By Ben Brumfield, Eliott C. McLaughlin and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
Story highlights
- Vester Lee Flanagan II, formerly known as reporter Bryce Williams, killed two journalists on live television
- He posted live updates to social media of video he shot of his killing of a reporter and a cameraman
(CNN)A disturbed mind brimming with rage, a professional media career and newly purchased guns. Vester Lee Flanagan II combined them into a real-time murder show that he choreographed in detail.
On Wednesday, Flanagan shot dead TV reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, in Roanoke, Virginia, while Parker was live on air on WDBJ via Ward's camera, a video of the incident showed.
Flanagan, a former TV reporter himself who went by the pseudonym Bryce Williams, also woundedVicki Gardner, head of a local chamber of commerce, whom Parker was interviewing.
As Flanagan gunned them down with six or seven shots, viewers were subject to it live, as were colleagues in WDBJ's control room. Ward's fiancee was one of them, said General Manager Jeff Marks.
Flanagan, a fired former reporter
Flanagan knew Ward. The shooter was a former colleague, who stood in the limelight as a TV reporter. He resented being removed from it when WDBJ fired him two years ago, he later wrote.
He didn't go nicely back then, and Ward recorded his emotional outburst on camera. Court documents from a discrimination suit that he filed show that Flanagan scoffed at Ward and flipped off the camera. Before police walked him out of the building, Flanagan also handed his manager a small wooden cross and said, "You'll need this."
Flanagan had not worked with Parker, the reporter he shot dead, but there were signs he resented her having been hired.
Photographer Adam Ward managed to capture a brief image of the gunman after being shot.
Multimedia plan
Flanagan planned meticulously to act out a lot of resentment violently and get back into the limelight before turning his gun on himself.
Flanagan, aka Williams, recorded video of his killing, which he spread on social media as he fled authorities. He appeared to have prepped his Twitter account days before the killing with a review of images from stations of his life.
During his flight, posts to Twitter appeared in the name of Bryce Williams, showing video recorded from the perspective of his gun barrel as his shots struck his victims. Many social media users were horrified by the scenes playing out before them on autoplay.
Both Facebook and Twitter quickly shut down the accounts.
While on the run, he sent a 23-page fax to ABC News under his reporter pseudonym with a few details about his career, long rants about his disappointments and a litany of people and circumstances he blamed. Parts were labeled as suicide notes.
Fled in a rental car
Flanagan had rented a car weeks before and used it in his getaway instead of his own car, a 2009 Ford Mustang.
Virginia State Police spotted the rental car on Interstate 66. A trooper tried to pull him over, police said, but he refused to stop and sped away before running off the road and crashing into an embankment.
Troopers found Flanagan inside with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Virginia State Police Sgt. F.L. Tyler told reporters. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead Wednesday afternoon.
Nasty workplace run-ins
Flanagan was known for a series of anger and behavioral problems in his workplaces.
As news broke about whom police sought in the killing, Don Shafer heard a familiar name on the radio. "Vester Flanagan. He worked for me," he said to himself.
"The hair on the back of my neck went up," said Shafer, who is now news director at XETV in San Diego.
When he hired Flanagan, Shafer was news director at WTWC in Tallahassee, Florida. The reporter who went by Bryce Williams made a nice impression on Shafer at first, but in 2000, he fired him over run-ins with colleagues.
"There were some issues with him and his personality that kind of spiraled down, and that's why we had to get rid of him," Shafer said.
Flanagan sued, alleging racial discrimination, but the suit was dismissed.
Later, he joined WDBJ but was later fired over performance issues. He sued again, once more alleging discrimination.
Fired, given a police escort
Court documents from that suit revealed the station had taken disciplinary action against Flanagan for months, met with him many times about angry behavior and told him to seek counseling.
Dan Dennison, former news director at WDBJ, said it was the toughest termination decision he'd ever handled. He had to call police to escort the reporter out.
"(Williams/Flanagan) had a level of a long series of complaints against co-workers nearly from the beginning of employment at the TV station," Dennison said. He said they were never substantiated.
The firings and lawsuits were part of a mishmash of resentments that Flanagan faxed to ABC News, while police searched for him.
Ranting fax
In a ranting note in his farewell fax, Flanagan tried to justify his killings.
"OK, so the big question is 'Why?' " he wrote. "Well, after I compiled well over 100 pages chronicling the hurt in my life, I asked myself, 'Why NOT?' "
And he talked about having a disturbed mind. "I've been a human powder keg for a while ... just waiting to go BOOM!!!! at any moment," he wrote.
He spent some time making allegations of racism, including against reporter Parker, whom he said "made racist comments" but got hired anyhow. There was no elaboration, and WDBJ General Manager Marks said the claim was unfounded.
"We're outraged that any of the comments in that manifesto are taken the least bit seriously," he said, adding that he doesn't believe that Flanagan and Parker crossed paths at WDBJ.
But Flanagan also blamed much of his misery on black men and white women and said he was "somewhat racist against whites, blacks and Latinos."
He admired the shooters who massacred students at Columbine High School and at Virginia Tech, which lies about 25 miles away from Roanoke.
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