‘Reclusive’ MSU shooter Anthony McRae couldn’t hold down a job after losing mom, girlfriend: dad

LANSING, Michigan — The Michigan State University shooter turned into a recluse who couldn’t hold down a job after the death of his mother, his father said Wednesday — while blaming the devil for his son’s murders.

Anthony McRae’s father Michael told The Post he raised an “angel” child who he brought up in the church — not the madman accused of killing three college students and critically injuring five more during a shooting spree on the East Lansing campus Monday night.

“My son ain’t crazy. He was a nice kid, a good kid. He was just in his own world,” pastor-in-training McRae told The Post. “When all this happened, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it.”

“The devil is busy and sometimes in life you don’t know what’s on your kid’s mind and what they’re thinking,” the father added.

McRae, 67, said he last spoke to his 43-year-old son the morning of the mass shooting.

Anthony — who had been in and out of jobs since he stopped working at a warehouse six months ago — told his father that he was going out to look for work.

The next time Michael saw his son’s face was when it was plastered across news sites and TV stations as the face of a suspected mass shooter. He later learned Anthony shot and killed himself that night.

“When I heard it on TV, I didn’t believe it. I said, ‘woah, woah, that ain’t my son. That’s someone else’,” he told The Post. “See, I didn’t raise him that way,  I raised him in the church.”

Michael said his son went into “his own world” when his mother died and was unable to accept that she was gone.

After her death, Anthony — who lost his driver’s license years earlier — stopped going to church and secluded himself from others. He would stay in his room and play “arcade games” all day long, his father said.

“If she was still alive, this would have never happened. When his mom died, he changed because he missed mommy,” Michael told The Post. “Some people don’t get over things like that, losing somebody.”

Anthony fell into the same routine after he broke up with his girlfriend three years ago, Michael said.

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But his son was never diagnosed with schizophrenia, as others, including his uncle, suggested, the father added, insisting that his son was “not crazy.”

“I raised a good, angel kid. I raised a good kid. I didn’t raise a bad apple,” Michael said. “He turns out to be a bad apple … He did this on his own.”

Investigators are still trying to determine a motive in the mass shooting as the five injured victims remain hospitalized in critical condition. Anthony had no affiliation with the university.

Michael, who is studying to be a preacher, said evil is everywhere.

“Every day, there is something happening in the world. Every day, there is trouble-  everywhere you go,” Michael said. “God can give us peace, love and joy. The devil can kill, steal and destroy.”