(CNN) — Law enforcement confronted Vester Lee Flanagan on Interstate 66 and Flanagan shot himself, officials tell CNN.
Flanagan is not dead, but is currently in critical condition.
The gunmen
Flanagan was a former employee of WDBJ7 who was fired from the station two years ago. He reported under the name Bryce Williams while working for the station.
A manhunt for the gunman began after a local news reporter and photographer were fatally shot on live television during an interview outside Moneta, Virginia, on Wednesday morning.
Alison Parker was interviewing a woman at approximately 6:45 a.m. when shots rang out. Both women screamed.
As the camera fell to the ground, the audience caught the briefest glimpse of a man who appeared to pointing a gun toward the downed cameraman.
The station cut away to a shocked anchor, Kimberly McBroom, back in the studio.
Parker, 24, and Adam Ward, 27, were killed in the shooting at Bridgewater Plaza near Moneta, the station reported later.
The woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was shot in the back and is in surgery, said Barb Nocera, the chamber’s special projects manager said.
It is believed that the gunmen fired six or seven times, WDBJ General Manager Jeff Marks said.
Vicki Gardner, the woman who was being interviewed by a WDBJ crew when the two journalists were killed, was shot in the back during the incident and is in surgery, said Barb Nocera, special projects manager at the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce in Virginia.
Gardner is the chamber’s executive director, Nocera told CNN’s Brian Stelter.
The manhunt
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives participated in the manhunt for Flanagan, while the ATF and FBI participated in the investigation. Area schools were on lockdown.
“We do not know the motive. We do not know who the killer is,” Marks said earlier.
“We do know the Franklin County sheriff … they are working very diligently to track down both the motive and the person responsible for this terrible crime against two fine journalists,” he said during the station’s coverage of the shooting.
Facebook and Twitter posts
Facebook and Twitter suspended the accounts of the shooter suspected in Wednesday’s deaths of two Virginia television journalists.
A user by the name of Bryce Williams filmed himself shooting reporter Allison Parker and photographer Adam Ward in Moneta, Virginia.
He posted two videos on Twitter and one video on Facebook.
The video on Twitter showed someone walking up to Parker and Ward and pointing a gun at them. Another video showed the gun firing. A follow-up tweet said, “I filmed the shooting.”
Both Twitter and Facebook suspended the user’s profile pages within minutes. But not before the videos autoplayed on the social media sites for anyone who viewed his accounts.
The manifesto
ABC News reported that it has received a fax containing a 23-page manifesto from someone named Bryce Williams, the news outlet tweeted.
The document has been handed over to investigators, ABC said.
WDBJ7
“Our hearts are broken,” Marks said on air, explaining that Parker’s and Ward’s colleagues are “holding back tears.”
McBroom described Parker as a “rock star” and said, “You throw anything at that girl and she could do it.”
Another journalist at the anchor’s desk said Ward was engaged to be married to morning show producer at WDBJ, Melissa Ott, and Ward recently told her, “I’m going to get out of news. I think I’m going to do something else.”
Parker is the morning reporter for the Roanoke station and a native of Virginia, having spent most of her life outside Martinsville.
She started with WDBJ as an intern, her biography on the station’s website says.
She previously worked with another CNN affiliate, WCTI, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.
She is a graduate of James Madison University’s School of Media Arts and Design in Harrisonburg.
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