Parents marry
Dylann Roof’s parents, Franklin Bennett Roof and Amy Coles Roof, get married. Amy is five months pregnant. Their daughter, Amber, is born four months later in June.
Parents divorce
After splitting up in June, 1990, Roof’s parents finalize their divorce due to financial issues. Judge:
The Court inquired as to the possibility of reconciliation between the parties, but concluded that such was not possible.
Dylann Roof born
0 0 Mark Devlin Mark Devlin2015-06-18 16:11:342015-06-20 13:24:43Dylann Roof bornFather remarries
Roof’s father Franklin (known as “Benn”) marries Paige Mann in Florida, when they were living together in Columbia, South Carolina. Dylann is four years old, and his half-sister Amber is 11. Mann:
[I] raised (Franklin’s) kids from a very young age, took them to all of their activities, and Benn’s kids have spent almost every weekend with me. After we moved to Florida our marriage really began to deteriorate when Benn became so controlling…Benn travels a great deal, usually four days a week, so I would always care for and raise his kids.
Mann tries working at Sears but Franklin says he wants her to be a stay-at-home mom, so she quits. Despite her reluctance, he moves the family to the Florida Keys, away from her friends and family.
After we moved to Florida our marriage really began to deteriorate when Benn became so controlling. He controlled my whereabouts, the checkbook and everything about my life.
Mann’s mother writes that her daughter ‘loved Bennett Roof’s other children Amber and Dylann unconditionally as her own’. Dylann stayed with Mann and Franklin far more often than with his own mother, who was supposed to have him every other weekend,
I was afraid that love for these children clouded her judgement in getting involved with Bennett Roof. Paige was there for Amber and Dylann on the occasions where their own (mother) chose not to be, including church, driving Dylann to and from school and extracurricular activities.
Sister born
0 0 Mark Devlin Mark Devlin2015-06-20 14:04:032015-06-20 14:05:21Sister bornFather beats wife
According to an affidavit filed by Mann, Roof’s father beat her.
My whole world fell apart when Benn and I got into an argument. Benn violently pushed me to the ground and hit me in the back of my head…I was so scared of him that I knew I had to get out of this violent situation
Franklin takes the credit card that Paige has been using to pay the grocery bills –her only source of income — and says he is cutting off the electricity and taking his car.
Father’s second divorce
Mann and Franklin Roof’s divorce is finalized. Before the divorce Franklin hires a private investigator, who discovers Mann is having a relationship with another man. Mann gets custody of Morgan and Franklin must pay $570 per month in child support.
Attends Carolina Springs Middle School
0 CommentsIn eight grade Roof attends Carolina Springs Middle School, Lexington, SC.
Attends White Knoll High School
0 CommentsRoof attends the White knoll High School, in Lexington, SC, which has a mix of white and black students. Many of Roof’s Facebook friends are black. He is described as a “kind of wild” student, however not an outcast, and not bullied: Schoolfriend:
He used drugs heavily a lot. It was obviously harder than marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like Xanax, and stuff like that…
On racist speech:
I never heard him say anything, but just he had that kind of Southern pride, I guess some would say. Strong conservative beliefs. He made a lot of racist jokes, but you don’t really take them seriously like that. You don’t really think of it like that.
Drug arrest, banned from mall
Security guards at Columbiana Centre mall call police after Roof asks employees at a shoe store and a Bath & Body Works about how many people worked at the stores, their closing times and when the employees typically leave, according to an incident report. Roof tells the police that he was asking questions because his parents were pressuring him to get a job. The officer asks Roof is he had gotten any applications from the stores and he said he had not. When asked whether or not he has anything illegal in his possession, Roof says “no,” however a search reveals an unlabeled white bottle containing orange strips, which Roof identifies as Listerine Strips. The officer, however, does not believe him and asked again. Roof says the strips are actually Suboxone, a schedule III narcotic for which he does not have a prescription. According to the FDA, Suboxone contains the active ingredient, buprenorphine hydrochloride, which works to reduce the symptoms of opiate dependence. The officer arrested Roof and had his 2000 Hyundai Elantra towed. He is banned from the mall for a year.
