In 911 from Charleston church: 'There’s so many people dead'

CHARLESTON – From under the table where she hid, the grandmother could see the boots of the man who walked among them, his gun trained on parishioners who could not escape execution.

Amid the cracks of gunfire, Polly Sheppard heard the voice of Myra Thompson, words that came in the last violent moments of her life.

“Oh Lord have mercy!” Thompson, 59, cried out. She died soon after, her body riddled with at least eight gunshots, some piercing her lungs, her heart, her liver.

Soon after, Dylann Roof turned to Sheppard, told her he would let her live to tell the story of what happened in that room at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation's oldest historically black houses of worship.

On Wednesday, with a quiet strength, Sheppard did tell that story before jurors who will weigh 33 federal counts lodged against the man in the boots, Dylann Storm Roof.

He came to the June 2015 Bible study with a Glock pistol tucked in a tactical pouch, and as parishioners bowed their heads in prayer, began an attack that ended the lives of nine people, according to officials and a damning case against the 22-year-old white supremacist.

Sheppard was the last witness offered by the prosecution in a case presented over seven days, one that began with the other adult survivor of the attack, Felicia Sanders.

Shortly after the government rested its case, the lead defense attorney for Roof, David Bruck, did the same, offering no witnesses.

He had wanted to present witnesses that included a psychologist and a psychiatrist, a move blocked by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel as inappropriate under federal rules for the guilt phase of the trial. Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday, followed by jury deliberation.

Should panelists return a guilty verdict, they will decide in January whether Roof should face capital punishment or life imprisonment without release.

Wednesday’s testimony began with Dr. S. Erin Presnell, the forensic pathologist at the Medical University of South Carolina who conducted all nine autopsies over a four-day period. Each victim suffered multiple gunshots, some so convoluted and grouped together that it was difficult to tell the paths of bullets.

Her testimony, showing X-rays of wounded arms and chests, was factual and clinical, though a few times she stood to better explain the path of a bullet. Some, she said, seemed to pass through upper thighs or arms before stopping in chests, indicating a victim might have had drawn arms and legs into their bodies as they were shot.

Several family members of victims chose to avoid Presnell’s testimony but returned to see Sheppard, 72, take the stand in a tale that began with bits of humor, little slices of normalcy and navigating a friendship that contrasted with the horror of the night.

She had spent the day working at the church and had no plans to attend the Wednesday night Bible study, until she ran into Thompson in the women’s restroom. Earlier that evening, Thompson had received a preaching certificate and, for the first time, was leading the study group.

"She said, ‘I know you’re going to stay to support me,’” Thompson remembered.

“No, I’m not,” said Sheppard, drawing laughs for jurors and courtroom observers. She was tired and hungry from a long day of service to Mother Emanuel, one that began with re-examining the church’s insurance policy with an agent.

She relented, but made plans for a getaway, choosing a table removed from the little group.

“I sat all the way to the back because I planned on sneaking out,” she told prosecutor Jay Richardson.

“Why didn’t you sneak out?” he asked.

“Because she kept watching me,” she answered to courtroom laughter.

So trapped, Sheppard sat through Thompson’s lesson on the Parable of the Sower, an account in the Book of Mark about seeds that fail in shallow soil and flourish on rich ground. As the group bowed their heads in prayer, an odd noise popped. Surely the old wiring in the building, Sheppard thought. It had caused them grief before.

But then, Felicia Sanders was yelling that "Oh, he’s shooting everyone, Ms. Polly!" and the Rev. Daniel Simmons stepped forward, calling out that he needed to check on his pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the leader of Mother Emanuel.

Sheppard testified she saw Roof shoot Simmons, the man she called "Dapper Dan," always outfitted smartly, from a stylish hat perched on his head to his shiny shoes. She ducked under the table, and then saw the boots coming toward her.

When he asked if she had been shot, Tywanza Sanders, the son of 26-year-old Felicia Sanders, lifted himself to his elbows. Though injured himself, he tried to intervene, pull the attention off Sheppard.

“Why are you doing this? We mean you no harm,” Sanders said.

“I have to,” said the man with the gun, keeping it trained on the man laying prone before him. “You’re raping our women and taking our nation.”

Roof fired again and again, and later, in an examination of Sanders’ body, a forensic pathologist found five gunshot wounds, some of them piercing his lungs and liver.

Twice the gun clicked without firing and the man moved away. Sheppard’s first thought was to call for help. At her feet lay an older style flip phone, one that belonged to Ethel Lee Lance, the church’s sexton responsible for cleaning the building.

Lance, like all the victims, suffered multiple gunshots. The six shots she endured pierced her heart, her lungs, a kidney.

Sheppard dialed 911, whispering, “Please answer. Oh, God,” as the line began recording, the dispatcher picking up a moment later.

In the recording, played as the last offering by federal prosecutors, Sheppard described her location, her voice tinged with fear that Roof was still in the building. She saw a shadow, thought she heard a gun being reloaded.

“There’s so many people dead, I think. Oh my God,” she told the dispatcher.

“You said, ‘There’s so many people dead?’” the woman asked, still trying to understand the death that surrounded Sheppard.

“I think they’re dead. Yes.”

Could she move to a safer place? the dispatcher asked Sheppard.

In the background, the recording captured the voice of Felicia Sanders calling her son’s name, pleading with him to remain calm in the last moments of life.

The recording ended abruptly, with a woman’s voice saying, “He ran out that door, I think.”

Throughout her account, as he has for most of the proceeding, Roof appeared to look ahead or at the table, not looking at the proceedings around him or acknowledging the story he wanted told.

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