Gina said they would bicycle around the neighborhood together and Tony would decide to harass a random neighbor girl. He'd get Gina to knock on her door and get her to come out, after which he'd grab and fondle the girl. Gina said that the girls were terrified of him. One day she knocked on a door, her English teacher answered it, and she decided she was never going to do this again. The Shores moved to Montgomery, Alabama in 1971 and Tony was extensively bullied by other children at school. They moved to the Orlando, Florida area the following year. When Tony was 13, he told his sister that he and some friends had beaten up a homeless man in some woods behind a supermarket and that he thought they killed him. He told Gina to not tell anyone about it.

When Tony began the 9th grade in the fall of 1976, his parents got divorced and Deanna took the kids with her to California, her home state. Rob did not challenge her custody of the kids, saying he'd rather she raise them than him. The Shores were both cheating on one another by the early '70s and had been having increasing arguments over the years. Deanna also claimed Rob beat her, something he'd never done before. Rob claimed he had to go out somewhere and Deanna became upset him with and threw a beer stein at his head, so he lost it and attacked her. Tony sometimes tried to break up their arguments, and that Rob beat him with a belt, which the latter denied ever doing.

Tony didn't especially miss his father; Deanna claimed that at 14, he wanted to replace him as the head of the household. However she wouldn't have that and let it be known that he was still under her authority for another few years. One night while she was sleeping, Tony took her car keys and went for a joyride. She called police.