Dylann Storm Roof was born on April 3,1994 and is an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi, and mass murderer convicted of perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17,2015, in the US state of South Carolina.
62 Facts About Dylann Roof
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Dylann Roof later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war.
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The website contained photos of Dylann Roof posing with symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, along with a manifesto in which he outlined his views toward black people, among other groups.
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Dylann Roof claimed in the manifesto to have developed his white supremacist views after reading about the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin and black-on-white crime.
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On December 15,2016, Dylann Roof was convicted in federal court of all 33 federal charges against him stemming from the shooting; on January 11,2017, he was sentenced to death for those crimes.
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Dylann Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Franklin Bennett Dylann Roof, a carpenter and a construction contractor, and Amelia "Amy" Cowles, a bartender.
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Dylann Roof's parents had divorced but were temporarily reconciled at the time of his birth.
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When Dylann Roof was five, his father married Paige Mann in November 1999; they divorced after ten years of marriage.
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Dylann Roof has two siblings, an older half-sister and a younger sister, Morgan Dylann Roof.
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Bennett Dylann Roof was allegedly verbally and physically abusive toward Mann.
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In nine years, Dylann Roof attended at least seven schools in two South Carolina counties, including White Knoll High School in Lexington, in which he repeated the ninth grade, finishing it in another school.
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Dylann Roof apparently stopped attending classes in 2010 and, according to his family, dropped out of school and spent his time alternating between playing video games and taking drugs.
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Dylann Roof was on the rolls of a local Evangelical Lutheran congregation, but it was unclear if he had recently attended.
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For several weeks preceding the attack, Dylann Roof had been occasionally living in the home of an old friend from middle school and the latter's mother, two brothers, and girlfriend.
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Dylann Roof allegedly spent his time using drugs and getting drunk.
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Dylann Roof had been working as a landscaper at the behest of his father, but quit the job prior to the shooting.
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Dylann Roof had a prior police record consisting of two arrests, both made in the months preceding the attack.
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Dylann Roof was investigated on one occasion during this period but without arrest or charge.
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On February 28,2015, mall security at the Columbiana Centre in Columbia called police after Dylann Roof, wearing all-black clothing, asked employees unsettling questions.
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On March 13,2015, Dylann Roof was investigated for loitering in his parked car near a park in downtown Columbia.
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Dylann Roof was not charged, as it was not illegal in South Carolina to possess a forearm grip.
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Dylann Roof was unemployed and living in largely African-American Eastover at the time of the attack.
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Dylann Roof often claimed that "blacks were taking over the world".
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Dylann Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people, including a plot to attack the College of Charleston, but his claims were not taken seriously.
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Federal prosecutors said in August 2016 that Dylann Roof was "self-radicalized" online, instead of adopting his white supremacist ideology "through his personal associations or experiences with white supremacist groups or individuals or others".
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The site included a cache of photos of Dylann Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag, as well as with the widely recognized neo-Nazi code numbers 88 and 1488, written in sand.
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Dylann Roof was seen spitting on and burning an American flag.
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Dylann Roof is believed to have taken self-portraits using a timer, and his visits were not remembered by staff members working at the sites.
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Dylann Roof made a list of churches and a "selection of victims", along with other writings.
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Dylann Roof purchased the gun used in the shooting from a retail gun store in West Columbia, using money given to him on his birthday.
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The Washington Post reported on July 10,2015, that FBI Director James Comey said that Dylann Roof "was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI's background-check system".
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One week prior to the shooting, two of his friends tried to hide the gun after Dylann Roof claimed he was going to kill people.
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FBI analysis of Dylann Roof's seized cellphone and computer found that he was in online communication with other white supremacists, according to unnamed officials.
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The organization issued a statement saying that Dylann Roof had some "legitimate grievances" against black people and that the group's website "accurately and honestly report[s] black-on-white violent crime".
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Dylann Roof recognized Roof driving his car, a black Hyundai Elantra with South Carolina license plates and a three-flag "Confederate States of America" bumper decoration, on US Route 74, recalling security camera images taken at the church and distributed to the media.
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Dylann Roof was arrested and was interrogated by agents of the FBI.
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Dylann Roof stated that he was planning to travel to Nashville, Tennessee when he was arrested in Shelby.
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Dylann Roof initially did not believe his interrogators when they informed him that the death toll of his attack was nine people, believing that the number of casualties was lower, saying he felt "bad" after learning the true number.
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Dylann Roof is the first person in US history to have faced both a state and federal death penalty at the same time.
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On June 19,2015, Dylann Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime.
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Dylann Roof first appeared in Charleston County court by video conference at a bond hearing later that day.
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At the hearing, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Dylann Roof directly, saying that they were "praying for his soul" and forgave him.
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On July 7,2015, Dylann Roof was indicted on three new charges of attempted murder, one for each person who survived the shooting.
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Dylann Roof reappeared in state court on October 23,2015, before Nicholson.
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On July 31,2015, Dylann Roof pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him at the behest of his lawyer David Bruck.
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Dylann Roof wanted to plead guilty, but Bruck stated he was not willing to advise a guilty plea until the government indicated whether it wanted to seek the death penalty, as 18 of the 33 charges could carry the death penalty.
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On November 25,2016, Dylann Roof was declared competent to stand trial.
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On December 5,2016, Gergel allowed Dylann Roof to hire back his lawyers for the guilt phase of his trial.
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Two days into the trial, Dylann Roof's confession was played in court, admitting that he had killed the people at the church before chuckling.
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At a court hearing on December 28,2016, Dylann Roof reiterated that he would proceed with the sentencing phase without attorneys, although Judge Gergel repeatedly warned him that it was not in his interests to do so.
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At the hearing Dylann Roof said that he did not plan to call any witnesses or present any evidence at the sentencing phase in order to avoid the death penalty.
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On January 3,2017, following a lengthy closed-door competency hearing, Judge Gergel denied a motion, submitted under seal by Dylann Roof's court-appointed counsel, that sought to have Dylann Roof declared incompetent.
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Until April 19,2017, Dylann Roof was located at the Charleston County Jail; on that day federal authorities took custody of him and took him to FTC Oklahoma City.
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The court first ordered a psychiatric exam after Dylann Roof wrote a letter to prosecutors which referred to his defense attorneys as "the sneakiest group of people I have ever met" and adamantly rejected their strategy to portray him as mentally ill.
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Dylann Roof continues to feel that the only thing that is important to him is to protect his reputation.
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In January 2020, it was reported that Dylann Roof was appealing his death sentence.
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On May 25,2021, his lawyers began an appeal process before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit claiming that Dylann Roof was "too disconnected from reality" to represent himself at the federal trial.
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The defense team argued that Dylann Roof masked his mental illness during the trial.
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On March 2,2022, attorneys for Dylann Roof announced that they had asked the Supreme Court to resolve the dispute between them and their client over the mental illness defense.
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Dylann Roof had fired his attorneys to prevent them from portraying him as having a mental illness.
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Dylann Roof, who suffered hits and bruising to the face and body, was not seriously injured, and he was allowed to return to his cell after being examined by jail medical personnel.
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At the time of the attack, Dylann Roof was alone after two detention officers assigned to be with him left, one being on break and the other called away to do another task.