Key Highlights
- An 18-year-old admitted Wednesday to carrying out a 2022 mass shooting in Raleigh, North Carolina, which killed five people – including his older brother and a police officer – pleading guilty to murder and multiple other charges just days before trial.
- The Associated Press reported that Austin David Thompson pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, two counts each of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of assaulting an officer with a gun. Thompson was 15 when prosecutors say he opened fire in his Raleigh neighborhood, killing Thompson’s brother James Thompson, along with 52-year-old Nicole Connors, 29-year-old Raleigh police officer Gabriel Torres, 34-year-old Mary Marshall and 49-year-old Susan Karnatz.
- He had been scheduled to face a state murder trial later this month before changing his plea.
- Thompson’s lawyers announced Tuesday that he would plead guilty to all charges after months of pretrial motions seeking to restrict what evidence and testimony prosecutors could present.
- In court filings, his attorneys said avoiding a trial would "save the community and the victims from as much additional infliction of trauma as possible." MISSISSIPPI PROSECUTORS TO SEEK DEATH PENALTY AGAINST MAN ACCUSED OF DEADLY RAMPAGE THAT INCLUDED GIRL, PASTOR Austin Thompson is sworn in during a hearing in Wake County Superior Court on Wednesday, Jan.
