RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An avid runner and the mother of three boys. A woman who was the “rock” of her family and knew everyone in the neighborhood. A Navy veteran whose wedding was two weeks away.
These were among the victims of a shooting rampage in North Carolina’s capital city, Raleigh, that claimed five lives and wounded two others.
The calm order of the day was shattered around 5 p.m., police say, when a 15-year-old boy opened fire, killing a total of five people in Raleigh’s Hedingham neighborhood and along the nearby Neuse River Greenway. Another of those slain was a police officer who was headed off to work in North Carolina’s capital.
Another Raleigh police officer also was wounded as well as a woman who remained in critical condition on Friday.
Among the dead were:
NICOLE CONNORS
Connors, 52, was the matriarch of her extended family, the one who “got things done,” her husband Tracey Howard told The Associated Press.
When her father died, she was the one who went to Veterans Affairs to straighten things out — using “choice words” — to ensure he was buried in a veterans cemetery, Howard said. She also left her job in human resources to care for her mother after she had a stroke.
“Anything that had to be done, she was going to do it,” Howard said. “And she was going to make sure it was done right.”
Connors and her husband liked to get out of the house and explore Raleigh’s restaurant scene. They had tickets for the next Black Panther film, coming out in November, and planned to go to the North Carolina State Fair this weekend.
Late Thursday afternoon, Howard left the house to get food for lunch — he works the third shift — and to buy a lightbulb for the porch. Connors had taken a friend to Red Lobster to celebrate her friend’s birthday before coming home.
“She couldn’t have been home more than five or 10 minutes before this happened,” Howard said.
Connors and a neighbor, who was still in critical condition on Friday, were shot, Howard said.
“Her friend was more or less by the driveway like she was about to go home or was on her way home, and my wife was on the porch,” Howard said.
Howard is left to wonder what motivated the shooting.
“It is just a senseless killing,” he said. “People outside enjoying the weather, talking. Next thing you know they’re gone. It’s just stupid. It’s senseless.”
Connors’ neighbors said she was always friendly while walking her Jack Russell terrier, Sami.
“All these shootings right now are all coming from kids that are under 19 years old,” said neighbor Joshua Phillips. They “have no business owning a gun, period. And you can’t blame the law-abiding citizens on that.”
Marvin Judd said Connors was a “sweet person” with a “good heart.”
“And she was always kind and gentle to everybody she met,” Judd said. “She didn’t meet strangers. Everybody was a friend to her.”
Judd added: “This didn’t have to happen. But people don’t realize. Satan is loose up on the Earth. And he’s taking out as many victims as he can.”
SUSAN KARNATZ
Her husband, Tom Karnatz, told the AP that she “was a very loving wife and amazing mother to our three sons. We’re absolutely heartbroken and miss her dearly.”
Karnatz, 49, was an avid runner who frequented the greenway where some of the shootings occurred. Two cars parked in the driveway had matching 26.2 stickers – marking the mileage of a marathon. The license plate of a minivan said “RUNNR.”
In a Facebook post, Tom Karnatz wrote that he and his wife had big — and little — plans together.
“We had plans together for big adventures,” he wrote. “And plans together for the mundane days in between. We had plans together with the boys. And we had plans together as empty nesters. We had plans together for growing old … Now those plans are laid to waste.”
MARY MARSHALL
Marshall, 34, was killed while walking her dog Scruff and was supposed to get married on Oct. 29, her sister told NBC News.
“Her fiancé Rob, he was just the love of her life,” Meaghan McCrickard told NBC. “I think we’re going to still do a celebration of life, that’s the plan, for the date of the wedding.”
“She’s got a friend coming from Japan, somebody coming from Florida, from Texas,” McCrickard said. “As excited as she was to be married, I know she was more excited to have all the people she loved the most at the same place at the same time.”
When the shooting started, Marshall was walking Scruff on the Neuse River Greenway, her sister told NBC.
“She had called her fiancé Rob and said, ‘I’m walking the dog, I’m hearing these gunshots, can you come home?’ And that was the last conversation that they had,” McCrickard said.
Marshall’s step-grandmother, Donna Marshall, told the Raleigh News & Observer that Mary had served in the Navy and attended culinary school before moving back to the Raleigh area three years ago.
“She loved to go to the beach, and she was an absolute fanatic about Disney World,” Donna Marshall told the newspaper.
Scruff had effectively chosen Marshall as his owner when he sat on her lap at an animal shelter, her step-grandmother said.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult for her mom and dad and her sister and her close family,” Donna Marshall said. “It’s just going to be awful.”
GABRIEL TORRES
Torres, 29, was on his way to work when he was fatally shot in the Hedingham neighborhood, police said. Raleigh Police Chief Estella D. Patterson said Torres was not in uniform or in his patrol car at the time of the shooting, according to the News & Observer.
Torres leaves behind a wife and child, the chief said. Torres was on the job for 18 months. Before that, he served as a U.S. Marine at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville.
The Raleigh Police Protective Association, an advocacy group for officers, said in a statement on Friday that it’s “in the process of setting up fundraising efforts that are approved and authorized by the family.”
