alison grew up in martinsville, adam in salem. she loved the outdoors. adam attended salem high school, a virginia tech graduate and a huge hokies fan. both of them worked here as interns at wdbj 7 before they signed on aemployees. alison worked at a station? jacksonville, north carolina before she returned in 2014. adam had been here for four years, first as an employees of our production department, and more recently as a photographer in news. he and alison had been working together on wdbj 7 morning a little more than a year, covering everything from community events to breaking news, and they did it well. i have to bring him out, adam come out from in front of the camera. he is the just looking
bryce williams, has not died. i. virginia state police calling our news director saying this is the scene on interstate 66 which is a couple of hours up the pike from roanoke so this is where the suspect went and we are told in a rental car he had gotten at the airport. that is not confirmed. either way, virginia state police called our news director to say the suspected gunman, vesterly flanagan, shot and killed himself. then about two minutes ago we got a call from the virginia state police spokesperson who told us he does have a pulse, is in very critical condition. he is alive. so we are correcting ourselves as virginia state police correct themselves that the suspected gunmen, the suspected killer of two wdbj 7 employees and a smith mountain lake chamber of commerce employee who is injured and just came out of surgery at roanoke memorial hospital, the suspected gunman is still alive, has a pulse, is in very critical
affiliate. this is really a story of what s happened to a news family. as you ve mentioned, 24-year-old alison parker, 27-year-old adam ward, you know, they were just starting out in every way. they were young in their age, young journalists, they were a new team that were working very hard and prized for how hard they worked and that they represented the best of what wdbj wanted to be, and they were both starting out their lives in love. they were both engaged, alison to a nightly anchor here, chris hunt, adam to another producer here, marissa ott, in the control room watching the live shot going on about 6:00 this morning when all of this horrible, horrible gunfire started. they were just doing a feature piece. this was not supposed to be dangerous in any way. there was no warning that this deranged man was looking to hurt people from his old station. they were talking about the 50th year anniversary of a local reservoir. they were talking to victoria
and eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, we dismissed him. he did not take that well. we had to call the police to escort him from the building. since then well, he then filed an action with the equal opportunity okay. that was the station manager from wdbj, jeff marks, talking about vester lee flanagan who on tv went by the name of bryce williams. he was the disgruntled employee that authorities believe carried out this horrific murder of two local reporters this morning in southwest virginia. i want to bring in msnbc clint van zandt, a former fbi profiler and jim cavanaugh, a former atf special agent.
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