determined through the help of the police and our employees that alison and adam died this morning shortly after 6:45 when the shots rang out. i cannot tell you how much they were loved. alison and adam, by the wdbj 7 team. killer has been identified as a former reporter of the station. his on air name was bryce williams. he had been dismissed two years prior. soon africa he started tweeting about his act, uploading his own video of the shooting. he was tracked down in part through the use of a license plate reader. the police attempted to pull him over in northern virginia. he later crashed. officials indicating he may have shot himself in the head while driving and later died. prior to that, approximately two hours after the shooting, abc news received a 23-page fax. claiming the charleston south
shooting and memorialize their friends. we are following breaking news. news that has affected our wdbj family. our wdbj morning crew was live at smith mountain lake when shots were fired at 6:45. our general manager and wdbj 7 vice president jeff marks is here to tell us more about what happened. it is my very, very sad duty to report that we have determined, through the help of the police and our employees, that alison and adam died this morning shortly after 6:45 when the shots rang out. i cannot tell you how much they were loved. alison and adam, by the wdbj 7 team. killer has been identified as a former reporter of the station. his on air name was bryce williams.
memorial gathering at early this afternoon. i m so sorry for your loss and i m so sorry for you having to go through this and i m very appreciative that you took the time to speak with us, jeff. ashleigh, we re fall this together as journalist and i appreciate your interests and condolences which i will pass on to the team here. best to you and your staff. take care. jeff mark, president and general manager of wdbj. you heard him referring to the confrontations that may have had happened some time ago. well, there were tweets sent out by the person tweeting under the name bryce williams while the suspect was on the run and they are very special and targeted and they name alison and adam, the two victims. coming up after the break, i ll read the tweets, exactly what was said. i m ready to crack like nobody s watching.
flanagan s past. he was known as bryce williams during his tv year, evan perez is working his sources. what are you learning and about his possible motive, and the manifesto received by abc news. it is gunman is believed to have sent a 23-page rambling suicide letter claiming he was a human powderkeg, angry about racial grievances for years. the letter is believed to be from vester flan aga using his on-air name bryce williams. it arrived by fax this morning at abc news. the letter says in part, quote yes, it will sound like i m angry. i am. and i have every right to be, but when i leave this earth, the only emotion i want to feel is peace. the letter writer expresses administration for our mad shooters, including the ones at virginia tech and columbine high school, but his final motivation was the june charleston church massacre. in that shooting nine people were at a bible study at a
his begun. greg? peter, was there any sign that he was planning on doing more damage? he was trying to get away? was he heading somewhere in particular? we had security all over the place in new york. was he going somewhere? reporter: and we brought security down here. because we were not sure exactly who was out there or if this guy was still out there. no indication on what he might have been planning. but it looked like he was just trying to get as much publicity as possible. because it was from social media accounts that were linked to his on-air name, brice williams, the name that he used basically his fake name that he used when he was a reporter before he got fired. he just wanted the whole world not only to know what his beef was with allison and adam, he was accusing them or discrimination. he was accusing them of racism. he also wanted the whole world to see his point of view video of their execution, of them