Media darling

Ryan Routh, suspected of being a would-be Donald Trump assassin, has a long history of finding his way into the news--including as a "super citizen" honored by police in 1991.

Today Ryan Routh is best known as the 58-year-old who is suspected of trying to assassinate Donald Trump less than 24 hours ago.

But he's no newcomer to the public eye.

And although he has a criminal history that's already been extensively reported, Routh hasn’t always been on the wrong side of the law.

As a 25-year-old, Routh was awarded a Law Enforcement Oscar by the Greensboro chapter of the International Union of Police Associations, according to an August 27, 1991 front-page story in The News & Record, the Greensboro, North Carolina newspaper.

Hearing a woman’s cries from the roof of a nearby office building, Routh went to the property, fought and chased a suspected rapist and helped police in the subsequent investigation of the incident. Dramatic, heroic stuff.

"I was happy to be in the right place at the right time," Routh modestly told reporter Bernie Woodall.

By then, Routh had already demonstrated a knack for securing publicity that is reminiscent of Trump.

The previous year, on April 22, 1990, he was featured, along with his wife Lora, on the front page of the Sunday Real Estate section of The News & Record after they renovated a long-vacant house:

An excerpt:

“The couple, both of whom are 24, bought the 1,600-square-foot house for sentimental reasons. The house…is the first Ryan Routh ever re-roofed after starting his own roofing contractor business.”

It doesn’t require a public relations degree to see this as an extraordinary marketing moment for Routh. If I were in his shoes, I’d have made this story an essential part of any sales pitch for my roofing enterprise. And his renown as a crime-fighting “super citizen” surely must have bolstered his reputation.

Maybe it’s a coincidence and he was again in the right place at the right time, but a little over three months after getting the spotlight for his crime-fighting heroism, Routh makes a cameo on page 4 of the December 10, 1991 edition of The News & Observer.

There’s a relatively quiet eight-year period that follows, at least as far as the newspapers’ archives suggest. His second child’s arrival gets a mention in a standard listing of local births, and Routh is quoted in a 1993 story on someone else’s Christmas decorations.

On October 3, 1999, however, comes another splash about his zeal for Halloween decorations. There’s mention of a party attended by 150 people and, of course, that Routh is a contractor. (Click on any of the newspaper images to enlarge them and read the articles.)

An excerpt:

"A historic log mansion in Julian, the home of Ryan and Lora Routh, is ablaze with Halloween decorations, outshining the surrounding gold and rust forest. Hay bales and bound cornstalks decorate the porch. Orange pumpkin lights and red apples festoon the metal roof over an old stone wishing well. White skeleton head lights frame the windows. Ghosts (well, sheets) waft from the shade trees."

Then things went awry. In an incident that’s received lots of media coverage since yesterday afternoon, here’s a clip from December 17, 2002:

Less than two years later, in August 2004, Routh had bounced back enough to be able to submit this essay to the newspaper:

After moving to Hawaii, Routh offered to build a tiny house in response to a homeless problem. A thoughtful gesture—and one that also showed his flair for media savvy hadn’t faded, as this November 18, 2019 story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser indicates:

In recent years, Routh has also been interviewed by other media, such as The New York Times last year when he said he was trying to assist Ukraine after Russia’s invasion there.

On a more local level, over the past five years he’s been a repeat “letter to the editor” contributor to the Star-Advertiser. This one, from last November 25, was curmudgeonly:

The most recent one that I could find (above) was from April 25, 2024. Though the subject is burning trash, the final line is intriguing in light of his present legal predicament:

“We better have a new solution,” Routh concluded, “before we kill our old solutions.”