Dylann Roof

Explore about the Famous Criminal Dylann Roof, who was born in United States on April 3, 1994. Analyze Dylann Roof’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is Dylann Roof dating now? Look into this article to know how old is Dylann Roof?

Dylann Roof Biography

Suspected shooter of the 2015 Charleston church shooting who claimed to have taken the lives of nine African Americans, including a senior pastor state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. He was charged with nine counts of murder and faced the death penalty.

He was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder growing up. He worked for his father as a landscaper for a time.

He confessed that he committed the heinous crime in order to ignite a race war. He owned a website called The Last Rhodesian which featured pictures of him with symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism.

He was born in parents Franklin Bennett and Amelia Cowles, a carpenter and bartender, respectively. His parents divorced and his father remarried a woman named Paige Mann.

He claimed to have developed his white supremacist views following the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American white supremacist and mass murderer convicted for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015 in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, and injured one other person. After several people identified Roof as the main suspect, he became the center of a manhunt that ended the morning after the shooting with his arrest in Shelby, North Carolina. He later confessed that he committed the shooting in hopes of igniting a race war.

Roof was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Franklin Bennett (called Bennett) Roof, a carpenter and a construction contractor, and Amelia “Amy” Cowles, a bartender. His parents had divorced but were temporarily reconciled at the time of his birth. When Roof was five, his father married Paige Mann (née Hastings) in November 1999; they divorced after ten years of marriage. Roof has two siblings, an older half sister and a younger sister, Morgan Roof. Bennett Roof was allegedly verbally and physically abusive toward Mann. The family mostly lived in South Carolina, though from about 2005 to 2008, they temporarily moved to the Florida Keys. There is no information about Roof attending local schools there.

According to a 2009 affidavit filed for Mann’s divorce, Roof exhibited “obsessive compulsive behavior” as he grew up, obsessing over germs and insisting on having his hair cut in a certain style. When he was in middle school, he exhibited an interest in smoking marijuana, having once been caught spending money on it.

In nine years, 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. He 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, such as Suboxone. He was on the rolls of a local Evangelical Lutheran congregation, but it was unclear if he had recently attended.

Three days after the shooting, a website titled The Last Rhodesian was discovered and later confirmed by officials to be owned by Roof. The website contained photos of Roof posing with symbols of white supremacy and neo-Nazism, along with a manifesto in which he outlined his views toward blacks, among other peoples. He also claimed in the manifesto to have developed his white supremacist views after reading about the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin and black-on-white crime.

On July 31, 2015, Roof pleaded not guilty to the federal charges against him at the behest of his lawyer David Bruck. 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.

On September 3, Ninth Circuit solicitor (district attorney) Scarlett Wilson said that she intended to seek the death penalty for Roof because more than two people were killed in the shooting and others’ lives were put at risk. On September 16, Roof said through his attorney that he was willing to plead guilty to the state charges to avoid being sentenced to death. Roof reappeared in state court on October 23, 2015, before Nicholson.

On July 16, 2015, Roof’s trial in state court was scheduled by Circuit Court Judge J.C. Nicholson to start on July 11, 2016. On July 20, Roof was ordered to provide handwriting samples to investigators. The order explained that following his arrest in Shelby, notes and lists were found written on his hand and at other locations; that the handwriting samples were needed to determine if the handwriting matched.

On July 7, 2015, Roof was indicted on three new charges of attempted murder, one for each person who survived the shooting. A temporary gag order was issued by a judge on July 14 following the appearance of a letter purportedly written by Roof on an online auction site. Seven groups, including news media outlets, families of the slain victims, and church officials, called for easing some restrictions placed by the gag order, particularly 9-1-1 calls. Portions of the gag order were lifted on October 14, allowing for the release of 9-1-1 call transcripts and other documents, but the order remained in place for graphic crime scene photos and videos, as well as audio for the 9-1-1 calls.

On June 19, 2015, Roof was charged with nine counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. He first appeared in Charleston County court by video conference at a bond hearing later that day. At the hearing, shooting survivors and relatives of five of the victims spoke to Roof directly, saying that they were “praying for his soul” and forgave him. Governor Nikki Haley called for prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Roof.

Dylann Roof is the first person in U.S. history to have faced both a state and federal death penalty at the same time. In September 2015, it was announced Roof would face capital punishment in his state prosecution, and in May 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Roof would face capital punishment in his federal prosecution as well.

On the evening of June 18, 2015, Roof waived his extradition rights and was flown to Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in North Charleston. At the jail, his cell-block neighbor was Michael Slager, the former North Charleston officer charged with first-degree murder in the wake of his shooting of Walter Scott.

Roof personally purchased the gun used in the shooting from a retail gun store in West Columbia, using money given to him on his birthday. The Washington Post reported on July 10, 2015, that FBI Director James Comey said that Roof “was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI’s background-check system”. On August 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the survivors and families of the deceased can sue the Federal government.

According to web server logs, Roof’s website was last modified at 4:44 p.m. on June 17, 2015, when Roof noted, “[A]t the time of writing I am in a great hurry.”