Sullivan’s Island visit
0 Comments
Roof is photographed wearing the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa in front of a sign marking Sullivan’s Island, just south of Charleston. The island was the entry point for 40 percent of the slaves brought to North America, according to the National Parks Service.
Gets gun for birthday
4 CommentsRoof’s father gives him a .45 caliber gun for his 21st birthday. However, other reports say he was given money by his father, which he used to buy a gun. According to his uncle, the gun delighted him:
He said, ‘I got to go, I’m outside shooting target practice right now. He sounded happy about it.
Tresspassing arrest
Roof is arrested for tresspassing after showing up in the parking lot of the Columbiana Center Mall. His ban from the mall is extended to three years.
Tells friends he is going to kill
Roof tells his friends at a trailer park close to where he lives that he is “looking to kill a bunch of people on Wednesday” at the College of Charleston. However, they do not take him seriously due to his deadpan sense of humor. Friend:
He flat out told us he was going to do this stuff. He’s weird. You don’t know when to take him seriously and when not to.
Nine killed at prayer meeting
A gunman kills six women and three men, at a bible study group at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Victims include Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, who was a Democratic member of the State Senate. The gunman arrives at the church and asks for the pastor, the Rev. Pinckney, and sits among parishioners during a Bible study meeting. At the conclusion of Bible study , the gunman opens fire on the gathering, wounding several people, including the pastor. A survivor says the gunman reloads five different times and that her son was trying to “talk him out of doing the act of killing people,” but he does not listen. The shooter says to the group:
You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.
Eight people are killed inside the church and one more dies at the hospital soon after the incident. Three people survive. Police are still searching for the suspected shooter – a clean-shaven white male about 21 years of age. He is reportedly wearing a grey sweatshirt, blue jeans and Timberland boots.
Victims named
The Coronor’s office releases the victims’ names:
State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor.
Cynthia Hurd, 54, St. Andrews regional branch manager for the Charleston County Public Library system.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, a church pastor, speech therapist and coach of the girls’ track and field team at Goose Creek High School. Tywanza Sanders, 26, who had a degree in business administration from Allen University, where Pinckney also attended
Ethel Lance, 70, a retired Gilliard Center employee who worked recently as a church janitor.
Susie Jackson, 87, Lance’s cousin who was named by a relative and was a longtime church member.
Depayne Middleton Doctor, 49, who retired in 2005 as Charleston County director of the Community Development Block Grant Program.
Mira Thompson, 59, a pastor at the church.
Daniel Simmons Sr., 74, who died in a hospital operating room.
Followed
Debbie Dills, who has been following the news and seen Roof’s description, spots Roof’s car and follows him for 35 miles on Highway 74 from outside of Gastonia to Shelby. She calls her boss at Frady’s Florist & Gifts in Kings Mountain, and he calls the police in Shelby. Dills:
I knew it was a black car, and it had a tag on the front. I saw pictures of him with the bowl cut. I said, I’ve seen that car for some reason. I look, and it’s got a South Carolina tag on it. I thought, ‘Nah, that’s not his car.’ Then I got closer and saw that haircut. I was nervous. I had the worst feeling. Is that him or not him?..I was scared, I felt bad. I felt really weird. I felt like it was him, but I didn’t want it to be him.
Arrested
Police arrrest Roof in Shelby, North Carolina, almost 250 miles (400 km) – about three and a half hours’ drive – away from Charleston, when local police stop his car after a citizen called in about suspicious activity. Police say Roof was “cooperative” with the officer who stopped him.
Obama comments on killings
President Obama addresses the killings in South Carolina:
I don’t need to be constrained about the emotions tragedies like this raise. I’ve had to make comments like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun…Now is the time for mourning and healing, but let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country, will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. It is in our power to do something about it… I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now.
He also says he and first lady Michelle Obama have relationships with many of the church’s parishioners, including the slain pastor.
Planned attack for six months
Dalton Tyler, who says he has known Roof for seven months to one year, says he saw Roof last week.
[He had been] planning something like that for six months…He was big into segregation and other stuff. He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.
Tyler says he met Roof through a good friend. He also says Roof and his parents have an “on and off” relationship, and that they had bought him a gun but never allowed him to take it with him until this past week.