Trystan Andrew Terrell

Trystan Andrew Terrell Full Name: Trystan Andrew Terrell Origin: Texas, United States Occupation: History undergraduate student (former) Hobby: Going to shooting ranges Goals: Commit a mass shooting (successful) Crimes: Murder Type of Villain: School Shooter

Trystan Andrew Terrell (born June 6, 1996) is the 28-year old perpetrator of a mass shooting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte on April 30, 2019. Two people were killed and three others were left in critical condition.

Terrell was reportedly a former history undergraduate at UNC Charlotte who had withdrawn from the university on February 14, 2019. His motive for committing the shooting remains a mystery.

Background

Born in Texas and a registered voter in Mecklenburg County, he had no prior criminal record in either North Carolina or in Texas. UNC Charlotte police said they had not noted him as a potential threat prior to the shooting. He was inactive on social media networks, and had legally purchased the handgun he allegedly used.

Terrell moved to North Carolina with his family in 2014, according to his grandfather Paul Rold of Arlington, Texas. He spent his high school years in a middle-class neighborhood in Mansfield, Texas, where he attended Mansfield High School. According to Rold, Terrell and his father Craig, who had taken a job as an auditor for the Charlotte city government, had moved to Charlotte for a fresh start and new surroundings. His mother Robyn Ann, who lived in Mansfield from 1999 until her death from breast cancer in December 2011, had worked as a paraprofessional educator with the Mansfield school district. Terrell's former neighbors said he was devastated by his mother's death, and that the family moved because Terrell wanted a change of scenery. He has an older sister who resides in Baltimore.

Rold described his grandson as autistic and socially reserved. He said Terrell dreamed of working in South America, and taught himself French and Portuguese with the aid of a language learning program Rold had bought for him. According to Rold, his grandson never showed any interest in firearms or other weapons, and that Terrell's actions were those of "someone foreign to me. This is not in his DNA." He further said his grandson was critical of American gun culture, saying it was too easy for people to obtain firearms in the United States, and that his grandson had specifically referenced New Zealand's crackdown on guns following the Christchurch mosque shootings. Rold described his grandson as "not bubbly and effervescent, rather shy, quiet, studious, not athletic," though he had tried to introduce his grandson to baseball and golf, with no success. Rold said he blamed lax gun laws for making firearms too easy to obtain, and that if his grandson "had not been able to secure a weapon, this would never have happened." He did not believe his grandson had a mental illness which would have disposed him to commit violence, "but then I’m not a psychologist. You would never have believed this could have happened, that he would have done something like this."

From the fall of 2015 through the spring of 2018, Terrell was enrolled at Central Piedmont Community College where he studied for an associate's degree in science. Transferring to UNC Charlotte in the fall of 2018, he enrolled in three university courses for the 2019 spring semester, including Johnson's, and attended classes in the room where he allegedly committed the shooting. According to Johnson, between enrolling in and withdrawing from his course, Terrell "engaged with the course material" and "asked questions about the lessons, answered questions that I pose to the class. It was completely typical." Cooper Creech, a former classmate in the same course, said Terrell rarely spoke in the classroom, but would "blurt out statements" and sometimes seemed oddly angry. After Terrell left his course, Johnson said that he subsequently met him on campus and "conveyed that it was a shame that [he] had to leave the course", but that he understood the importance of students needing to prioritize. According to Johnson, that was his last encounter with him prior to the shooting. Nick Brooks, a student who was taking a study break outside the Kennedy Building when he saw Terrell enter, recognized him from commuting on the Lynx Blue Line light rail; Brooks heard the sound of gunshots seconds later. He further said he had encountered Terrell at his NoDa apartment complex outside the school, recalling "He was in the elevator and the doors were closing and he was just staring at me. You could tell something was up with him. It’s like he had no emotions." According to David Spano, the university's director of counseling and psychological services, though his office had a team to monitor "students of concern," Terrell had not been monitored at any point before he withdrew from the university.

