Church-shooting suspect in SC to face death penalty

Associated Press

CHARLESTON, S.C.

The white man accused of killing nine black churchgoers in what authorities said was a racially motivated crime during Bible study will face a death-penalty trial, even though not all the victims’ families agree with capital punishment, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said Thursday that some crimes are just so heinous they require the most- serious punishment the state can give.

“This was the ultimate crime, and justice from our state calls for the ultimate punishment,” Wilson said, reading a three-minute statement outside her Charleston office. She took no questions.

Wilson filed paperwork saying she would seek the death penalty against 21-year-old Dylann Roof a few hours before her statement. Her reasons: more than two people were killed and others’ lives were put at risk.

Roof is charged under U.S. hate crime laws as well, and federal prosecutors haven’t decided if they also will seek the death penalty. Federal authorities have said Roof wrote online of fomenting racial violence and used racial slurs in a personal manuscript in which he decried integration.

Survivors also told police he used racial insults during the attack.