Dylann Roof

Dylann Roof, born on April 3, 1994, is an American mass murderer and landscape contractor, infamous for his role in the Charleston church shooting. On June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Roof committed a heinous act, taking the lives of nine African American individuals, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, and injuring a tenth person. His actions have been widely condemned as domestic terrorism.

Following the shooting, Roof became the focus of a manhunt that concluded with his arrest in Shelby, North Carolina, the morning after the attack. He later confessed that his motive was to incite a race war, revealing the deeply rooted white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies that fueled his actions.

In the days following the tragedy, a website titled The Last Rhodesian was discovered, which was confirmed to be owned by Roof. The site featured images of him alongside symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, as well as a manifesto detailing his views on race, which he claimed were influenced by the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin and perceptions of black-on-white crime.

On December 15, 2016, Roof was convicted in federal court on all thirty-three charges, including hate crimes, related to the shooting. He was sentenced to death on January 11, 2017. Subsequently, on March 31, 2017, he pleaded guilty in South Carolina state court to nine counts of murder and other charges to avoid a second death sentence, resulting in a life sentence without parole. As of now, Roof awaits execution for his federal convictions on death row at USP Terre Haute.