Church-kill target list
In massacre trial
Confessed white-supremacist murder defendant Dylann Roof had a list of other black churches when he was busted for gunning down nine worshippers at a Bible study session last year, a prosecution witness testified Monday.
Handwritten notes found in a backpack included the names and addresses of six churches in Charleston, SC, including Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, where the bloodbath took place, jurors heard.
Other evidence seized from Roof ’s car included a Confederate flag and an American flag that had been burned, Brittany Burke, a former agent with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified at his federal death-penalty trial.
The car also held a .45-caliber Glock handgun authorities have tied to the slaughter, which Burke said had a round in the chamber and 10 more in a magazine, accord- ing to a WIS10-TV reporter.
Jurors watched surveillance video of Roof (inset) shopping for the weapon and filling out a background-check form at the Shooter’s Choice gun shop in West Columbia, SC, on April 11, 2015.
Roof picked up the gun five days later — even though the check wasn’t completed — in accordance with South Carolina’s three-day waiting period.
Shooter’s Choice manager Ronnie Thrailkill testified that he didn’t hear back from the feds until June 29, when he learned that Roof was ineligible to make the purchase.
But by then it was too late, as the victims had been slaughtered 12 days earlier.
FBI Director James Comey last year blamed the delay on an examiner with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System who failed to uncover Roof ’s admission that he possessed drugs during a March 1 arrest.