Ex-Wife: Suspect In Killings Of Muslim Students Obsessed With Shooting Movie

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, enters the courtroom for his first appearance at the Durham County Detention Center on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015 in Durham, N.C. Hicks, 46, is accused of shooting Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yu... Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, enters the courtroom for his first appearance at the Durham County Detention Center on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015 in Durham, N.C. Hicks, 46, is accused of shooting Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, at a quiet condominium complex near the University of North Carolina campus. (AP Photo/The News & Observer, Chuck Liddy) MANDATORY CREDIT TV OUT MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The ex-wife of the man suspected of murdering three Muslim students Tuesday near the University of North Carolina described him as a person with “no compassion” who was obsessed with a movie about a shooting rampage.

Cynthia Hurley, who said she and Craig Stephen Hicks divorced 17 years ago, told the Associated Press that she had always been disturbed by Hicks’ fixation on the 1993 film “Falling Down.” The movie, which stars Michael Douglas, follows an engineer struggling with unemployment and divorce as he goes on a shooting rampage through Los Angeles.

“That always freaked me out,” Hurley told the AP. “He watched it incessantly. He thought it was hilarious. He had no compassion at all.”

Hicks, 46, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting the three victims to death. The victims were identified as Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; Barakat’s wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and Abu-Salha’s sister Razan, 19.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina police suggested that a long-running parking dispute between Hicks and his neighbors may have been a factor in the shooting but did not otherwise offer a clear motive for the crime. Officials said they were investigating the possibility of a hate crime.

A Facebook page that appeared to belong to Hicks showed that he identified as an “anti-theist” who often criticized Christianity and Islam alike. He also expressed a strong interest in gun rights and posted a photo of a .38 revolver a few weeks before the shooting.

Hicks’ current wife, Karen Diane Haggerty, described her husband after the shooting as a champion of the rights of gays and minorities.

“This incident had nothing to do with religion or the victims’ faith but was related to a longstanding parking dispute that my husband had with the neighbors,” she told reporters, as quoted by USA Today.

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. Cynthia Hurley, who said she and Craig Stephen Hicks divorced 17 years ago, told the Associated Press…

    I’m really enjoying the media quoting this guy’s ex-wife because…“research”. Yeah, I mean, where can a reporter go to find information on a guy’s current views if not his ex-wife from 17 years ago? Stewart called it, the biggest problem with modern media is their laziness.

  2. Avatar for sooner sooner says:

    To me there is one and only bit of good in this story. And that is this POS is still alive and in custody.

  3. Speaking of “anti-theist”, has anyone confronted Bill Maher to get his take on all this? I tend to be someone who agrees with the more cynical views of organized religion, but he’s always struck me as going a bridge too far with it. As much as I think religion has been and continues to be used as an excuse for violence, his recent screeds about Islam being a violence problem (as opposed to having a violence problem I suppose, if you get the distinction I’m trying to make) struck me as offensive, over the top and lacking the usual nuance he’s able to muster. Now here we have what might be a great example of an extremist who used his rabid, anti-religion views as part of his justification for an heinous act of violence…potentially really highlighting that the problem is extremism, not religion per se, albeit true that religious beliefs (or perhaps I should say “beliefs about religion” because I include those of the “anti-theist”) tend to be extremely fertile ground for extremism…and I’d like to hear what Maher has to say about it, whether he’s man enough to admit he was going too far and acting hamfisted with his previous arguments and can engage in some introspection in light of this incident.

  4. Avatar for sooner sooner says:

    I came across an interesting passage in a book I’m reading. It’s a tad lengthy but worth sharing.

    "What if, for example you have the choice at an election between three candidates: the first one is half paralyzed by polio, suffers from high blood pressure and anemia and other serious illnesses, has been known to lie, consults an astrologist, cheats on his wife, is a chain smoker and drinks too many martinis. The second one is obese, has already lost three elections, is going through a depression and has had two heart attacks, smokes cigars and in the evening glugs champagne, port, brandy and whiskey before taking two sleeping tablets. The third one is a decorated war hero who respects women, loves animals, might drink a beer from time to time and doesn’t smoke.

    Which one would you choose?

    The problem with media these days is that they latch onto details that are totally unimportant and blow them out of proportion. With the end result that if today’s media had existed back then, Roosevelt and Churchill would probably not been elected".

    But the third candidate, Hitler, would have been seen as highly electable.

  5. Re-watch “All the President’s Men” sometime. The sheer amount of work those guys put in trying to track down very basic information–who was on the Committee to Reelect the President?–is staggering. Information that, today, you’d find proudly linked to on the inevitable website, and they’re flying all over the country, meeting anonymous sources, exploiting co-workers’ ex-relationships.

    When facts were hard to gather, they were valued and sought out. Now, when they’re mostly cheap and easy to come by, they’re held in contempt and ignored and treated as fungible “content,” stuff to fill up the space between advertisements and any “fact” is as good as any other at doing that.

    And the Woodward and Bernstein of today, as compared to their younger selves, are the most perfect possible exemplars of that degenerative process.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

93 more replies

Participants

Avatar for slbinva Avatar for richardinjax Avatar for jw1 Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for sooner Avatar for ncsteve Avatar for deckbose Avatar for mrcomments Avatar for quin Avatar for midnight_rambler Avatar for etothebtotheg Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for jeffrey Avatar for kitty Avatar for manyamile1 Avatar for scaramouche Avatar for khaaannn Avatar for dnl Avatar for occamsrazor2 Avatar for citytrucker Avatar for srumbalski Avatar for mordant_k Avatar for ombrax Avatar for sertraline

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: