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At UNC-CH, Taheri-azar spent time with high school friends at first. He and his first freshman year roommate -- a friend from South Mecklenburg -- didn't get along, and Taheri-azar moved out in fall 2001. Taheri-azar dropped out the next semester, UNC officials said, but he re-enrolled that summer.

He volunteered as an emergency department aide at UNC Hospitals in 2001-2002 and 2004-2005, said Stephanie Crayton, a spokeswoman for UNC Health Care.

He did menial chores -- stocking medical supplies, fetching wheelchairs and delivering food trays.

In his sophomore year, he was set to move in with another high school acquaintance, Philip Brodsky, but started hanging out with a different group. Brodsky rarely ran into Taheri-azar after that.

At one point, out of the blue, Taheri-azar sent e-mail to old friends. "I think the e-mail was like, 'We haven't talked in a while but we used to be friends. I just wanted to say if I ever did anything to offend you, I'm sorry,' " Brodsky recalled.

Taheri-azar graduated from UNC-CH in December, and apparently had considered graduate school, but at the time of the attack, he was working on Franklin Street in a sub shop.

Long-planned

Police say he plotted the attack for months.

About two weeks before, Taheri-azar went shopping for an SUV -- a Porsche Cayenne, some of which cost more than $110,000. He strolled into Performance Automall in Chapel Hill.

"He just came in and looked at them, ... said he might want to buy one," said Scott Trombley, retail sales manager.

In the end, Taheri-azar rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee. He slowly drove into the Pit area, a campus gathering spot, turned a corner between buildings, and then hit the accelerator, hitting nine people, authorities say. None was seriously injured.

Taheri-azar is charged with nine counts of attempted murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. District Attorney Jim Woodall said that, if convicted, Taheri-azar theoretically could get about 150 years in prison. He's being held in Central Prison with bail set at $5.5 million.

When his former freshman suitemate, Dan Van Atta, heard of the attack, his first reaction was anger and hope that police would capture the perpetrator. Then he heard that the suspect was Taheri-azar.

"Now I'm hoping he'll be able to get out of prison before he dies," Van Atta said.

Taheri-azar does not intend to leave.

"It was fair for me to attack those people because, whether they claim to or not, they support the U.S. government as long as they are in its territory and they are not attacking it to overthrow it," he wrote, "attacking by physical and violent force, to be exact."

(News researchers Becky Ogburn, Lamara Williams-Hackett, Susan Ebbs and staff writer Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove contributed to this report.)

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