husband and wife, who were shot to death in the university town of Chapel Hill, police said Wednesday.
Police said
they were looking into the possibility of a hate crime, but that the
incident appeared to be triggered by a dispute between neighbors over
parking.
The shooter,
identified as 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, was being held without
bond in the Durham County Jail on three counts of first-degree murder,
police said.
The victims, who
were pronounced dead on the scene, were identified as Chapel Hill
residents Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, as
well as her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh.
Hicks turned himself in after the shooting Tuesday in Chapel Hill, just outside the campus of the University of North Carolina.
"Our
preliminary investigation indicates that the crime was motivated by an
ongoing neighbor dispute over parking," Chapel Hill police said in a
statement, adding that Hicks was cooperating with investigators.
"Our
investigators are exploring what could have motivated Mr Hicks to
commit such a senseless and tragic act. We understand the concerns about
the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every
lead to determine if that is the case," Police Chief Chris Blue said.
A
Facebook page believed to belong to Hicks showed dozens of
anti-religious posts, including one calling himself an "anti-theist,"
saying he has a "conscientious objection to religion," and other memes
denouncing Christianity, Mormonism and Islam.
His page also showed a photo of a loaded revolver, alongside a video of a puppy and a promotional clip for Air New Zealand.
One
post read: "I'm not an atheist because I'm ignorant of the reality of
religious scripture. I'm an atheist because religious scripture is
ignorant of reality."
"Given
the enormous harm that your religion has done in this world, I’d say
that I have not only a right, but a duty, to insult it," he posted under
the religious beliefs tab.
Source:AFP
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