Dylann Roof went to another black church after massacre at Emanuel AME, documents reveal

Newly released documents have revealed that convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof went to another black church on the same night of the massacre at Emanuel AME.

According to the court documents, the federal prosecutors said they had GPS evidence showing that Roof drove toward Branch AME church in Summerville after the shooting, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

The prosecutors noted that Roof turned off the GPS device for two minutes as he approached Branch AME, indicating that he stopped the car near the church.

The church, which was located 30 minutes away from Emanuel, also advertised a Wednesday night Bible study.

The Reverend Rufus Berry, the Branch AME pastor, said that he was shocked to hear that his church, which has 70 members, was also targeted. He told AP that he canceled the Bible study that night because he was working late at his job at a cement company.

"I would hate to know what the outcome would be. I dread to even think about that," he said while thanking God that the church was protected from a second attack.

The prosecutors stated in their motion that the similarities between Branch and Emanuel AME, as well as the fact that Roof was still armed, "supports the inference that Defendant intended to continue his racially-motivated violence at Branch AME Church that night and, more specifically, that his intended targets were African-American congregants at a church."

The defense attorneys, on the other hand, stated in their motion that Roof was simply trying to get away after the mass shooting. They argued that it was just a coincidence that he traveled by Branch AME, as he followed a route towards Shelby, North Carolina, where he was eventually arrested the next day.

"Given the large number of AME churches in South Carolina, he also drove nearby many other AME churches between Charleston and Shelby, but there is no evidence that he approached any of them," the defense motion stated, according to The Post and Courier.

Roof, an avowed white supremacist, was convicted of all 33 federal charges for killing nine people as they prayed at the end of a Bible study at Emanuel AME. A jury in South Carolina sentenced him to death in January, following the conviction.

During the trial, the prosecutors presented evidence that Roof possessed a list of other black churches when he was arrested. However, Branch AME was not among the churches listed on the papers found in his vehicle.

The day after the shootings, he confessed to the FBI that he was too tired to carry out any other attack after the massacre at Emanuel.