The man who killed two journalists live on breakfast television was a gay, black news reporter who claimed to have suffered racism, sexual harassment and discrimination, and had bought a gun two days after the massacre of black parishioners in a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
That is according to a lengthy fax sent to another television network and apparently written by Vester Lee Flanagan, 41, known to the viewers of at least two local news channels as Bryce Williams.
“You want a race war?” the author demanded of Dylann Roof, the man accused of killing nine African-Americans during a Bible reading class in South Carolina in June. “BRING IT THEN!”
ABC News said it received the 23-page document about two hours after the two WDBJ-TV staff were shot dead.
“My name is Bryce Williams,” the writer declared. An hour and a half later the network said it had received a phone call from a man claiming to be the author of the fax. He said he had shot two people that morning, and that the authorities were “after me” and “all over the place”, before hanging up.
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Flanagan had worked for local channels in Florida and Virginia. He had developed a reputation for being difficult. Colleagues said he tended to take offence where none was intended.
Kimberly Moore Wilmoth, who worked with Flanagan in 1999 when he was at a Tallahassee TV station, described him as a loner who “didn’t laugh at our jokes or at himself when he would make a mistake”.
Wilmoth recounted one incident in which he filmed an elderly man trapped inside a car during a flood, even though the man was calling out for help. “Instead of helping the man, he used the man as a prop,” she said.
Jeffrey Marks, the general manager of WDBJ, where Flanagan was employed until early 2013, said he had a reputation for being touchy and difficult to work with. “Eventually, after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him,” he said yesterday. “He did not take that well.”
Police had to be called to escort him from the building, he said. Flanagan had filed a complaint to the federal agency that handles discrimination in the workplace, portraying himself as the victim of racially tinged comments. Mr Marks said the complaint could not be substantiated, and was dismissed.
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After his sacking Flanagan worked at a call centre for a year.
Flanagan posted photographs on Twitter last week, offering a potted autobiography, apparently anticipating a time when people would be interested in him. There were photographs of a childhood birthday party, celebrated in spite of the fact that his family were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and his high school graduation photographs. He also claimed to have been an escort.
He attended San Francisco State University, where he gained internships at television news stations.
In 2000, after several years working in television, Flanagan sued a Florida affiliate of NBC News, claiming to have suffered racial discrimination. He and another black employee were referred to as “monkeys” he claimed.