In Chapel Hill, Suspect’s Rage Went Beyond a Parking Dispute
A motive for the shooting may never be known. But interviews with more than a dozen of the victims’ friends and family members, lawyers, police officers and others make two central points: Before the shootings, the students took concerted steps to appease a menacing neighbor, and none were parked that day in a way that would have set off an incident involving their cars.
If those accounts do not prove what kind of malice was in Mr. Hicks’s heart, the details that emerge indicate that whatever happened almost certainly was not a simple dispute over parking.
Testy Relationships
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Craig Stephen Hicks, who was said to have obsessed over parties, patterns and parking near his home, has confessed to killing three neighbors, the police say. Credit Chuck Liddy/The News & Observer, via Associated Press The murders happened at Finley Forest, a complex on the eastern edge of this city popular with graduate students at the nearby University of North Carolina. Mrs. Hicks owns 270 Summerwalk Circle, a second-floor unit in Building 20 that looks out south over the parking lot. Her husband moved in after the couple married seven years ago; it was his second marriage after a disastrous first.
The contrast between the paunchy, balding Mr. Hicks and the rest of the complex’s residents was stark. Many were aspiring professionals and academics at a premier public university. Mr. Hicks was unemployed, taking night classes at a community college in hopes of becoming a paralegal. He spent long hours in his apartment with a collection of at least a dozen guns, including four pistols and a Bushmaster AR-15. Mrs. Hicks told her lawyer that Mr. Hicks would stare out the second-floor window, obsessing over neighbors’ parties, patterns and parking.
One of those neighbors was Mr. Barakat, an athletic 6-foot-3 graduate of North Carolina State with an electric smile. His father bought 272 Summerwalk Circle, a ground-level apartment on Building 20’s north side, in 2013 so he could live there while studying dentistry at the University of North Carolina.
The neighbors’ relationship became testier when Ms. Abu-Salha started spending time at the apartment after the engagement, said Mr. Barakat’s former roommate, Imad Ahmad. In October, Mr. Hicks came knocking while they were cleaning up from a dinner party where they had played the board game Risk. He growled that they had woken up his wife, lifting his shirt to reveal a holstered gun. The students did not call the police, but there was little the authorities could have done if they had. Mr. Hicks had a concealed-carry permit.
Mr. Barakat and Ms. Abu-Salha were married Dec. 27, in a luminous ceremony in Raleigh. Mr. Ahmad moved out, and she got ready to move in. First, though, came the honeymoon — Los Angeles for a Lakers game, then the beach in Mazatlán, Mexico. As a wedding gift, their parents began renovating Mr. Barakat’s former bachelor apartment.
Mr. Hicks was getting more aggressive. On Jan. 7, Ms. Abu-Salha texted her husband to warn guests not to park near the house when they came to visit. “I just got yelled at for it by that crazy neighbor who said we are only allowed two spots,” she wrote.
On Feb. 5, Mr. Hicks got more bad news: A judge had ordered a March 19 hearing over $14,189.54 in unpaid child support to his first wife, according to court records.
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Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha in a Facebook photograph. He was undeniably obsessed with parking. Each unit got permits for up to two cars, but only one assigned spot. Building 20 had 13 spaces. Mr. Barakat and Ms. Abu-Salha were assigned space 20B. The next, 20C, belonged to Mrs. Hicks. Five spaces in the middle were unassigned and could be used for extra cars. Drivers also regularly parked on the side street.
The housing association allowed residents to have improperly parked cars towed. But Mr. Hicks abused this power until the housing association asked him to stop, his wife’s lawyer said. According to a police search warrant, he kept “pictures and detailed notes on parking activity” on his computer.
By mid-January, friends were becoming convinced that Mr. Hicks was obsessing over the couple, particularly Ms. Abu-Salha. They suspected it had to do with the way she dressed. “If you look at Deah, he looks like your average white guy,” said Nida Allam, a close friend. “But Yusor wears the head scarf. And so does Razan.”
To prevent further problems, Mr. Barakat printed out a copy of the parking map and distributed it to family and friends. He highlighted his assigned space and all the unassigned spots in the lot where they could safely park.
Mr. Ahmad still thought the couple should report Mr. Hicks to the housing association. But Ms. Abu-Salha thought that angering him would only make things worse. She had been raised to assume that people were good if given a chance, Ms. Allam said. “Her parents told her just to be nice to him,” she said. “Maybe he’ll change.”
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