A disgruntled employee at a small Virginia news station is believed to be behind a deadly early morning shooting that was caught on live TV.
The unidentified gunman shot dead reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward as the two were conducting a live interview with Vicki Gardner, the local chamber of commerce director, at 6:45am.
Suddenly eight shots ring out and screams are heard as the women duck down and the camera falls to the floor. The camera is still running as a person dressed in all black appears and aims a gun at Ward.
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| PARKER (REPORTER) & WARD (CAMERAMAN) WERE SHOT DEAD |
Parker, 24, and Ward, 27, died at the scene while Gardner was rushed to Roanoke Memorial Hospital for emergency surgery.
Police have yet to identify the suspect but they say they know the person's name and are reportedly chasing the shooter on Interstate 54. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe says the gunman is believed to be a disgruntled employee of the station.
'It's my very very sad duty to report... that Alison and Adam died this morning,' WDBJ's general manager came on the air to say after the incident.
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| PARKER |
Gardner was also shot in the back in the attack and was taken to the hospital where she was last reported in surgery.
About 30 to 40 police officers are in the area, trying to track down the shooter.
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| WARD |
A spokesman with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries confirmed that half of their department are searching the scene on shoreline and surrounding area for the shooting.
Meanwhile the Dudley, Burnt Chimney and Windy Gap elementary schools as well as Bedford County school have been placed on lockdown.
No description of the suspect has been released yet.
Both Parker and Ward were in relationships with other employees at the news station. Ward was engaged to Melissa Ott, a news producer who was working on the show that morning and watched from the control room as the shooting happened.
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| UNIDENTIFIED SHOOTER |
It was Ott's last day on the job. She was about to start a new job in Charlotte, North Carolina and Ward planned to move with her. The crew had a party earlier that morning to celebrate her last day.
Parker's boyfriend of nine months was WDBJ public safety and mental health reporter Chris Hurst, 28.
The couple had just moved in together. Hurst took to Twitter to convey his unfathomable pain:
'It was the best nine months of our lives. We wanted to get married.We just celebrated her 24th birthday,' he wrote.
Hurst only revealed the relationship to viewers after the tragedy.
'We didn't share this publicly, but [Alison] and I were very much in love. We just moved in together. I am numb.'
According to her bio at WDBJ7.com, Parker was the station's morning reporter. A local girl, Parker had spent much of her life outside Martinsville, about an hour from where she was tragically gunned down Wednesday.
Prior to her time at WDBJ, Parker worked near the Marine base Camp Lejeune for the Jacksonville, North Carolina bureau of WCTI.
She graduated from James Madison University just three years ago. While there, she interned at the local ABC/Fox affiliate and was news editor for her university's nationally recognized newspaper, The Breeze.
Photographer Ward was a Virginia Tech graduate who attended high school in Salem, less than an hour from the scene of his murder.
The two Virginia natives often worked together on WDBJ stories.
In April, they traveled together to Appomattox for the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. In February, the station posted photos of the duo to Facebook as they dressed up as bride and groom at a local bridal store.
DailyMail
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