Parents of Arizona man who threatened to assassinate Trump communicate out

The elderly parents of the man said to be behind a second attempt on the life of Donald Trump have spoken out about how anger and hatred consumed his life.

Lee and Phyllis Syvrud told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview, they knew their son Ronald, a convicted sex offender with a long rap sheet, detested Trump – but they don’t believe he would have followed through on his threats.

‘I think it’s just him trying to get attention and talk tough,’ Phyllis, 89, told DailyMail.com.

‘He was filled with hatred,’ she added. ‘He drank more and more. He was getting angrier and angrier. I’ve told Lee he needs help.’

The couple said he’s been in numerous failed relationships and been fired from multiple jobs working in warehouses.

‘It’s just been one situation after another,’ the mom said as she spoke at their roomy, well-maintained home a half-hour north of Madison.

Syvrud, 66, was arrested on Thursday, 35 miles from the spot where Trump was touring the border in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Cops say he had posted a series of messages on social media threatening the life of the former president.

His mother said Syvrud called her shortly after Thomas Crooks shot Trump, hitting him in the ear, on July 13.

‘When he called, I answered the phone,’ Phyllis told DailyMail.com of the day Trump narrowly missed death.

‘He didn’t say “Hi, ma” or anything else. He just said, “One inch!” That’s it. And I said, “Yeah, one inch.”

‘His dislike of Trump is as bad as ours,’ she added. ‘He doesn’t like all his lying. But I’ve never heard him make a threat before.’

‘It’s Trump’s own admission that he wants to be a dictator,’ Lee, 92, chimed in. ‘That scares the sh*t out of me. I had four brothers in the service in the Second World War.

‘I don’t want another Hitler.’

Choking back tears, the mom added: ‘I always told him – just like Kamala said – if you don’t like him, do something. Vote.’

Syvrud was brought up in Windsor, Wisconsin, where his parents still live, but moved to Arizona several years ago. 

For the last few months he has lived with blonde girlfriend Dawn Batchelder in a trailer park in Benson, 50 miles southeast of Tucson.

Batchelder, 54, would not comment when contacted by DailyMail.com, at the home which is festooned with Harley Davidson memorabilia.

In subsequent texts with a DailyMail.com reporter she wrote ‘F**k off’, ‘Go f**k yourself’ and ‘Get bent.’

Others living in the sleepy Palo Blanco Lakes retirement complex told of a bitter braggart who made their lives hell.

One park resident, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from Syvrud and Batchelder, said: ‘He would constantly swagger around in a vest and no shirt, telling people how great he is.

‘He liked to wear big rings on every finger too.’

She told how he used the alias ‘Rudy Lee’ when he first moved in in November which allowed him to evade criminal background checks that would have revealed him to be a pedophile who was convicted of abusing a 13-year-old girl in 2000.

A manager at the park said they had been trying to boot him out for months.

Neighbors said the angry senior had savagely battered Batchelder during a drunken fight two months ago, but charges were dropped at her request.

‘We all celebrated when he was arrested,’ added the neighbor who said he had been an aggressive presence in the community.

‘He did the job of getting rid of himself by himself thanks to Trump. He’s definitely got my vote now.’

One man described Syvrud as ‘the neighbor from hell’ and said he was glad he was gone.

Another said that Batchelder was left seething after cops, the Secret Service, and FBI descended on their trailer home and searched both it and her navy-blue Nissan Altima.

She was later heard berating neighbors demanding to know who had alerted the authorities

Her grizzled boyfriend had already left the scene by the time the cops arrived and was eight miles south of the home when he was cornered.

Syvrud’s parents said they first discovered he was in trouble when his girlfriend Batchelder called them, leaving a startling message saying he had ‘really screwed himself by posting something on Facebook about Trump and a gun and a scope and all this other crap.’

The message, reviewed exclusively by DailyMail.com, continued, ‘And now we’ve got the CIA and Secret Service looking for him. And from what he just told me 10 minutes ago, the cops were there to get him.’

Phyllis picked up the call at that point and asked for elaboration. ‘She told me he put out there that he was going to buy a scope for his gun,’ Phyllis said.

‘She said she’d never even seen Ron have a gun, and I said “Right, he doesn’t have a gun. He’s never had a gun.”‘

Later the same day, Batchelder called again to say Syvrud had been arrested and banged up in the Cochise County Jail.

Authorities said Syvrud threatened to kill Trump in multiple postings in the past couple of weeks but wouldn’t elaborate on what he wrote.

Police said there were several warrants out for his arrest including for a DUI and failure to appear in court in Wisconsin, and for failure to re-register as a sex offender and for a felony hit and run in Arizona.

Syvrud’s parents said the sex abuse case occurred in 2000 and saw their son plead no contest to second-degree sexual assault of a child – for which he received several months in jail and had to register as a sex offender.

They said they don’t believe their grown son abused the child, who they described as a ‘13-year-old girl,’ but acknowledged he has serious problems and has been repeatedly arrested, often for drunk driving.

They also said he’s been suicidal in the past. He’s been upset over the death of his younger brother Gregory to cancer in 2022.

He’s also grown increasingly frustrated with what he’s considered unfair treatment by law enforcement, including arrests for drunk driving when he claims he was merely sleeping in a parked car.

He was also furious a couple of years back when his prized Harley Davidson got stolen and he felt police did nothing to investigate.

‘I’m not defending his behavior,’ Lee told DailyMail.com. ‘I’m just saying this is why he continued to be mad at the authorities for not doing enough for him.’

In recent weeks, the parents said, they’ve been trying to get him to go home to Wisconsin to receive therapy and to get hospital care for pain he’s been experiencing in his legs.

They say he has nerve damage and blackening of his skin.

‘We want him to come home and get better, to take care of his leg and get himself in therapy and take care of that DUI stuff,’ Lee told DailyMail.com.

‘I told Ron that, yeah, you can’t keep doing this to yourself,’ the mom said. ‘He does need medical attention and therapy.

‘He needs it so bad because he’s so angry and hateful. We talk and he starts swearing and I say, ‘Ron, you’re talking to your mother.’ And he’ll say, “I’m sorry mom”.

‘He doesn’t mean it, but he’s so angry.

‘We worry, we really worry.’

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels had been forced to ramp up security in the area around the section of border wall near Sierra Vista that Trump was visiting last week as the search went on for Syvrud.

‘We have zero tolerance for any kind of threats or intents of violence, so we’ll find him. He’ll go to jail,’ Dannels said.

‘He’s a registered sex offender here in Cochise County, and we were looking for him. He’s out of compliance as part of his violations. So we’re looking for him on that.

‘We’re going to arrest him on that. But also the fact his pulse was obviously directed toward this event. So we want to talk to him about that.’

In a statement following his arrest, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said: ‘Intelligence developed led to a possible location in the St David area and multiple units deployed to the location.

‘At approximately 2.15pm, units on scene observed the suspect traveling outside the identified location, and a felony stop was conducted.

‘Syvrud was taken into custody without further incident at approximately 2.30pm. Syvrud was subsequently booked into the Cochise County Jail. He remains in custody pending further court adjudication.’