jim, are you there? again, right now, obviously, ladies and gentlemen at home, this is a very fluid situation, but let me tell you what we know at this point. just within the last few minutes, we received a confirmation of the identity of the man in that still image that you ve been looking at now all morning long. his name is vester lee flanagan ii. he s 41 years old. he has been described as a disgruntled employee at wdbj, channel 7, which is where the reporter alison parker and photographer adam ward worked. they are the two people who were gunned down during a live broadcast of the news. right now we ve learned that alison parker s fiance, chris hurst, is also an anchor at that very same station. he has taken to social media to express his obvious grief, and he says i m comforted by
shooters at columbine high school in colorado and also cho, the man who killed 23 people at virginia tech in 2007. and then he says what sent me over the top, according to abc, what sent me over the top was the church shooting in charleston in june. he says, you want a race war? bring it on. and he also says according to abc in this manifesto or this 23-page whatever it is jehovah spoke to him telling him to act, thomas. pete, thank you very much. pete williams breaking down some of the new information coming in. didn t go into specifics during the press conference, the briefing there from the franklin county sheriff s office but again some insight definitely provided by this faxed manifesto from flanagan that went to abc. and referencing a lot of different things, some of which we are not going to bring to air at this time but talking about
spiraled out of control. you heard him say this. this is incredibly emotional for people in the roanoke area. i was struck by the sheriff who said he had been watching this broadcast live when it happened like so many in this community, people turn to the local news in the morning. he was stopped in the tracks and he said he had just done a live shot with these two journalists with alison and adam, this team, a few weeks ago. he knew them both personally. he said it was very emotional for him. we are obviously still here and not sure to get another on-camera update in the next few hours and working to grab information on how this unfolds. and what the motive may have been here. for vester flanagan. thomas? we ll let you get back to work there on the scene. thank you so much. want to go to justice correspondent pete williams. pete, you were able to confirm for us about the fact that flanagan is deceased. what new information do you have for us? well, on the motive, abc news
jumping on the highway, eluding police and turning the gun on himself and his car being processed on the side of the road in virginia. this is how law enforcement explained it. just before 11:00 flanagan s mustang was located at the row naek regional airport and the mustang has been recovered as evidence. flanagan then left the airport in a chevrolet sonic that he had rented earlier in the month. during the course of the investigation investigators were able to track the suspect as he traveled along interstayed 881 and we notified local and state law enforcement along the entire interstate 81 corridor to assist us with a look outfor suspect vehicle. this has been confirmed already that the virginia state police then located the flanagan vehicle on interstate 66 in fauquier county and took him into custody.
television and had worked at the same television station some time ago, disgruntled employee, he died at a northern virginia hospital just about just about an hour ago. they say they caught him after he tried to elude police after the shooting early this morning and grapped his rent at all car and drove off the interstate and off the side of the road veered off and succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. before he was caught he tweeted out videos and posted them to facebook of these murders that investigators say he committed early this morning, and so clips were sent out under an account with flanagan s on-air name of bryce williams, and the shootage shows a gunman s pov as he stands by the crew for 20 seconds before firing. we re not showing that to you at all, but i m just telling you for context this is what has happened.