Shooter sought help in online videos for ‘demonic attack’
Police identify victims, shooter and men who stopped him
Weeks before police say he walked up to a crowded restaurant and opened fire, Alexander Tilghman pleaded for help on social media, saying he was “under hard-core demonic attack.”
Tilghman, 28, posted a series of videos to YouTube last month in which he airs his suspicions that nearly everyone around him is a demon or a computer program, and demon-possessed ducks, gnats and cicadas are tormenting him.
In a video dated April 27, Alexander Tilghman sits alone in a room and speaks directly to a camera, saying his life is in danger and he lives in fear of demonic attacks. In the video, Tilghman says he constantly hears cracks and booms throughout the house. He asks for “real people” to get in contact with him.
In a comment on the video, Tilghman pleads for help, saying he had given up on life and had been alone for too long “going through hard-core satanic attack.” He claimed he was being tortured by noises, including the “snapping on the walls” and couldn’t take it anymore.
In other videos, Tilghman recorded his walks along trails at Lake Hefner, where he claimed to be tormented by demons and another video shows him recording traffic along the Lake Hefner Parkway, where he said Satan was making cars louder than they usually were.
In one video, Tilghman claims he’s a security guard on his rounds. On Friday, officials with the Oklahoma Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training confirmed that he had an active armed security guard license at the time of the shooting.
About 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Tilghman walked to the front of Louie’s Grill & Bar at Lake Hefner, opened the door and began firing a handgun, striking three people, police said Friday. As the shots rang out, Juan Carlos Nazario, 35, and Bryan Whittle, 39, ran to the trunks of their vehicles to retrieve handguns and ran towards Tilghman, who police said was wearing protective ear muffs and shooting glasses. Both men fired at Tilghman, who was still armed with a handgun.
Tilghman died at least 50 feet away from where he began firing, but no other details about the encounter were released, said Oklahoma City police Capt. Bo Mathews. The victims, identified by family members as Natalie N. Giles, 39, Syniah Giles, 12, and her friend Alex, 14, were at the restaurant celebrating a family member’s birthday. Police officials said one of the victims was shot in the abdomen, one in the arm and one shot in the wrist, but didn’t know the number of rounds Tilghman fired.
The three victims were taken to OU Medical Center, where they were listed in good condition Friday and expected to recover fully. Police reported a man suffered a broken arm as he ran for safety from the scene, but did not release his name. Dennis Will, the father of Natalie Giles and the grandfather of Syniah, said he received a phone call from a relative about the shooting and thought it was a practical joke.
In a phone interview from his Hennessey home on Friday, Will said he then called his daughter, who confirmed she and her daughter had been shot.
He said a bullet grazed Natalie Giles’ arm and the side of her breast and that Syniah has a hole in her tailbone from a bullet.
“From what I hear from my daughter, she’s in a lot of pain,” he said.
His daughter told him that she and her children were walking into the restaurant to celebrate his older granddaughter’s birthday when she heard a “popping noise like the fireworks that you throw on the ground.”
Natalie Giles then began to look around and saw a man wearing “headphones” near some trees and that he began firing at the windows and doors in front of the restaurant.
She told Will that she grabbed her daughters and pulled them into the restaurant. During a Friday news conference, Mathews said he doubts Nazario and Whittle will face charges for shooting Tilghman, adding that they were “protecting somebody else’s life.” However, the decision about whether criminal charges are warranted rests with the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office.
“I consider them as two people that stopped an incident that was very tragic,” Mathews said. “You could say they’re heroes, which is a very good thing to say, but I think they stopped an incident that was very bad. We had no idea what he was going to do after he left the Louie’s restaurant.”
Motive remains unknown
Officials said there was no clear motive in relation to the shooting as of Friday, but said officers were continuing to search Tilghman’s residence and trying to get a better understanding of his history. “It doesn’t look like he knew anybody at the restaurant, he didn’t work at the restaurant and he actually was shooting from the outside of the door into the restaurant, so it looks like to me it would be a random event,” said Mathews. “This is an ongoing investigation, that could change.”
In numerous videos he recorded of himself over the course of about a month and posted to a YouTube account, Tilghman can be heard claiming to be under “demonic attack.”
Mathews said he was unaware of any mental illness diagnosis for Tilghman, but said, “in an act like this, you would have to assume that he probably had a little bit of a mental illness.”
Records show Tilghman had one encounter with Oklahoma City police in 2003, but police officials said there had been no interaction since.
In the May 18, 2003, encounter, police were called after he allegedly struck his mother during an argument over a vacuum cleaner.
An officer responded to the home where he was told Tilghman was upset at his mother’s “old vacuum cleaner” and demanded she buy a new one. When she told him she couldn’t afford it, Tilghman reportedly punched her in her chest and arm, according to a police report. He was arrested on a complaint of assault and battery.
Jon McClure, who lived near Tilghman’s family’s home, said in the year since he moved to the northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood, he had never seen anybody come in or out of the
house, adding that the yard was rarely kept up and a car in the driveway had never moved from the property. He said he was shocked and saddened when he learned about the shooting.
“It just goes to show you, you just don’t ever know who’s in your neighborhood. It’s scary,” he said.
On Friday, the state medical examiner’s office reported Tilghman’s cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds and listed the manner of death as a homicide. A more detailed report will be released later, officials said.
Victims are recovering
Will, the grandfather of the girl who was shot, said he has some comfort knowing his family members are going to be OK, but said he’s still in shock about the shooting.
“With all those people there in the restaurant and only three got shot, that is something,” he said.
Will said his daughter is extremely worried about Syniah, even though the girl is expected to survive.
“She’ll probably live there until she comes home,” he said.
In praising the actions of Nazario and Whittle, Will said he’d like to thank them for their courage.
“These were the people at the right place at the right time,” Will said. “That took a lot of guts.”