The shooting

The shooting occurred during the last day of classes for the spring semester, at around 5:40 p.m. local time, according to university officials. Around that time, Terrell entered Room 236 in the Kennedy Building, where approximately 60 students enrolled in "Science, Technology, & Society," a liberal studies course on the anthropology and philosophy of science, were delivering their final group presentations. The classroom, with a level floor and 14 separate tables, was designed to accommodate approximately 100 students, and had both a front and a rear entrance, according to survivor Rami Al-Ramadhan, who had been seated towards the front of the room. The course instructor was Adam Johnson, a professor in the university's anthropology department. Johnson, who had himself done his graduate school work in anthropology from UNC Charlotte, had been teaching at the university since 2017. He had recently accepted a teaching position in Arizona and was in his final semester at UNC Charlotte.

The first presentation began at around 5:33 p.m. local time, with each group having been assigned to produce a 10-minute video on their chosen topic. According to Johnson, who had been seated at a table taking notes and who did not hear a door open, Terrell then "burst into" the classroom from the left of the room and opened fire with a pistol. According to Al-Ramadhan, Terrell opened the front door and smiled before firing his weapon at random, showing no other reaction. Another survivor, Joshua Ayers, gave a different account, saying Terrell "slammed the door open and produced a pistol" before walking towards a particular table and firing his weapon, specifically targeting the students seated there.

As Terrell continued firing, student Riley Howell tackled him and knocked him to the floor while yelling "go, go, go!" to his classmates, according to Al-Ramadhan. Howell, whose actions gave other students time to escape the room without injury, was shot at least three times, with the final bullet, which killed him, entering his jawbone by his right ear and traveling into his brain. According to Howell's parents, authorities told them their son had tackled Terrell so forcefully he later complained of internal injuries. Terrell subsequently told police detectives that Howell's tackling him had caused him to stop firing. After Terrell had emptied his gun, he "...laid the gun down, and sat on the ground," according to Johnson. Terrell then responded to a victim who had asked him to stop shooting, stating "I'm done." Other than Howell, one other person, student Ellis Parker, had been killed.

Aftermath

After being taken into custody, Terrell told reporters he "just went into a classroom and shot the guys". He then reportedly made a full confession to investigators, saying he had planned an attack for some months. In subsequent statements requesting search warrants from a court, lead investigator Detective Brian Koll of the CMPD wrote Terrell "stated he had been planning this shooting for several months and described to detectives where and how he obtained the firearm, research he had conducted on mass shootings, and how he chose this location." In his confession, Terrell reportedly referenced the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which police sources said he had researched at length. According to the same sources, he had gone to a shooting range to practice and had "at least 10 magazines." Dressed in black, he took the light rail to campus on the day of the shooting, carrying a backpack; CMPD investigators intended to review available security footage along the line. Terrell told investigators that he had entered the Kennedy Building with the intention of shooting others; before attacking, he loaded his weapon in a restroom near the classroom. He reportedly chose his victims at random with no specific target intended. According to police search warrants, he informed investigators he had used his Samsung cell phone to record a video of the shooting.

Terrell was charged with two counts of murder, four counts of attempted first-degree murder, four counts of assault with a deadly weapon intending to kill, one count of having a gun on education property, and one count of discharging a firearm on education property. Police searched his third-floor apartment at the Novel NoDa apartment complex in the 400 block of E. 36th Street in NoDa around 8:00 p.m. on April 30, recovering a laptop, paper targets, three handgun magazines, six boxes of ammunition, and a magazine loader. As of May 1, investigators were unable to determine any motive for his alleged actions, according to CMPD Police Chief Kerr Putney, who said investigators did not believe anyone else had been involved in the shooting.

Terrell's first court appearance was scheduled for May 2, 2019, but he declined to appear. He was formally indicted by a 16-member grand jury on May 6. He pleaded guilty to all charges on September 19 and received two consecutive life sentences.