A jury has found self-declared white supremacist Dylann Roof guilty of all 33 federal charges he faced, including hate crimes, in relation to the shooting of nine black church worshippers in Charleston, South Carolina last year.
The 12-person jury took less than three hours to come to a unanimous decision on the charges, and will now decide whether he spends his life in prison, or be subject to the death penalty.
Roof, 22, pleaded not-guilty, but confessed to the killings in an FBI videotape confession, and made no objections to the video being played in court.
“I did it,” he says in the video, chuckling while answering the FBI’s questions and describing how he specifically targeted the historic black church.
Throughout the trial, the jury heard testimony from shooting survivor Polly Sheppard, a 72-year-old retired nurse who testified that Roof told her during the massacre: “I’m not going to [shoot you]. I’m going to leave you here to tell the story.”
Judge Richard Gergel has cleared Roof to represent himself in the sentencing proceedings, meaning experts have suggested that it is likely he will receive the death penalty.
Sentencing has been scheduled for January.
