Dylan Roof, accused of shooting and killing nine people in Charleston church shooting in June 2015, has confessed to investigators that he is guilty, a South Carolina court was told on Friday.
A two-hour conversation video, recorded shortly after Roof was taken into custody, was played before the jury in the trial. Roof is accused of entering the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church on a Wednesday evening during a bible study summer and opening fire at the worshippers gathered there.
Roof, 22, currently has a total of 33 federal hate crime charges against him and the federal government is seeking for death penalty for his crimes.
In the video conversation, Roof told investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), "I was sitting there thinking about whether I should do it or not." He said that before opening fire he was sitting with the people studying the Bible for 15 minutes and was contemplating whether he should shoot or not. "I just finally decided I had to do it," he told the agents, "It was going back and forth in my mind, it was like a jerk, a jerk reaction," he added.
During the conversation, Roof also confessed of being guilty of the murders, he said that he used a Glock 45-caliber handgun and killed the people in the church, "I did it. I killed them," according to tweets by Alexandra Olgin of South Carolina Public Radio, who was present in the courtroom. He could be also seen laughing in the video at one point when he said, "I am guilty. We all know I'm guilty."
Roof also told investigators that he might have killed five people in the church shooting, but then one of the investigators decided to tell him that he had taken lives of nine people in that church, to which Roof said, "There wasn't even that many people in there. Are you lying to me?" the Associated Press reported.
The investigators then asked him about how he felt after killing and wounding so many people and Roof replied with, "Well, it makes me feel bad."
When asked as to why he targeted the historically black church and killed nine black people, Roof said, "We already are the second-class citizens (referring to white people). That's the problem."
