ABC News has sent a stack of documents it received to authorities investigating the murders this morning of two Roanoke TV news staffers. ABC News reports:
A man claiming to be Bryce Williams called ABC News over the last few weeks, saying he wanted to pitch a story, and wanted to fax information. He never told ABC News what the story was. This morning, a fax was in the machine (time stamped 8:26 a.m.) almost two hours after the shooting. A little after 10 a.m., he called again, and introduced himself as Bryce, but also said his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan, and that he shot two people this morning. While on the phone, he said authorities are “after me,” and “all over the place.” He hung up.
Flanagan is the suspect in the shooting deaths of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, who were reporting live for the station’s morning show when Flanagan/Williams approached and shot them at point blank range.
TVSpy reports Flanagan/Williams was fired from WDBJ in 2013 after less than a year on the job. WDBJ gm Jeffrey Marks described him as “an unhappy man” who gained “a reputation for being difficult to work with.”
In the 23-page document, which was sent sometime between Tuesday night and this morning, the person claiming to be Williams writes that what triggered today’s shootings was the massacre at a Charleston church in June. He writes:
“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.”