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Explosives Found at Christopher Speight's Home
Bomb technicians discovered a "multitude" of explosives Wednesday at the home of a man suspected in the shooting deaths of eight people, and crews were detonating the devices as more details about the gunman came to light.
Christopher Bryan Speight, a 39-year-old security guard, surrendered to police at daybreak Wednesday after leading authorities on an 18-hour manhunt following the shootings at a house in rural central Virginia where deputies found a mortally wounded man and seven bodies.
As of late Wednesday, bomb squads had found and detonated seven explosives. The blasting was expected to continue into Thursday.
Speight had no weapons when he surrendered shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday wearing a bulletproof vest over a black fleece jacket, camouflage pants and mud-caked boots.
Neither the sheriff nor a state police spokeswoman would disclose what Speight said when he gave up.
Authorities remained tightlipped on most details surrounding the slayings, including any possible motive. Nor did they immediately identify any of the victims or their relationship to the suspect. Authorities would say only that he knew his victims.
Speight was being held on one charge of first-degree murder Wednesday night, said Lt. J.D. Baker of the Lynchburg Adult Detention Center.
Speight co-owned and lived in the home where some of the bodies were found. Reporters were allowed to see the home Wednesday. The two-story house had a big patio, where there was furniture, a children's bicycle and a plastic basketball hoop. The yard was landscaped and well-manicured.
Gun enthusiast
Neighbor Monte W. Mays said Speight's mother deeded the house to Speight and his sister in 2006, shortly before she died of brain cancer.
Mays, the county's retired commissioner of accounts, said Speight was a good neighbor. They waved as they passed each other on the road and sent their dogs out to play with one another.
"All the dealings I've ever had with him have been cordial and polite," Mays said. "We got along fine."
Speight long had been a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at a range on his property, Mays said. But the shooting recently became a daily occurrence, with Speight firing what Mays said were high-powered and automatic rifles.
"Then we noticed he was doing it at nighttime," and the gunfire started going deeper into the woods, Mays said.
Mays said the entire community is devastated and wondering what triggered the slayings.
"The only one who's going to know now is Chris," he said.
David Anderson, co-owner of the Sunshine Market grocery store in Lynchburg, where Speight sometimes provided security, said Speight was worried that his sister and brother-in-law wanted to kick him out of the house.
Speight never wanted to talk about it, but he "constantly paced the floor," Anderson said. "I thought he was going to wear a trench in it."
Clarence Reynolds, who also works at the market, said he recently discussed a personal family problem with Speight, and Speight told him "don't let your emotions get the best of you."
Reynolds said Speight was not married and had no children.
Experience with Weapons
Police were alerted to the bloodbath when they found the mortally wounded man on the side of a road. Then sheriff's deputies discovered seven more bodies — three inside the house and four just outside.
When officers converged on the area, the suspected shooter fired a high-powered rifle at a state police helicopter, rupturing its gas tank and forcing it to land.
The shots revealed his location, and more than 100 police swarmed into the woods until Speight gave up the following morning.
Police said Speight appeared to have had weapons training, but there was no information suggesting he had served in the military.
Speight's uncle, Jack Giglio of Tampa, Fla., told The Associated Press that his nephew was a deer hunter, but as far as he knew Speight did not have any specialized weapons training. Giglio said he had not seen Speight since 2006, when both attended the funeral for Speight's mother, who died of brain cancer.
"We're shocked, of course," Giglio said. "I'm not aware of any problems with him. It's kind of out of the blue. We're still trying to pick up facts, too."
Appomattox County court records show a concealed weapons permit was issued to a Christopher Bryan Speight three times between 1999 and last year.
VA Tech Massacre Worst U.S. Shooting, Kills 33 On Va. Campus
Local, state and federal investigators scoured a university campus in Virginia for clues to what set off the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history after a gunman shot two people to death in a dormitory Monday morning before making his way to a classroom building where, silently and coolly, he killed 30 more people before turning his weapon on himself, authorities said.
