APPOMATTOX, Va. — In his successful 1995 application for a concealed-weapons permit, Christopher Bryan Speight described himself as a dependable, hardworking person who was not quick to anger.
But Speight changed in recent years, friends say.
It started when his mother died in 2006. “He said he had a ‘zinging’ in his ears. I can’t explain it the way he explained it,” said David Anderson, 54, who worked with Speight. Anderson said Speight told him that he began seeing a therapist but it didn’t help much.
Something must have been building, Anderson said.
On Tuesday, authorities allege, Speight, 39, shot his sister, his brother-in-law and their two children, along with four family friends, in a rampage that left eight dead, the worst mass slaying in Virginia since a shooter killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007.
Although police had not publicly identified the victims by Wednesday night, family friends said the dead included four adults, three teenagers who attended Appomattox High School and a little boy about 4 or 5 years old. Four victims were found inside his house, three immediately outside it and one in the middle of a nearby road.
Speight never married, and his sister appeared to be his only relative.
Although a motive for the shootings remained elusive, friends said Speight had talked of a dispute with his family about ownership of the house and land, which sits off a dirt road in wooded farmland about 200 miles from Washington. Speight’s mother had left the 34-acre property jointly to Speight and his sister, court records show.
Speight thought his sister and brother-in-law were seeking to force him out of the house and dispossess him of it, Anderson said.
On Wednesday, Speight, wearing a bulletproof vest and camouflage pants, emerged from the Appomattox woods where he had fled after the shootings and surrendered to a police SWAT team, ending a 20-hour hunt.
After Speight’s arrest, police examined his white-painted home and recovered seven explosive devices later Wednesday, the state police said.
Appomattox Commonwealth’s Attorney Darrel Puckett said Wednesday night that Speight was charged with one count of first-degree murder.
More charges are likely.
