Loughner's Parents Could Release Statement Today

The parents of suspected Arizona shooter Jared Loughner could break their silence and release a statement today, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The Journal quotes neighbors who met with the couple on Monday, and says Randy and Amy Loughner have already prepared a public statement and it's just a question of when they will release it. However, the statement will most likely be coordinated with the local sheriff.

"They're hurting real bad," neighbor Wayne Smith told the Journal. "They are devastated."

But they're also reportedly elusive. They have not been seen since the tragedy, and yesterday FBI agents who tried to question the couple were greeted by a boarded-up front door. Agents had to use the back entrance, and only gained entry after yelling commands.

That's apparently not too odd for Randy. "Even in normal times," the Journal says, "many on his block describe the elder Mr. Loughner as a reclusive man who had little time for neighborhood niceties."

"They liked their privacy," another neighbor George Gayan told the Journal.  Sometimes "I didn't see him for three or four days."

Smith, who has lived across the street from the Loughners since 1972, said he didn't even know the couple's last name until after the incident. But that didn't stop him from informing the couple on Saturday, after they had returned from a shopping trip to see police taping off their house, from informing them that their son was a suspect in the shooting rampage that was gripping the city at the time.

"She almost passed out right there," he recalled. "He sat in the road with the tape up and cried."

Read the entire WSJ article.