Felicia Sanders recounts moment her 26-year-old son was gunned down in assault on Bible study class in emotional testimony on opening day of Roof’s trial

One of the survivors of the Charleston church massacre described the young white man accused of murdering nine of her fellow parishioners as “evil, evil, evil as can be” during powerful testimony that left many in the courtroom in tears on Wednesday.



Felicia Sanders lost her 26-year-old son Tywanza Sanders in the assault, and described the moment she saw 22-year-old Dylann Roof open fire on her bible study class at the Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, during an attack prosecutors argue was planned months in advance and motivated by violent racism.

'We are still in mourning': Charleston congregants prepare for Dylann Roof trial Read more

Sanders told the court that Roof opened fire on the group as they closed their eyes to pray at the end of the class, and first shot the church’s pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney, who had invited the visitor to sit next to him.

“I screamed, ‘He has a gun.’ By then he had already shot Rev Pinckney,” Sanders said through tears. “I said: ‘Everybody get under the table.’ That’s when he started shooting up the room.”

Sanders said Roof then gunned down the Rev Daniel Simmons, who had run towards Pinckney shouting: “Let me check on my pastor, I need to check on my pastor.”

“Then Rev Simmons got shot,” she said.

The survivor told the court she had hidden under a table in the church’s basement and played dead, clutching her 11-year-old granddaughter, who had also been present at the class, to her chest.



“She was saying: ‘Granny, I’m so scared.’ I said: ‘Just be quiet.’ I said: ‘Just play dead. Play dead.’ And so I muzzled her face to my body, I muzzled her face to my body so tight that I thought I suffocated her because I didn’t want her to make a sound.”

As Roof continued shooting, he spared one of the congregants, Polly Sheppard, according to assistant US prosecutor Jay Richardson, asking her whether she had been shot and stating he had spared her because “he wanted to have her alive to tell the story”.

At this point, Sanders said, her son Tywanza, who had already been shot, got up and attempted to reason with Roof, saying: “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?”

Addressing Roof, who had not looked at Sanders during her entire testimony, Sanders said: “And the defendant over there, with his head hang down refusing to look over at me, said: ‘I have to do this.’ And that’s when he put about five bullets in my son.”

After Roof fled the church, she said, she watched her son die.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Emanuel AME Church in Charleston on 18 June 2015, the day after the shooting. Photograph: Stephen B Morton/AP

“I watched him take his last breath,” she said. “I watched my son come into this world. I watched my son leave this life.”



Prosecutors have accused Roof of acting with a “cold and hateful heart” as he gunned down the nine African American parishioners during the brutal hate crime in June.

During opening arguments in the federal trial, assistant US attorney Jay Richardson said he intended to prove that the assault was “cold and calculated” and “racist retribution for perceived offenses against the white race”.

Roof faces 33 charges, including hate crimes, murder, attempted murder and obstruction of religion, and could face the death penalty. The 22-year-old has also been charged in a state murder case, which also carries the death penalty and is scheduled follow this trial.

He is accused of entering the Bible study class at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston on the evening of 17 June 2015, listening to the lesson and then opening fire on attendees as he uttered racial insults.

There was heavy security at the US courthouse in downtown Charleston, with local police and federal officers from the Department of Homeland Security positioned outside the building.

As Richardson commenced his opening remarks, he paid tribute to the nine people killed during the attack, and displayed photographs of the victims as he spoke about about each one individually. Susie Jackson, 87 and the oldest victim, was “a proud matriarch”, he said. Ethel Lance, 70, was “utterly devoted” to the Mother Emanuel church, while the three clergy killed in the attack, Pinckney, Simmons, and DePayne Middleton-Doctor, were “inspiring ministers”.

Myra Thompson, 59, had just received her preaching certificate and was planning to lead Bible study class for the first time that evening, Richardson said.

Roof, who sat motionless in the courtroom in a grey-and-white-striped jail-issued uniform throughout the statement, stared away from the photographs as they flashed up on screen. Before proceedings began he rocked back and forth on his chair, occasionally combing through papers on the desk in front of him.

Richardson said that Roof had come to the church armed with eight magazines of ammunition and had waited until the group had “closed their eyes to offer prayer” before he commenced the attack. “It was at that moment he made clear what he had been planning for months,” Richardson said.

He said Roof first opened fire on Pinckney, who had offered the 22 year-old a seat next to him during the class, shooting the pastor “over and over again” and then opening fire on Simmons, who had rushed towards Roof after he shot Pinckney.

Richardson said Roof then proceeded to shoot each victim “over and over again”, adding that the white supremacist emptied an “entire magazine” on 87-year-old Jackson.

Richardson described the moment that 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders, who had been shot, attempted to reason with Roof, telling him: “We mean you no harm.”

Roof, Richardson said, then replied: “Y’all are taking over the world,” before he repeatedly shot Sanders.

The six public benches on the righthand side of the court were filled almost entirely with members of the church and the families of the victims. Many sobbed during the most graphic parts of Richardson’s opening argument.

The prosecutor accused Roof of scouting the church out “on repeated trips” and calling to enquire about the timing of services. On the day of the attack, Richardson said, Roof travelled to his father’s house to upload a manifesto to his website.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Homeland Security patrol the streets outside the federal courthouse on Wednesday during Dylann Roof’s trial. Photograph: Grace Beahm/AP

“He chose that church because of the impact it would have,” Richardson said, claiming Roof wanted the attack to “resonate across the nation”. Roof confessed to the killings during an interview with the FBI shortly after he was arrested, the prosecutor said, repeatedly stating “he had to do it” because “white supremacy groups were just talk”.

Richardson warned the 12 jurors they would be shown “gruesome” images of the scene’s aftermath. “Seeing what he left behind must be shown,” he said.

“You labour here seeking the truth,” Richardson said. “His hatred … will not win in this courtroom. Justice must prevail.”

A number of first responders also testified during the first day’s proceedings, describing the bloody aftermath of the shooting. The court played video from one officer’s body camera, which briefly showed a body on the floor and a young girl, one of the survivors, being escorted out of the church.

“My baby dead. My baby dead,” a voice can be heard saying. “The preacher gone. Everybody gone.”

Roof has indicated to the court he will represent himself during the sentencing part of the trial, where the jury will likely have to decide whether to sentence the 22-year-old to death.

During opening arguments for the defence, David Bruck indicated the defence may call no witnesses at all and said that the events Richardson described “clearly did occur”. But he urged the jury to ask of Roof: “Who is he? Why did he do it? Where did this come from?”

“Ask yourself where this extraordinary degree, this intense degree of hatred came from,” Bruck said.

At the end of opening arguments, a white woman believed to be Roof’s mother collapsed. She had been shaking and sobbing throughout proceedings.



