Sister of suspect in Brooklyn subway shooting says ‘he’s been on his own his whole life.’

The sister of Frank R. James, the 62-year-old man suspected by the police of opening fireplace in a crowded subway automobile on Tuesday, mentioned in an interview on Wednesday that her brother had “been on his personal his entire life,” and that she had little contact with him.

The sister, Catherine James Robinson, confirmed a number of particulars about her brother, together with that he was born within the Bronx in 1959, that he was 62, and that he usually moved from metropolis to metropolis, by no means remaining in anyone place for too lengthy.

However in a quick phone interview, she mentioned that she spoke to her brother solely sometimes on the cellphone, and that she didn’t know what he did for work. They’d not seen one another face-to-face in a very long time.

Nonetheless, she mentioned she was “stunned” to see him named as a suspect in Tuesday’s taking pictures.

“I don’t suppose he would do something like that,” she mentioned. “That’s not in his nature to do something like that.”

Requested if her brother had sought psychological well being remedy, Ms. Robinson mentioned he was not mentally ailing, and bristled on the suggestion. “There was so much that went on by way of our lives,” she mentioned.

She talked about that Mr. James had appeared on podcasts and YouTube, seemingly referring to the suspect’s prolific posts on social media.

She mentioned the final time she had spoken to her brother on the cellphone was after the dying of their youthful sister, Barbara Jean Gray, from a coronary heart assault a number of years prior.

And he or she mentioned that Mr. James didn’t match the outline the police had launched concerning the suspect whom the police mentioned on Tuesday was about 5 ft 5 inches, and heavyset. She mentioned her brother was over six ft tall and about 300 kilos, and that he had a nasty again.

The police have had little luck monitoring down Mr. James. However he left loads of proof behind, partly within the movies he posted to YouTube and Fb.

Within the movies, between bigoted rants tied tenuously into present occasions, Mr. James described cross-country travels within the weeks earlier than the assault — a schedule that appeared to finish near the day of the taking pictures.

In a video posted on March 20, a Sunday, Mr. James defined that he had packed up his house, emptied his storage and set out early on a visit to Philadelphia, the place he was planning to maneuver. Filming himself from a rented U-Haul van, he mentioned he was leaving Wisconsin, the place he had at the least one handle.

“On the drive I’m simply pondering as a result of I’m heading again into the hazard zone, so to talk, and it’s triggering loads of unfavorable ideas, in fact, as a result of I do undergo from — have a nasty case of post-traumatic stress from all of the issues I’ve been by way of,” he mentioned within the video.

He stopped for the evening in Fort Wayne, Ind., at which level he mentioned he would attain Philadelphia by Tuesday. He deliberate to spend six days in a lodge, after which switch to an Airbnb. However a spokesman for Airbnb, Christopher Nulty, mentioned that the corporate had investigated and confirmed that there have been “no Airbnb accounts or reservations related to any of the identifiable data presently out there” on Mr. James.

By his personal account, Mr. James had some housing bother. In a video posted March 27, he mentioned {that a} heater had blown the place he was staying and that he needed to transfer to a different room.

Susan C. Beachy, Kitty Bennett and Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.