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| A makeshift memorial appears on display, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry in Chapel Hill, N.C., in remembrance of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, who were killed on Tuesday. Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the case. |
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.
(AP) -- Police are trying to determine whether hate played any role
in the killing of three Muslims, a crime they said was sparked by a
neighbor's long-simmering anger over parking and noise inside their
condominium complex.
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46,
describes himself as a "gun toting" atheist. Neighbors say he always
seemed angry and confrontational. His ex-wife said he was obsessed with
the shooting-rampage movie "Falling Down," and showed "no compassion at
all" for other people.
His current wife, Karen
Hicks, said he "champions the rights of others" and said the killings
"had nothing do with religion or the victims' faith." Later Wednesday,
she issued another statement, saying she's divorcing him.
Hicks
appeared in court Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder in the
deaths Tuesday of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21,
and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. He pleaded indigence and
was appointed a public defender.
Officers were summoned by a neighbor who called 911 reporting five to 10 shots and the sound of people screaming.
The
women's father, Mohammad Abu-Salha, said police told him each was shot
in the head inside the couple's apartment, and that he, for one, is
convinced it was a hate crime.
"The media here
bombards the American citizen with Islamic, Islamic, Islamic terrorism
and makes people here scared of us and hate us and want us out. So if
somebody has any conflict with you, and they already hate you, you get a
bullet in the head," said Abu-Salha, who is a psychiatrist.
The
killings are fueling outrage among people who blame anti-Muslim
rhetoric for hate crimes. A Muslim advocacy organization pressed
authorities to investigate possible religious bias. Many posted social
media updates with the hashtags (hash)MuslimLivesMatter.
"We
understand the concerns about the possibility that this was
hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is
the case," Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue said in an email.
Chapel
Hill Police asked the FBI for help in their probe, and Ripley Rand, the
U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, said his
office was monitoring the investigation. But Rand said the crime
"appears at this point to have been an isolated incident."
About
2,000 people attended a candlelight vigil for the victims in the heart
of UNC's campus Wednesday evening. Several people who knew them spoke
about their selflessness as friends and recounted kindnesses that they
had extended to others through the years.
Barakat
and Mohammad were newlyweds who helped the homeless and raised funds to
help Syrian refugees in Turkey this summer. They met while running the
Muslim Student Association at N.C. State before he began pursuing an
advanced degree in dentistry at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Mohammad planned to join her husband in dentistry school in
the fall.
Abu-Salha was visiting them Tuesday from Raleigh, where she was majoring in design at N.C. State.
"This was like the power couple of our community," said Ali Sajjad, 21, the association's current president.
Many
of the condominiums in the complex are rented or owned by students and
recent graduates at UNC, whose campus is about three miles away.
Hicks had less success: Unemployed and driving a 15-year-old car, his wife said he's been studying to become a paralegal.
Hicks,
a Second Amendment rights advocate with a concealed weapons permit,
often complained about both Christians and Muslims on his Facebook page.
"Some call me a gun toting Liberal, others call me an open-minded
Conservative," Hicks wrote.
Imad Ahmad, who
lived in the condo where his friends were killed until Barakat and
Mohammed were married in December, said Hicks complained about once a
month that the two men were parking in a visitor's space as well as
their assigned spot.
"He would come over to
the door. Knock on the door and then have a gun on his hip saying `you
guys need to not park here,'" said Ahmad, a graduate student in
chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill. "He did it again after they got married."
Both
Hicks and his neighbors complained to the property managers, who
apparently didn't intervene. "They told us to call the police if the guy
came and harassed us again," Ahmad said.
"This
man was frustrated day in and day out about not being able to park
where he wanted to," said Karen Hicks' attorney, Robert Maitland.
The
killings were "related to long-standing parking disputes my husband had
with various neighbors regardless of their race, religion or creed,"
Karen Hicks said.
Police have not said how
Hicks got inside the condominium, but on Wednesday afternoon there were
no visible signs of damage to the door, which was affixed with orange
stickers warning of biohazardous material inside. A wooden placard
bearing Arabic script that translates to "Thanks to God" hung over their
doorbell.
A woman who lives near the scene
described Hicks as short-tempered. "Anytime that I saw him or saw
interaction with him or friends or anyone in the parking lot or myself,
he was angry," Samantha Maness said of Hicks. "He was very angry,
anytime I saw him."
Hicks' ex-wife, Cynthia
Hurley, said that before they divorced about 17 years ago, his favorite
movie was "Falling Down," the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a divorced
unemployed engineer who goes on a shooting rampage.
"That
always freaked me out," Hurley said. "He watched it incessantly. He
thought it was hilarious. He had no compassion at all," she said.
A probable cause hearing is scheduled for March 4. Police said Hicks was cooperating.
