Testimony indicates Charleston church attack was long-planned

By: Usa Today

 In steady, dispassionate testimony, an FBI agent on Tuesday unwound a story held in a car navigation device, one that prosecutors are using as evidence that Dylann Roof for months planned an attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that ended with the shooting deaths of nine parishioners.

Tuesday’s testimony offered neither the wrenching heartache of a survivor who testified last week, nor the solemn grief of photos showing the deceased in Mother Emanuel’s fellowship hall. But in linking routes documented in the Garmin device, along with photos that Roof took of himself and receipts showing purchases, the trips indicate that Roof had often stopped or passed near the church.

The GPS device first passed in front of the church in December 2014, Joseph Hamski, the lead FBI agent investigating the case, told jurors. It last tracked to the church’s parking lot on the evening of June 17, 2015, when the “Emanuel Nine” were slain.

In between, the navigation aid was located at or near the church nearly a half-dozen times: twice in February, in April and twice in May.

On an April 26 trip, Roof visited a gun shop near Charleston, spending about $50 on a sight for a Glock pistol, one that officials say was the murder weapon. He had purchased that gun 10 days earlier.

A 22-year-old Caucasian man, Roof is amid a death penalty trial in which he faces 33 counts related to the murders, some of them based on hate-crime laws. The case is expected to go to the jury on Thursday after closing statements.

Tuesday’s testimony largely focused on the investigation that began after Roof’s capture, when agents worked to establish his visits to Charleston before the crime, ammunition buys at a Walmart in Columbia, and his internet history, particularly the purchase of a hosting service for his now-defunct website, one where he uploaded a racist manifesto.

A day after Mother Emanuel shootings, a fugitive task force team arrived at a home in Eastover, S.C., and were greeted by a man who came from the back, hands in the air, Cpl. Justin Britt of the Richland County Sheriff’s Office told jurors.

“He’s not here, he’s not here,” the unidentified man told officers, knowing they were searching for Roof.

By that time, federal agents had sent out fliers to the media to disseminate an image of Roof, then an unknown suspect, entering the church. They honed in on Roof after a series of calls identifying him, one coming from his father and another from his sister, Hamski, the FBI agent, testified.

Each of the callers reported that Roof did not have a cellphone. Agents suspected he might be at the residence of his mother, Amy Roof.

The home, about 25 miles southeast of Columbia, was owned by her boyfriend, Danny Beard. Soon after the unnamed man emerged, Amy Roof stepped outside.

“Ms. Roof, she collapsed as she was trying to answer our questions,” Britt testified. “She was overwhelmed by the moment and we immediately called EMS.”

But the mother recovered and cooperated, leading them to her son’s room, where a small blue camera sat at the edge of his desk. She scrolled though the photos, images that showed her son holding a Confederate flag, aiming a pistol, standing before historical sites.

Amy Roof last week sat in the federal courthouse in Charleston through Wednesday’s opening statements, listening first to a damning outline of the case offered by prosecutors, and then to the attorney representing her son.

As his statement ended, the mother collapsed into the bench, and has not returned.

Investigators on Tuesday told jurors they found a legal pad scrawled with symbols, some of them nods to the Ku Klux Klan. A white pillowcase had been cut into a triangle shape in what appeared to be another reference to the group.

In the backyard, a board leaned against a tree in an area used for target practice, officials testified. It was littered with spent shell casings, and a metal can held more, many of them .45 caliber rounds.

They had been fired from the same gun, a Glock pistol, that Dylann Roof had used to murder parishioners in Mother Emanuel’s fellowship hall, many as they tried to take cover under folding tables, according to testimony and prosecutors.

As prosecutors seek a guilty verdict, they also are trying to establish, through a series of witnesses, that the defendant carefully premeditated the shootings over a period of months, including purchasing the gun two months before the shooting with birthday money.

Prosecutors on Tuesday called a host of witnesses from well-known businesses. A Walmart employee testified that receipts and video recordings indicated Roof several times visited the store to buy ammunition. An engineer at Garmin told jurors that a device officers recovered from Roof indicates it was taken to Mother Emanuel prior to the Wednesday night Bible study, while an investigator employed by AT&T said a brief landline call was made from the Eastover home to Mother Emanuel in February.

Testimony from Monday indicated investigators found handwritten lists compiled by Roof, one listing six churches in the Charleston area, most of them predominately black. The first named was Emanuel AME. Another list named churches other South Carolina cities: Columbia, Eastover, Mayesville and Hopkins.

The jury on Tuesday also saw a host of photos of Roof, pictures that he appeared take himself while using a timer. In some, he points a handgun at the lens or holds a Confederate flag, while others depict him burning or standing on an American flag. In two, he sits with a white, pointed cloth, similar to a Ku Klux Klan hood, covering his head and face.

In most, Roof’s expression is solemn and stern, though one appears to show him with a slight smile on his face. In it, he stands next to the African-American History Monument on the grounds of the state Capitol, his head leaning into a black man depicted in metal on a panel. The next frame shows two fingers against the statue’s head, formed as though shooting a gun.