A black ex-reporter with a camera in one hand and a Glock in the other stalked two white former colleagues to a live-report scene Wednesday and gunned them down on the air in a warped bid to start a “race war.”
Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, was able to sneak up on reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, completely undetected at around 6:45 a.m. as they filmed an interview in Moneta, Va., for CBS affiliate WDBJ.
He lurked for nearly 30 seconds, whispering the word “bitch” at one point, before aiming at Parker and pulling the trigger. She screamed and ran for her life, but was shot dead.
Flanagan — whose on-air name was Bryce Williams — then killed Ward before firing a nonfatal shot at the subject of the interview, a local tourism official.
“This was a vendetta. He was after Alison and Adam this morning,” Sam Doyle, a satellite truck operator and 25-year employee of WBDJ, told The Post. “Even if he saw the very first live shot, he had more than enough time to get down there. He was after them.”
Hours later, the killer blew his brains out on the side of a highway 200 miles away — but not before tweeting about how he was the victim of racism and posting his video of the slaughter to social media.
As the live televised bloodbath sent shock waves around the world, it emerged that:
- Flanagan penned a rambling manifesto that said he was ready for a “race war,” and blamed his rage on white gunman Dylann Roof’s execution of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC.
- He tweeted about both victims after the killings, saying that “Alison made racist comments” and “They hired her after that??”State trooper Pam Neff, with the help of a device that reads passing car license plates, was the first to spot Williams in his rented Chevy Sonic, officials said.
Warning: Graphic content
- Flanagan, who lived less than a half-mile away from the station, was an office malcontent who filed racism complaints against his employers going back to 2000. He was fired from WDBJ in February 2013 and had to be escorted out police. He filed an EEOC complaint while still employed and then a lawsuit against the station a year later, naming Ward and several other employees. The suit was dismissed by a judge, and the EEOC rejected his claims. Station General Manager Jeff Marks defended the firing, saying, “Eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him.”
- The two slain journalists were passionate about their jobs and each was romantically involved with WDBJ colleagues. Parker was dating Chris Hurst, an anchor who tweeted, “We were very much in love . . . It was the best nine months of our lives.” Ward recently got engaged to the station’s outgoing morning producer, Melissa Ott, and was planning to follow her to North Carolina.
- The third victim, Vicki Gardner — who is the executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce — was shot in the back and underwent surgery. “She is an exceptional bright light in this community,” said Troy Keaton, chamber president.
- Internal documents from the station detail Flanagan’s poor performance reviews, clashes with colleagues and how he needed to be escorted out of the building by several police officers the day he was fired.
The early-morning horror jolted viewers, who heard the screams live and saw a final, upward shot of the killer’s face before station officials cut the feed and went back to the studio.
“OK, I’m not sure what happened there,” said anchor Kimberly McBroom, her mouth agape.
Flanagan fled and dumped his 2009 Ford Mustang at Roanoke Regional Airport, where he picked up a Chevy Sonic he had rented earlier in the month.
He posted a series of tweets just after 10 a.m., including those saying Parker had “made racist comments” and Ward had reported him to Human Resource.
He then posted chilling a video to his Twitter and Facebook account, showing the shooting from his perspective.
His weapon was legally purchased at a Virginia gun store, ABC said.
State trooper Pam Neff, with the help of a device that reads car license plates, was the first to spot Flanagan at around 11:25 a.m. as he headed east toward Washington, DC, on Interstate 66.
She tried stopping him, but he sped off — only to run off the road and into a median just a couple of minutes later.
Authorities found him inside the car with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:30 p.m.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and David K. Li