roanoke hospital. thank you. we turn to justice correspondent pete williams following this story since it broke. pete, what can you tell us now? well, a couple of things here. first of all, ari, it s clear that the gunshot wound that vester flanagan inflicted on himself was very serious. there was some confusion at the time of whether he was dead at the scene or whether he was pronounced dead at the hospital. but the authorities now say he was pronounced dead get to the hospital and in very bad shape and took a long time to get him out of the car and in the helicopter and to the hospital in washington and hospital was saying they didn t have him as a patient and what hospitals normally do when someone when s come has died. so obviously he was in bad shape from the moment he shot himself. he did post several things on social media. a number of comments about some of the victims.
wdbj. the shooter walking up to the reporter alison parker and the photographer adam ward hovering for about 30 seconds before shooting and killing both of them. alison shot repeatedly as you hear her screams as she tried to run away. this now we ll show you is the shooting suspect who police have now tracked down. he is vester flanagan, a former reporter for wdby in roanoke, virginia, went by the name of bryce williams, and we can also report that he shot himself after a police pursuit, but we re told he is still alive. there are initial reports he was dead. they found a pulse. he s alive. critical condition, we re told and the general manager of the news station saying before flanagan was fired two years ago that he was known to be a trouble-maker. vester was an unhappy man.
they say that vester flanagan sped away, crashed his car and then shot himself. the gunshot proved to be fatal and pronounced dead a short time later. he d gone a distance from roanoke heading north toward the washington, d.c. area. and one of the problems police had initially was trying to figure out which car he was in. they discovered that he his car, they found it at the roanoke airport. now, we re not certain why they looked at the airport. it could be a matter of trying the see if he was trying to get away from the area and the airport is a logical place to look. but they discovered that he rented a car and once they figured that out, they put out the description of the rental car, the license plate of the rental car and the virginia state police say patrol officers device that scans license plate, electronic license plate reader registered that plate. she radioed in for authorities to help and once there were
thomas roberts. it is the top of the hour on msn msnbc. we are continuing the coverage of the fatal showing of a reporter and her videographer in virginia. officials are updating all of us about this invest any moment. you can see all the microphones that have been assembled right there. a lot of people hoping that they ll provide us with some answers as to why. people in roanoke, virginia, this morning on live television witnessed two people assassinated on local television. the suspect identified as 41-year-old vester lee flanagan and also known as bryce williams. this person being a former reporter and co-worker of the victims of wdbj. authorities say the suspect shot himself in his own car when he was approached by police after being pursued. police say he is in critical condition. kntv spoke with a man who grew up with flanagan and has a totally different perspective.
side. but you can see flanagan s face on the top right-hand of your screen and the outstretched gun. vicki gardner is the other person who was shot and injured. she was rushed to the hospital. she was in surgery. it is now believed that she will recover, listed in stable condition. we don t know how many times she was fired upon, but we do know that there were definite low a series of 10 to 12 shots that rang out in these two videos that were posted. anthony roman is a security expert and he joins me here on set. anthony, we have the general manager talking, jeffrey marks, to his employees about what it was like to work with vester flanagan, aka bryce williams, that was his reporter name. they had a difficult time. he was let go two years ago. this is not somebody that was really on their radar. then we hear from that neighbor of his, virgil barker, who said he was demure, nice guy.