On August 26, viewers of Roanoke’s WDBJ morning news show initially didn’t know what had happened when the camera abruptly dropped and multiple pops could be heard. Later, they were shocked to learn they’d witnessed the execution of a reporter and cameraman on live TV during the interview of a third victim about Smith Mountain Lake’s 50th anniversary.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Department received a phone call at 6:43am, alerting it that shots were fired at Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta, Virginia, according to a press release.
The reporter, Alison Parker, 24, and her cameraman, Adam Ward, 27, were pronounced dead at the scene, the first journalists killed in the U.S. since 2007.
They’d been interviewing Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vicki Gardner, who was reportedly shot in the back and taken to Carilion Clinic. On the day of the murders, a spokesperson for the clinic, Chris Turnbull, said Gardner was in stable condition. Gardner continues to recover from surgery and non-life-threatening injuries.
“We know this has been a very difficult situation to manage professionally and personally,” Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said at a press conference that afternoon. Members of WDBJ continued to provide constant coverage of the slayings of their two former colleagues and the race to track down their suspected killer throughout the day. They also reported that flowers, phone calls and e-mails were pouring in to comfort the grieving news crew.
About five hours after the murders and succeeding a brief police chase, the suspected killer crashed his rental car into the median of I-66 in Fauquier County, nearly 200 miles away from the scene of the crime. When police reached his car, Vester Lee Flanagan II was suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Overton reported that Flanagan died at 1:30pm at the Inova Fairfax Hospital.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s office says Flanagan, through his writings and evidence left behind, identified with others who have committed domestic acts of violence and mass murder, as well as the September 11 terrorists. Flanagan purchased a gun two days after Dylan Root shot nine black worshippers in a Charleston church.
Overton says Flanagan was a former WDBJ employee and the sheriff’s department has a copy of a “lengthy, multi-page fax” of grievances and a suicide note that Flanagan sent to ABC News, which received the 23-page document at 8:26am on the morning of the murders.
According to ABC, Flanagan had called several times over the past few weeks to pitch a news story, and at approximately 10am August 26 he called again, introducing himself as Bryce Williams, which was the name Flanagan used on-air, and stating that his legal name was Vester Lee Flanagan II. He said authorities were chasing him before hanging up the phone.
Ward, who attended Virginia Tech, was preparing to move to Charlotte, North Carolina, where his fiancée, WDBJ morning producer Melissa Ott, was taking a new job. He was leaving the news business, one of his colleagues told ABC News.
Parker grew up in Martinsville and attended James Madison University. “Alison was our bright, shining light and it was cruelly extinguished by yet another crazy person with a gun,” said her father, Andy Parker, in a statement. “She excelled at everything she did and was loved by everyone she touched. She loved us dearly, and we talked to her every single day. Not hearing her voice again crushes my soul. Our family can only take solace in the fact that although her life was brief, she was so happy with it. She lived it to the fullest and her spirit will always be with us.”
Her father has vowed to fight for tougher gun control laws. Governor Terry McAuliffe publicly shared the same sentiment:
“As we reflect with heavy hearts on this tragedy, it is appropriate to begin to ask questions about how we can prevent these senseless events in the future. Keeping guns out of the hands of people who would use them to harm our family, friends and loved ones is not a political issue; it is a matter of ensuring that more people can come home safely at the end of the day,” McAuliffe said in a press release. “We cannot rest until we have done whatever it takes to rid our society of preventable gun violence that results in tragedies like the one we are enduring today.”
At JMU, Parker was a news editor for the student newspaper, The Breeze. The paper’s adviser, Brad Jenkins, describes her as tenacious and someone who wasn’t afraid of asking hard questions.
“She had a real spirit,” Jenkins says. “She wanted to get the news, so she went after it as hard as she could.”
JMU’s school of media arts and design has established a scholarship in her memory.
A scholarship at Salem High School, which Ward attended, has been created in his name.
Original story updated on September 1, 2015.