Teen to plead guilty to mass shooting in Hedingham neighborhood
By WRAL Staff
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RALEIGH, North Carolina (WRAL) — Austin Thompson, the Raleigh teen accused of shooting six people, killing five of them in October 2022, will plead guilty to all charges, his lawyers announced on Tuesday.
The intent to plead guilty was filed one day before Thompson was scheduled for a a hearing ahead of a trial planned for February. That hearing is still scheduled for Wednesday. It’s likely Thompson would enter his plea at that time.
Thompson, who was 15 when he initiated the shooting spree that took him from his home in the Hedingham neighborhood to the Neuse River greenway, “recognizes the deep pain he has caused,” his lawyers said in giving notice of the intention to plead guilty.
“We are ready to move forward. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims,” Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said.
The plea allows Thompson and his victims’ families to avoid a trial.
“After lengthy discussions with his attorneys about how a trial would proceed, he has decided he wishes to save the community and the victims from as much additional infliction of trauma as possible,” said Thompson’s lawyers, Kellie Mannette and public defender Deonte Thomas, in the paperwork filed with the court.
Thompson will still face a sentencing hearing, but because he was under 18 at the time of his crimes, the death penalty is off the table.
Thompson, who had a gunshot wound to the head when officers found him hiding in a shed hours after the shootings, has a brain injury that his lawyers said, “has made it such that Austin cannot explain why he committed this shooting.”
As recently as last week, Thompson’s lawyers were filing motions to ask the court to allow for his brain injury. They said in those documents that Thompson suffered a seizure on Jan. 11, 2026, that they attributed to the stress of the scheduled trial.
Mannette and Thomas had also argued that statements Thompson made to police after the shooting should not be allowed in court because he was “medicated, brain-injured [and] under constant police surveillance.”
They said when he woke up in the hospital after the shootings he demonstrated symptoms of a severe brain injury, including confusion, poor memory, poor focus and impulsivity.
His defense argued that because of that injury, the statements that he gave to police were “confused and chaotic.”
On Oct. 13, 2022, police say, Thompson killed first his brother, James Thompson, inside their Hedingham neighborhood home, then fled through the neighborhood to the nearby Neuse River Greenway, shooting another four people along the way.
Friends Nicole Connors, 52, and Marcille “Lynn” Gardner were shot on Sahalee Way.
Connors died; Gardner survived but spent weeks in the hospital.
Raleigh police officer, Gabriel Torres, 29, was on his way to work when he was shot outside his home on Osprey Cove Drive.
Mary Marshall, 34, and Susan Karnatz, 49, were shot on the greenway.
Raleigh police officer Casey Clark was injured during the search for the shooter.
Thompson was charged with five counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with deadly weapon with intent to kill and one count of assault with firearm on law enforcement officer.
Court documents show the teenager was found in a shed with a shotgun, $772 in cash, multiple pistols, “projectiles,” knives, rifles, rifle magazines, shell casings, ammunition rounds and bullets.
Inside the Thompson home, officers found 11 firearms and 170 boxes of ammunition. Detectives also found what appeared to be a confession note signed by Thompson describing the killing of his brother, James Thompson, inside the home.
Alan Thompson, father of Austin and James, was cited for failure to secure a weapon linked to the gun allegedly used in the mass shooting. He pleaded guilty in September 2024 and was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation.
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