Dylann Roof

Dylann Roof
Mug shot of Roof taken by the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, June 18, 2015
Born	Dylann Storm Roof (1994-04-03) April 3, 1994 (age 23) Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.
Known for	Perpetrator of the Charleston church shooting
Criminal charge	Federal (33 counts): Hate Crime Act Resulting in Death (9 counts) Hate Crime Act Involving An Attempt to Kill (3 counts) Obstruction of Exercise of Religion Resulting in Death (9 counts) Obstruction of Exercise of Religion Involving An Attempt to Kill and Use of a Dangerous Weapon (3 counts) Use of a Firearm to Commit Murder During and In Relation to a Crime of Violence (9 counts) South Carolina State (13 counts): Murder (9 counts) Attempted murder (3 counts) Possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime
Criminal penalty	Death (federal) Life imprisonment (state)
Criminal status	Found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death in federal court, pleaded guilty to all counts in state court
Conviction(s)	December 15, 2016 (federal) April 10, 2017 (state; agreed to plead guilty on March 31, 2017)

Federal (33 counts):

South Carolina State (13 counts):

Dylann Storm Roof (born April 3, 1994) is an American mass murderer and white supremacist convicted of perpetrating the Charleston church shooting.

During a prayer service 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.

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."

In December 2016, Roof was convicted in federal court of all 33 federal hate crime charges against him stemming from the shooting; he was sentenced to death for those crimes the following month. On March 31, 2017; Roof agreed to plead guilty in South Carolina state court to all state charges pending against him--nine counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony--to avoid a second death sentence. In return, he will accept a sentence of life in prison without parole. On April 10, 2017, Roof was sentenced to nine life sentences after pleading guilty to state murder charges.