Background: Ashley Pardo appears in court on Friday after being arrested on charges of endangering a child (KSAT). Inset: Ashley Pardo’s mug shot from her arrest in May (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office).
A Texas mother, accused of conspiring with her adolescent son to execute a mass shooting at a middle school, is now also facing allegations of menacing an 11-month-old baby with a shotgun.
Ashley Pardo, 33, was initially taken into custody on May 12, charged with aiding terrorism for allegedly purchasing tactical gear and ammunition for her 13-year-old son. Authorities apprehended the boy near a San Antonio middle school and he remains detained. Released on bond, Pardo now faces accusations of child endangerment and criminal negligence after an investigation revealed she allegedly took a photo pointing a shotgun at an 11-month-old girl in 2023.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by KSAT, Pardo allegedly forwarded the photo to the child’s father with a message stating, “Tell her to keep being bad.”
KSAT reported that Pardo was taken into custody on the new charges on Thursday, appearing before a magistrate judge on Friday. She was given a $45,000 bond and forbidden from contacting her children. Previously, Pardo was on partial house arrest after securing a $75,000 bond concerning charges linked to her son’s alleged school attack plan at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio.
Per the arrest affidavit, the recent charges arise from the investigation into Pardo’s initial case. During their inquiry, police retrieved photos from Pardo’s phone dated March 2023 depicting her aiming a shotgun at the head of a baby girl, then 11 months old. The affidavit indicated that Pardo described the girl to her father as a “brat.”
In another text that she reportedly sent to the baby’s father along with the photo including the shotgun, Pardo allegedly wrote, “Tell her to keep being bad.” The affidavit stated that Pardo had her finger on the shotgun’s trigger as the baby reached towards the barrel.
Pardo was arrested again on Thursday and charged with abandoning or endangering a child with criminal negligence.
Pardo’s 13-year-old son was originally charged with terrorism, but now faces a charge of possessing a prohibited weapon. He remains in custody and could face more criminal charges. At the time of his arrest in May, police stated that they found evidence of his fascination with mass shooting incidents and white supremacists.
In January, police questioned him over “concerning drawings” he had made of Rhodes Middle School that allegedly depicted a muzzle flash and a “suicide route.” The boy was suspended from Rhodes Middle School in April and sent to an alternative school after he was found to have searched the New Zealand mosque shootings from 2019 on his school-issued computer.
On the day he was found near the school and arrested, the boy reportedly told his grandmother he was “going to be famous.”
At the time of Pardo’s arrest in May, police said that she “expressed to the school her support” for her son’s “violent expressions and drawings.”
