N.C. man pleads guilty to killing 3 Muslim students
DURHAM, N.C. — Moments after a North Carolina man pleaded guilty to killing three Muslim university students, a prosecutor played a cellphone video of the slayings in the courtroom Wednesday as one of the victims’ relatives fainted, others wept openly and a man hurled an expletive at the confessed killer.
Craig Hicks, 50, entered the plea to three counts of first-degree murder in a packed Durham courtroom. It came more than four years after the February 2015 slayings and two months after incoming District Attorney Satana Deberry dropped plans to seek the death penalty in hopes of concluding a case she said had languished too long.
“I’ve wanted to plead guilty since day one,” Hicks told Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson. The judge said Hicks agreed as part of his plea to accept three consecutive life sentences without parole and 64 to 89 months for discharging a gun into a building.
Police say Hicks burst into a Chapel Hill condo owned by 23-year-old Deah Barakat, where he fatally shot Mr. Barakat; his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21; and her 19-year-old sister Razan Abu-Salha.
At the time of the shootings, Chapel Hill police said Hicks claimed he was provoked by competition over parking spaces at the condo complex. Relatives of the victims said their family members were targeted because they were Muslim and asked federal authorities to pursue hate-crime charges. Authorities later indicated they did not have enough evidence to successfully prosecute Hicks on those charges.
Moments after Hicks entered his plea, Assistant District Attorney Kendra Montgomery-Blinn played a cellphone video of the slayings as the victims’ parents and siblings watched from the front row.
Women wept openly and a young man hurled an expletive at Hicks after watching the video, shown on a large screen and two televisions that were used to give people in the courtroom a better view. Mr. Barakat’s older sister, Suzanne Barakat, fainted while watching the video. She later appeared at a news conference with family members, and an attorney said she was OK.
Ms. Montgomery-Blinn said Mr. Barakat had turned on his phone’s camera to capture an exchange with Hicks, who she said was often seething during some of their previous encounters .
The video shows Hicks complaining that Mr. Barakat and the Abu-Salha sisters are using three parking spaces. When Mr. Barakat responds that they’re not taking any more spaces than condo rules allow, Hicks pulls a gun from a holster and fires several times.
The phone drops to the floor. The sound of women screaming is followed by several more shots.
“In 36 seconds, Mr. Hicks executed three people,” Ms. Montgomery-Blinn said.
Mr. Barakat was shot several times as he stood in his doorway, autopsy results showed. His wife and her sister were shot in the head at close range inside the condo.
Mr. Barakat, a dental student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Ms. Abu-Salha had been married for less than two months, and she had just been accepted to the dental school. Razan had just made the dean’s list in her first semester at North Carolina State University. All three were making plans to visit Turkey during their coming summer break to volunteer in a dental clinic at a camp for Syrian war refugees.