Trystan Terrell, the 22-year-old gunman accused of killing two and injuring four more at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte on Tuesday, delivered a chilling message about the heinous act, according to video captured by WBTV. The UNC dropout appeared calm as he admitted to opening fire in the college classroom.
In the clip, Terrell appeared to say, “I just went into his classroom and shot the guys” as he was escorted into Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police headquarters on Tuesday. The accused gunman smirked in the WBTV video.
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Terrell was arrested on Tuesday after reportedly killing two and injuring four others, Daily Mail reported. The attack began around 5:40 p.m. ET, the outlet reported. Terrell is said to have burst into an anthropology class where students inside were delivering presentations. His victims were identified as Riley Howell, 21, and Ellis Parlier, 19, Daily Mail said. Their names were released Wednesday morning. The injured include Drew Pescaro, 19; Sean Dehart, 20; Rami Alramatin, 20; and Emily Houpt, 23.
Terrell was once a student at UNC, NBC News affiliate station WCNC reported. He was studying history, but dropped out this semester. The accused gunman’s grandfather, Paul Rold, told the outlet Terrell moved to North Carolina from Texas with his father roughly two years before the shooting took place.
Rold spoke on his grandson’s character, telling WCNC he never had an interest in guns or weapons of any kind prior to the shooting.
“You’re describing someone foreign to me,” Rold said. “This is not in his DNA.”
Terrell’s motivations remain a mystery to authorities, NBC News reported. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said on Wednesday that they’re looking into a motive. They do not believe he knew any of the victims personally.
“Unfortunately this is an incident that really strikes a chord with us all because we can’t really discern the why just yet,” Putney said. “It really appears there was no specific person and the randomness is what’s most concerning.”
University Police Chief Jeffrey A. Baker told NBC News Terrell was “not somebody that [was] on our radar” prior to the shooting.
Tristan Field, a 19-year-old UNC student who was in the campus’ Kennedy Building when the gunfire began, told NBC News Terrell didn’t utter a word before opening fire. Field was not hurt in the shooting.
“He just started shooting,” Field recalled.
Terrell was held at Mecklenburg County Jail on two counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder, possessing and firing a weapon on educational property, and assault with a deadly weapon, CBS News revealed.
