The disgruntled former news reporter who shot dead two of his ex-coworkers during a live TV segment this morning has died after committing suicide. Viewers of WDBJ, a small CBS affiliate in Moneta, Virginia, watched in horror this morning as Vester Lee Flanagan II shot dead 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, on live TV as the two were filming a light-hearted segment at 6:45am.
After carrying out the shocking on-air execution,he rented a car at the airport and then started driving east. Police finally cornered Flanagan just before noon, about three hours northeast, in Fauquier County, Virginia, but he refused to stop and sped away from troopers.Flanagan then crashed the car off the road and when police surrounded the vehicle, they found him suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He later passed away at a hospital in Northern Virginia.
See more photos of the shooting + the manifesto he sent to ABC news below
Read the manifesto he sent to ABC below
Bryce Williams, the suspect in the shooting of two television reporters live on air, apparently sent a fax to another news station in which he said the Charleston shooting in June of nine black people was a “tipping point”.
A man claiming to be Williams called ABC News saying he wanted to pitch a story. Two hours after the shooting on Wednesday morning, ABC News received a 23-page fax. More than a hour later, a man called the station and said he was Williams and had shot dead two colleagues.The fax, which is now being analysed by police, says that his motive was the June shooting in Charleston by Dylann Roof.
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.As for Dylann Roof? You (deleted)! You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!”
The writer of the document then adds that Jehovah spoke to him, telling him to act.In the 23-page document, Flanagan claims he was motivated to carry out the attack after hearing about the Charleston church massacre in June.
He wrote: Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”
What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.
Dylann Roof, a white supremecist, shot dead nine black congregation members at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in an effort to provoke a “race war”.
