A suspect in the 2017 Burnette Chapel Church of Christ shooting in Nashville, Tennessee was allegedly heard laughing on the phone with his girlfriend over the incident.
Emanuel Kidega Samson, the accused perpetrator, allegedly told his girlfriend that he heard the victims saying “some funny (expletive)” during a jail phone call, according to a report from the AP. Prosecutors played audio of the calls during Samson’s trial Thursday. (RELATED: Gunman Kills 26 People In Mass Shooting At Texas Church [Video])
The 27-year-old Samson was arrested two years ago for a shooting that killed one person, and left eight others injured.
ANTIOCH CHURCH SHOOTING TRIAL: Prosecutors expected to play jail house phone calls between Emanuel Samson & his ex-girlfriend that reportedly refutes a lot of the suspect’s testimony yesterday: https://t.co/k15JFV5pmP https://t.co/Lc3NVr7fDH
— FoxNashville (@FOXNashville) May 23, 2019
Samson is a bodybuilder from Sudan, who attended high school in Tennessee. Samson came to the U.S. in the 1990s and was a legal resident at the time of the shooting. (RELATED: Tennessee Church Shooter Left Note Referencing Dylann Roof Shooting)
Samson is reportedly a black nationalist who was allegedly motivated to seek revenge over white nationalist Dylann Roof’s shooting of a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof shot up Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, killing nine people.
Sampson left a note on his vehicle, which said “Dylann Roof is less than nothing,” and “the blood that 10 of your kind will shed … in terms of vengeance,” according to prosecutors. Prosecutors also stated that Sampson entered the church “with the intent to murder a minimum of 10 white churchgoers.”