“We ask all of you to please pray and keep in your thoughts Officer Torres and the other victims of this senseless act of evil,” the organization said on Facebook.
JAMES THOMPSON
Thompson, 16, was a junior at Knightdale High School in Raleigh, according to a statement from Principal Keith Richardson.
“It is an unexpected loss and we are saddened by it,” Richardson said. “Our condolences, thoughts, and prayers go out to James’ family, the other victims, their families and all who have been impacted by yesterday’s events.”
The school board chair and superintendent of the Wake County Public School System issued a statement that said they are “shocked, saddened and broken-hearted.”
“Our hearts go out to the victims’ loved ones, and our community continues to seek answers around this tragedy and solutions to prevent such unspeakable events in the future,” the statement said.
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
Police: 15-year-old boy kills 5 in Raleigh shooting rampage
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy killed five people and injured two more in a shooting rampage in Raleigh, police said, horrifying a community that is now mourning victims whose lives were cut short as they were going about their daily routines.
Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said the teen was captured hours after the victims were gunned down Thursday evening. He was hospitalized and in critical condition following his arrest, but authorities have not said how he was injured. Patterson said Friday that police haven’t determined a motive for the attack.
The victims were different races and ranged in age from 16 to their late 50s, Patterson said. Family members and friends said some of the victims were gunned down while doing normal, everyday activities — an off-duty police officer was killed while on his way to work, one of the women who died was on her porch talking to a neighbor, another woman who died was out walking her dog and another was out exercising.
Gov. Roy Cooper called the shooting an “infuriating and tragic act of gun violence.” He added: “No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities — no one.”
The gunfire broke out around 5 p.m. Thursday in a residential area northeast of downtown, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin said. Police said from there, the teenager fled to a nearby walking trail and continued shooting.
The teen, who was not immediately identified by police, eluded officers for hours — setting off a manhunt across a crime scene that stretched for 2 miles (3 kilometers) — before he was cornered in a home and arrested, Patterson said.
The Hedingham neighborhood is a residential area of single family and town homes. The Neuse River Greenway, a walking and biking trail, is behind some of the houses. The trail runs about 27 miles (43 kilometers) along the river and connects to the state’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail that’s popular with hikers. The stretch of trail behind the neighborhood is paved and lies down a grassy slope from the houses.
Police said Officer Gabriel Torres, 29, was among the five killed. He was off-duty and heading to work when the shooting began. The other victims were Nicole Connors, 52; Mary Marshall, 34; Susan Karnatz, 49; and James Roger Thompson, 16. Connors’ husband told The Associated Press she was on the porch talking to a neighbor when she was killed. Marshall’s sister told NBC News that she was walking her dog, Scruff.
Marcille Lynn Gardner, 59, was talking to Connors when she was shot. Gardner remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday. A second police officer, Casey Joseph Clark, 33, was also wounded and released from the hospital.
Karnatz’s husband, Tom Karnatz, said she was an avid runner who often ran on the greenway.
“She was a very loving wife and amazing mother to our three sons,” he said through tears when he answered his door Friday. “We’re absolutely heartbroken and miss her dearly.”
In the driveway, a silver minivan and a Toyota Camry had matching 26.2 stickers — symbolizing the miles of a marathon. The minivan’s license plate read simply: “RUNNR.”
Woodrow Glass, a 74-year-old retiree and neighbor of Connors, said he talked to her nearly every day as she walked her small dog.
“She was friendly with everybody in the neighborhood, spoke with everybody … and was really respected here. And we’re going to miss her,” he said.
In a statement Friday, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden are grieving with victims’ families, and his administration is working with Cooper to help local authorities with their investigation.
“Enough. We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings,” he said.
Omer Rosas, a sophomore at Knightdale High School, said he was shocked to learn Friday that his classmate was arrested in the shooting.
“I did not expect it to be him,” Rosas told the AP. “He was very calm. He wasn’t like a mean person. He was open to be nice to everyone.”
Rosas said the teen is personable and athletic — a smaller guy who enjoys running and was considering joining the school’s track team.
Thompson, the 16-year-old victim, was a junior at the school.
Prosecutors will seek to charge the suspect as an adult, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said in an email. Authorities have not commented on what charges the teen could face.
The Raleigh shooting was the latest in a violent week nationwide. Five people were killed Sunday in a shooting at a home in Inman, South Carolina. On Wednesday, two police officers were fatally shot in Connecticut after apparently being drawn into an ambush by an emergency call about possible domestic violence. Police officers have been shot this week in Greenville, Mississippi; Decatur, Illinois; Philadelphia, Las Vegas and central Florida. Two of those officers, one in Greenville and one Las Vegas, were killed.
Thursday’s violence was the 25th mass killing in 2022 in which the victims were fatally shot, according to The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database. A mass killing is defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator.
The walking trail was quieter than usual Friday. Sara Cutter, 31, said she sensed “a lingering sadness over Raleigh” as she walked the greenway, about a mile from the shootings.
“We’re all hurting today, the entire city,” Cutter said. “I’ve seen some somber faces while I’ve been out walking today. But it’s also been good to see people out. The community — that’s what will get us through.”
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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Nicole Connors’ last name.
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Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland contributed to this report.