A chilling manifesto, faxed to ABC News apparently by the man suspected of killing two journalists Wednesday during a live broadcast, cited a racist massacre in Charleston, South Carolina as a motive for the crime.
In the document, ABC News reported, the author blames Wednesday’s shooting on the shooting at a historical black church in Charleston, South Carolina in June.
Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, ABC News received the 23-page document from “Bryce Williams,” a name used on a Twitter account being attributed to the suspect.
The network turned it over to authorities.
.@ABC News received a 23-page fax from someone who says he is Bryce Williams. We have turned it over to authorities. http://t.co/rE7t0hCzj9
— ABC News (@ABC) August 26, 2015
According to ABC News, the author 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.”
The document’s author praised the Virginia Tech mass killing, saying the shooter in that incident “got NEARLY double the amount” of deaths than the shooters at Columbine High School in 1999.
WDBJ reporter Alison Parker, 24, and photographer Adam Ward, 27, were shot and killed during a live broadcast just before 7 a.m. in Moneta, Va. Their interview subject, Vicki Gardner, was wounded in the attack. She’s now stable.
Virginia State Troopers said they found the suspect, Vester Lee Flanagan (who is known professionally as Bryce Williams), in his car with life-threatening injuries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