At least 15 other people were wounded in the shootings, which took place over 2½ hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Some of them were injured as they leapt to safety from the windows of their classrooms.
The shootings, which came just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves near Littleton, Colo., created panic and confusion at the university, which was already on edge after two weeks of bomb threats.
After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large. By then, the gunman had struck a second time.
Nearly 50 victims
In all, 33 people died Monday at Virginia Tech, including the gunman. The 15 who were wounded were treated for gunshots or other injuries, authorities said. Their conditions were not reported.
Campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not officially confirm that the two incidents were related, pending the results of the investigation, but he referred to only one gunman and said no other suspect was being sought. Numerous federal and local law enforcement officials told NBC News that the events were the work of a lone gunman.
Federal investigators told NBC News’ Pete Williams that they believed the man was a Virginia Tech student in his early 20s. Their identification was delayed for several hours, they said, because the man’s face was disfigured when he shot himself, he carried no ID and an initial check on his fingerprints came up empty.
The man’s two guns, which were bought in Virginia and whose serial numbers had been obliterated, were to be examined at a laboratory of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Williams reported, citing federal law enforcement officials. That examination was also delayed because authorities had to drive the guns to the lab in the suburbs of Washington after high winds precluded them from using an airplane.
Early reports in the initial confusion said police had a suspect in custody, but Flinchum said later that the person was only being questioned for information because he knew one of the dormitory victims. Officers were interviewing him off-campus when reports of the second round of shooting came in, Flinchum said, and the man was not in custody.
Warnings came too late
Charles Steger, the university’s president, and law enforcement authorities gave this account of the day’s events in public statements and comments to NBC News:
The rampage began about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston, a co-educational residence hall that houses 895 people. The gunman, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed a man and a woman there.
About 2½ hours later, police responded to a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building about a half-mile away on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus. They discovered that the front doors had been chained from the inside, apparently so victims could not escape and police could not enter.
Officers forced their way in and followed the sound of gunshots to the second floor, where they found the gunman, who had shot himself in the face. As they canvassed the building, they found dozens of gunshot victims. Eventually, they announced that 31, including the gunman, were dead in the classroom building.
“It’s probably one of the worst things I’ve seen in my life,” Flinchum said.
Shaken students said they believed many of the victims might have been spared if campus officials had taken more immediate steps to secure the campus after the first shootings at the dormitory.
The first e-mail warning to students and employees did not go out to students, faculty and staff until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the shooting at the dormitory, according to the time stamps on copies obtained by NBC News. By then, the classroom shooting was under way. The message warned students to be cautious but did not warn them not to go to class.
“I really thought they should have canceled classes sooner,” Sam Leake, a junior who lives in West Ambler Johnston, told the campus newspaper, The Collegiate Times. “If they had, maybe some of these deaths could have been prevented.”
Steger said administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated incident and did not see a need to close the university. He said they believed the gunman had fled the campus.
“We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” he said.
Silent gunman strikes without warning
As the first warning was just going out, a bloody scene was unfolding inside the engineering building. Police could not monitor what was going on because the building is not equipped with surveillance cameras, Flinchum said.
Trey Perkins, a sophomore, told MSNBC-TV’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview that the gunman never said a word.
“He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything. He just started shooting,” Perkins said.
The gunman left that classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.
“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”
Derek O’Dell, a sophomore biology major, told MSNBC-TV’s Alison Stewart that it was “very surreal.”
“At first, I thought it was joke,” said O’Dell, who was shot in an arm. “You don’t really think of a gunman coming on campus and shooting people.”
Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.
All entrances to the campus were closed Monday, and Tuesday’s classes were canceled. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It also made counselors available and planned a convocation for Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum basketball arena, which White House officials said President Bush was considering attending.
Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.”
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Sources: MSNBC, NBC News, Google Maps
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