Reported by Douglass Dowty, Sistina Giordano and Marnie Eisenstadt

Syracuse, N.Y. -- When he got on the school bus, girls sitting alone moved to the outside of the seat so there would be no room for him.

When Renz wanted to talk in class, first he had to cover the tracheotomy hole in his neck with his finger so people could hear him, said a friend who graduated from East Syracuse-Minoa High School with Renz.

Renz’s life was dominated by his deformity, his friends and family friends say. But now it is dominated by the unthinkable things police say he did March 14.

Renz, 29, was charged that day with kidnapping, stabbing and killing school librarian Lori Bresnahan and raping a 10-year-old girl. Police said he followed them in the parking lot of Great Northern Mall and attacked them.

Renz was already on pretrial probation for federal child pornography charges. He was charged Jan. 9 with having more than 3,000 images of children involved in sex acts on his computer. On Jan. 11, federal prosecutors and Magistrate Judge Andrew Baxter decided that Renz could be free while he waited for trial as long as he wore an electronic monitor.

Two months later, officials alleged he outsmarted the monitoring system, broke his court-ordered curfew and committed crimes that left Central New York horrified.

Renz’s old friends and people who had never heard of him wondered the same thing: What kind of person could do what police say he did?

"The kid with the weird looking face"

Renz was born missing the lower half of his left jaw and part of his cheekbone.

From infancy, fixing Renz’s face was the center of his life and his family’s. A family friend who attended the Worldwide Church of God said he remembers Renz’s parents coming to church when Renz was just a baby.

“There were always prayer requests being made for David. Week after week, surgery after surgery,” said the parishioner, who didn’t want to be identified because he was worried his house would be vandalized like Renz's mom's house was last weekend.

David Renz as a teen.

The man and his family took care of Renz’s younger brother a few times when Renz was having surgery out of town. He said the medical condition Renz has is hereditary. Renz’s father had it along with Renz’s younger brother, but it was much less pronounced in them, said the family friend. The man said the family struggled with money in part because of Renz’s surgeries.

Renz’s sister, who also has the hereditary condition, described it her MySpace page. She didn’t have jaw-lengthening surgery, she wrote. David Renz did.

“They go in and break or cut the bone and put metal screws into the 2 pieces of lower jaw bones. The screws have to be turned so much each day rebreaking the new bone that has grown,” she wrote. Those screws would have been visible on Renz’s face, she wrote.

But David Renz had another story he told kids: It was a car accident that made his face the way it was, said his friend from grade school.

“He would always be gone for weeks at a time, missing school, all for reconstructive facial surgeries,” said that friend, who kept in touch with Renz until around the time of his arrest in January. “He used to look 20 times worse than how he looks now.”

One of his first memories of Renz is the boy putting his hand up in class to talk, then the entire class staring as he put his hand over his throat so he could be heard. The tracheotomy hole was closed up in a surgery later in elementary school, said another family friend.

When it was time to be picked for anything, Renz was always last, the friend said. “He would be the last to be called for when we played sports in gym. He was the last one who would find a partner for reading time or whatever it was,” said the friend.

Like everyone else contacted for this story, that friend couldn’t imagine what happened to Renz or where his life turned from the polite computer guy to a monster.

The "smart kid"

As far back as grade school, Renz loved computers.

Gloria Kyser, who took care of Renz after school, said Renz knew how to work a computer better than most adults.

At 8, he was a computer whiz, Kyser said, and had four computers of his own. But he lived in a cluttered trailer in Cicero that looked like something out of the TV show “Hoarders,” she said. And his parents’ religion kept Renz from celebrating Christmas and birthdays, she said.

Their church, Worldwide Church of God, is a fundamentalist Christian group that doesn't celebrate Christmas and celebrates the Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday.

Kyser's son, Todd, and Renz were an unlikely match. Todd – who declined to be interviewed - was big and popular. Renz was small and quiet. Kyser never recalled Renz having a girlfriend. Through at least middle school, he never went to the school dances, she said.

He talked about computers. He liked being the one with the answers, Kyser said. Renz helped Todd with algebra when he struggled.

Renz also played in school bands in the percussion section. And he was an incessant air drummer, said his school friend.That friend, who was in advanced math, science, social studies and English classes with Renz throughout junior high and high school, said he and Renz were always done with their work before everyone else, so they’d goof off on computers.

David Renz's high school yearbook photo.

Janice Dowling, the principal at East-Syracuse Minoa High School when Renz went there, recalled him as a bright kid who took advanced placement courses in several subjects. Though he’d had many surgeries by that point, she said his facial deformity was still pronounced.

She said he was never in trouble and was a bit of a loner, but not unlike other bright kids.

Renz graduated from high school in 2001. In the fall of that year, his father dropped dead of a heart attack at age 56.

"The Blank Slate"

Renz went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2002 to 2005. The school is well known for its computer science and engineering programs. Renz was in the materials engineering program there. No one would say why he left.

According to Renz’s Facebook page, he began working at the James Street Wegmans in 2004. When he left after being charged early this year with possessing child pornography, Renz had risen to an assistant manager, according to Renz’s Facebook page.

A Wegmans worker, who didn’t want to be identified, said Renz was a quiet guy who did his job. He worked the podium in the center of the store – helping cashiers and customers. In the break room, Renz usually read while everyone else watched ESPN.

Renz attended OCC studying computer science for two semesters: Fall 2006 and Spring 2007.

That was around the same time that Renz began collecting child pornography, according to the criminal complaint against him in federal court.

There is an indication that Renz got into trouble when he was a teen. According to a report on CNY Central, Renz had another victim. She was 9 at the time and Renz was 15. He had her sit on his lap while he masturbated, according to the news report.

Her case was investigated by the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office abused person’s unit, she said, and it went through the family court system. Renz had to go to counseling at the Huntington Center and his church, according to the report.

In 2011, Renz graduated with a degree in computer science from SUNY Oswego. He graduated with honors, but professors there did not remember him as exceptional, a professor said.

"He's a bit of a blank slate to us," said the professor, who didn't want to be named. He said Renz was on campus the minimum amount of time he had to be. He came to class and spent as little time in the lab as he needed to. The professor remembered that he struggled when he had to give oral presentations.



"The Shadylizard"

On his Facebook page, Renz’s favorite quote is about isolation: “While some build walls to protect themselves, others build walls to see who's willing to break through them.”

David Renz's mug shot from March 14.

On MySpace, Renz calls himself “The Shadylizard.” And describes himself this way: “To sum me up, I’m short, funny and Asian … although everyone from (Illinois) says I’m angry. Enjoy the rest.”

Renz’s mom’s family are of Japanese descent from Hawaii.

His profile says he's 5-foot-3 and looking for a relationship with a woman.

Renz has numerous photos on MySpace of him playing paintball, including an image of him on a team. Few of the photos show Renz's face clearly.

His favorite song is “Indestructible” by Disturbed. It talks about surviving war and battle, winning against all odds. “Take a last look around while you're alive, I'm an indestructible, Master of war.”

But now, Onondaga County Sheriff’s deputies are worried that Renz will die by his own hand before he can be tried for what police say he did. He’s on 24-hour suicide watch at the Justice Center Jail.



Contact Marnie Eisenstadt at meisenstadt@syracuse.com or 315-470-2246. Contact Douglass Dowty at 315-470-6070 or ddowty@syracuse.com.