S.C. church shooting suspect indicted for murder

By ALANNE ORJOUX CNN

9 years ago

Police lead suspected shooter Dylann Roof into the courthouse in Shelby, North Carolina, June 18, 2015. (Reuters/Jason Miczek)

Dylann Storm Roof appears by closed-circuit television at his bond hearing in Charleston, South Carolina, June 19, 2015, in a still image from video. (Reuters/Pool)

Accused Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof faces three more charges in the June 17 attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in which nine people were killed, according to a statement Tuesday from a South Carolina prosecutor.

Roof initially was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possessing a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

“We presented three additional attempted murder charges to the grand jury and the defendant was subsequently indicted for those charges. These attempted murder charges are related to the victims who survived their attack at Mother Emanuel,” said the statement from Ninth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson.

Roof is accused of shooting participants at a Bible study class at the historic black church. Nine people died, including the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who also was a state senator in South Carolina.

Roof, 21, was captured in North Carolina the day after the attack and was brought back to South Carolina. Law enforcement officials say he admitted to the killings. He’s being held without bond on the murder charges.

The Justice Department is looking at the case as a possible hate crime, according to a statement released days after the shootings.

Also revealed in the days after the shootings was a disturbing website registered to Roof called “The Last Rhodesian.” In addition to a long, hate-filled, racist manifesto, the site includes photos of Roof burning an American flag, holding a Confederate flag, taking aim with a pistol and posing proudly at places connected to the Confederacy.

An image released by South Carolina authorities showed Roof wearing a jacket with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and nearby Rhodesia, a former British colony that a white minority ruled until 1980 and its name was changed to Zimbabwe.