On June 20, 2015, a website that had been registered to a “Dylann Roof” on February 9, 2015, lastrhodesian.com, was discovered. Though the identity of the domain’s owner was intentionally masked the day after it was registered, law enforcement officials confirmed Roof as the owner. The site included a cache of photos of Roof posing with a handgun and a Confederate Battle Flag, as well as with the widely recognized neo-Nazi code numbers 88 (an abbreviation for the salute “Heil Hitler!”) and 1488, written in sand. Roof was also seen spitting on and burning an American flag. While some photographs seemed to show Roof at home in his room, others were taken on an apparent tour of slavery-related historical sites in North and South Carolina, including Sullivan’s Island, the largest slave disembarkation port in North America, four former plantations, two cemeteries (one for white Confederate soldiers, the other for slaves), and the Museum and Library of Confederate History in Greenville. Roof is believed to have taken self-portraits using a timer, and his visits were not remembered by staff members working at the sites.

On the day he was captured (June 18, 2015), Roof confessed to committing the Charleston attack with the intention of starting a race war, and reportedly told investigators he almost did not go through with his mission because members of the church study group had been so nice to him.

According to a childhood friend, Roof went on a rant about the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the 2015 Baltimore protests that were sparked by the death of Freddie Gray while Gray was in police custody. He also often claimed that “blacks were taking over the world”. 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.

On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooting took place at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States. During a routine Bible study at the church, a white man about 21 years old, later identified as Roof, opened fire with a handgun, killing nine people. Roof was unemployed and living in largely African-American Eastover at the time of the attack.

According to James Comey, speaking in July 2015, Roof’s March arrest was at first written as a felony, which would have required an inquiry into the charge during a firearms background examination. It was legally a misdemeanor charge and was incorrectly written as a felony at first due to a data entry error made by a jail clerk. Despite this, Roof would not have been able to legally purchase firearms under a law that barred “unlawful user[s] of or addicted to any controlled substance,” such as the Suboxone, from owning firearms.

On April 26, 2015, Roof was arrested again for trespassing on the Columbiana Centre mall’s grounds in violation of the ban. The ban was then extended for three additional years.

On March 13, 2015, Roof was investigated for loitering in his parked car near a park in downtown Columbia. He had been recognized by an off-duty police officer who investigated his March 2 questioning; the officer then called a colleague to investigate. A police officer conducted a search of his vehicle and found a forearm grip for an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and six unloaded magazines, all capable of holding 40 rounds. When asked about it, Roof informed the officer that he wanted to purchase an AR-15, but did not have enough money to do so. He was not charged, as it was not illegal in South Carolina to possess a firearm grip.

On March 2, 2015, he was questioned about a February 28 incident at the Columbiana Centre in Columbia, in which he entered the mall wearing all-black clothing and asked employees unsettling questions. During the questioning, authorities found a bottle of what was later admitted to be Suboxone, a narcotic that is used for treating either chronic pain or opiate-abuse addictions and that is abused as a recreational drug; Roof was arrested for a misdemeanor charge of drug possession. He was subsequently banned from the Columbiana Centre for a year.

On August 4, 2016, Roof was beaten by a fellow inmate while detained at the Charleston County Detention Center. 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. The assailant was identified as 25-year-old African-American Dwayne Marion Stafford, who was awaiting trial on charges of first-degree assault and strong-arm robbery. Stafford was able to exit his unlocked cell, get through a steel cell door with a narrow vertical window, and go down the stairs into the jail’s protective custody unit to reach Roof. At the time of the attack, 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.

At a court hearing on December 28, 2016, 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. At the hearing 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.

On December 7, 2016, Roof’s federal trial began. The jury consisted of “two black women, eight white women, one white man and one black man”. Two days into the trial, Roof’s confession was played in court, admitting that he had killed the people at the church before chuckling. On December 15, 2016, after about two hours of deliberation, the jury found Roof guilty on all 33 counts.

On December 4, 2016, Roof, in a handwritten request, asked Gergel to give him back his defense team for the guilt phase of his federal death penalty trial. On December 5, 2016, Gergel allowed Roof to hire back his lawyers for the guilt phase of his trial. On December 6, 2016, a federal judge denied a motion by Roof’s defense team to delay Roof’s trial.

On December 4, 2016, Roof, in a handwritten request, asked Gergel to give him back his defense team for the guilt phase of his federal death penalty trial. On December 5, 2016, Gergel allowed Roof to hire back his lawyers for the guilt phase of his trial. On December 6, 2016, a federal judge denied a motion by Roof’s defense team to delay Roof’s trial.

On November 14, 2016, Gergel delayed the competency hearing to November 17, 2016. On November 16, 2016, Gergel delayed the competency hearing to November 21, 2016. Gergel also delayed the jury selection to November 28, 2016. The competency hearing ended November 22, 2016.

On November 8, 2016, District Court judge Richard M. Gergel ordered a competency evaluation for Roof, which Gergel scheduled for November 16, 2016. Gergel also postponed the jury selection to November 21, 2016.

Jury selection started on September 26, 2016. The initial pool of three thousand candidates was narrowed down to the final jury of twelve, plus alternates. The federal trial itself was expected to start late November or early December and last for about two months.

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