young man who went on a killing rampage that left five people dead in North Carolina in 2022 pleaded guilty on Wednesday to all the charges against him, a rare conclusion to a mass shooting case that was expected to go to trial and be closely watched in the state.
Lawyers for the man, Austin Thompson, now 18, filed a plea notice on Tuesday and confirmed his guilty plea in a Raleigh courtroom on Wednesday. When the judge asked a series of basic questions as part of the process of approving his plea, such as whether he understood that he was pleading guilty to 10 offenses, Mr. Thompson looked straight ahead and replied, “Yes,” each time.
The charges included five counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of assault of an officer with a gun. Since Mr. Thompson was 15 at the time of the attack, he cannot receive the death penalty. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. The sentencing hearing will begin next month, and it is expected to last several days.
In a country in which mass shootings seem all too frequent, it is extremely uncommon for people who commit such crimes to plead guilty, given that many of them either die before they’re apprehended or go on trial. In recent months, it appeared that Mr. Thompson was poised to face a jury, with his lawyers writing in court filings that they intended to blame prescribed medication, though they did not specify what that was.
But after lengthy discussions about how the trial would proceed, the lawyers wrote, Mr. Thompson decided that he wanted to spare the community from further trauma.
The killings on Oct. 13, 2022, in a neighborhood northeast of downtown Raleigh, near winding walking trails along the Neuse River, shocked the state and captured national attention.
After Mr. Thompson’s guilty plea on Wednesday, Joseph Latour, an assistant district attorney in Wake County, offered the most detailed account yet of how the rampage transpired.
He said that Mr. Thompson had gone to school that day with his brother and “by all accounts” it was a normal morning. But when they came back home in the afternoon, around 4 p.m., Mr. Thompson went to one of the rooms in the house, retrieved a rifle and shot his 16-year-old brother, James, in the back of the head, Mr. Latour said.
