Charleston shooting family member shares stories of terror, survival

Friday, June 19, 2015

Charleston shooting family member shares stories of terror and survival

Sylvia Johnson, cousin of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, recounts what happened the night Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed her cousin and eight others, as told to her by a survivor.

Prior to shooting and killing nine people in a Bible study Wednesday night, the shooter at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston reportedly asked about the pastor and was invited to sit next to him, according to a family member's account.

"They showed him where he was and Clementa, being the kind-spirited person that he is, he had him sit next to him," Sylvia Johnson told ABC News.

Johnson is the cousin of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the man who she says welcomed the newcomer, identified as suspect Dylann Roof, only to become one of his victims. A Snapchat photo obtained by Mashable appears to show the gunman during the meeting.

Johnson said she spoke to a survivor, whose name has not been released, Wednesday following the shooting. The survivor's dress was covered in blood, Johnson said, as she recounted what happened in that room.

Roof was allegedly in the room for an hour before opening fire. There were nine victims and three survivors.

One of the survivors, a 5-year-old girl, may have saved herself by pretending to be dead, Johnson said.

"She played dead in order to survive, in order to get him not to shoot her," Johnson said of the young survivor.

The survivor Johnson spoke to was the grandmother of that little girl. Johnson said the woman asked her son to play dead, too, but he didn't listen. That's when the gunman said some chilling final words to the man, according to his mother's account as told by Johnson.

"He wanted to check on my cousin, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney," Johnson said. "When he got up, that's when the gunman questioned him and started saying, 'Y'all rape our women, and y'all have taken over the country, and I have to do what I have to do.'"

Roof is allegedly "big into segregation" and has "been planning something like this for months," his roommate Dalton Tyler told ABC News.

The gunman addressed the elderly survivor Johnson spoke with, she said, and asked if he had shot her yet. The woman said no.

"Good, because I need someone to survive," Johnson said he told her, adding that he would shoot himself. "And you'll be the only survivor."

Roof, 21, was arrested in North Carolina on Thursday and then flown back to North Carolina. He is charged with nine counts of murder and a weapon charge and is scheduled to appear for a bond hearing on Friday.