In September, she won custody of the boy and was awarded nearly $500 a month in child support.

The documents hint at a rift over religion. Soofi petitioned for an "appropriate holiday schedule according to parents' religious beliefs." He did not ask to reserve Christmas, Easter or Father's Day for visitation rights.

The boy's mother requested Mother's Day and some major holidays, and added in response to a question about differences of opinion, "I request that Nathaniel only celebrate my religious holidays."

The court ordered that Soofi have visitation rights for two important Muslim holidays a year.

A woman who answered to the mother's name on Tuesday by phone declined to comment.

The case scarred Soofi, according to Elizabeth Singleton, who met him when he volunteered at a Phoenix non-profit to help the homeless and mentally ill.

FBI agents search a Phoenix apartment on Monday, May 4, 2015 in Phoenix as part of the investigation into the deadly shooting outside a suburban Dallas venue hosting a provocative contest for Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

"He was expressing some of the difficulties when the relationship ended that he was not having enough access to his child," Singleton said. "The thing that stressed him the most was his relationship with his son and his ex."

Sharon Soofi, the dead attacker's mother, believes it was Simpson who orchestrated the attack.

"Must have just brainwashed him," Sharon Soofi said. "I'm not saying he's that gullible, but to be convinced to do something like this is beyond me."

But Kristina Sitton, the attorney who represented Simpson in a federal terrorism case in 2010, doesn't see it.

"I would never describe him as a radical," she said. "He was respectful. He was quiet. He was a follower."

Sitton recalls a man who never wore traditional Mideast garb, but did push his religious views on her and others.

The case revolved around statements from a confidential informant, a man Sitton described as a "Lost Boy" from Somalia. Federal prosecutors alleged in court that Simpson planned to travel to Somalia and wage jihad and charged him with lying to FBI agents over the matter.

He was convicted and given three years' probation. The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix posted $100,000 cash bond to release him from custody, Sitton said.

She never believed her client's rhetoric, even when FBI agents recorded him saying, "We gonna make it to the battlefield. It's time to roll," and "If you get shot or killed, it's (heaven) straight away."

"At the time, it sounded like talk," Sitton said.

Nor did Sitton agree with suggestions that the government's case radicalized Simpson. Simpson waived his right to appeal, never violated probation, got married and never looked back, Sitton said. The only thing that upset him was being put on a no-fly list, she said.

The picture of the aspiring jihadi warrior does not fit with the image held by his former classmates at Glendale's Washington High School.

"He was normal," said Ashley McCord, who knew Simpson since elementary school and graduated from high school with him. "He wasn't anti- ­American."