Teachers testify Hedingham shooter showed no red flags. ‘Are you sure?’

Defense attorneys portrayed confessed mass killer Austin Thompson Wednesday as a quiet but conscientious student from kindergarten until the day of the Hedingham shooting — a normal-kid profile that continued even into juvenile custody, where he graduated from high school.

Three teachers who knew Thompson from ages 5 to 15 testified that they could spot no red flags in his behavior or any out-of-the-ordinary struggles with classwork, and that the teen showed no history or pattern of violence prior to the 2022 slayings.

Chelsie Mulholland, his ninth- and 10th-grade English teacher at Knightdale High School, told the Wake County court “in a class full of behavior issues, he was not one,” adding that she learned he had been accused of killing five in nearby Hedingham and wounding two more only when he did not arrive for first period the following day.

“There was no part of me that said, ‘Saw that coming,’“ she said. “It was all pretty much, ‘Are you sure? Are you positive?’“

Acne medicine

Thompson, now 18, has pleaded guilty to all five murders in the 2022 shooting and faces life in prison. Last week, Raleigh police read aloud a note they discovered in his Hedingham home, which read, “I hate humans.”

His mother, Elise Thompson, testified she had no idea why her son killed his older brother, a neighbor, a police officer and two strangers on the Neuse River greenway, along with two others he seriously wounded with shotgun fire.

On Tuesday, his defense attorneys pointed to acne medication minocycline that may have triggered a violent spree in his otherwise normal childhood.

And on Wednesday, they called a forensic DNA expert who said genetic history is crucial in how well different people break down medicine, and they can experience different results from what is essentially a higher dose.

Dr. Maher Noureddine analyzed a 275-page report a private firm produced based on Thompson’s DNA sample, which showed that some of his genetic material is intermediate or even non-functioning at processing certain medicines.

But under cross-examination, he said there is not enough information to know whether Thompson’s trouble would extend to minocycline, or what side effects if any it would produce.

Austin Thompson’s childhood

Later Wednesday, defense attorneys called Erika Petersen, who taught Thompson in kindergarten and remembered him as smaller than average with a big gap-toothed smile and a slight lisp.

“He was just a cute little peanut in kindergarten,” she said. “I don’t remember him struggling at all.”

This profile continued through middle school until the killings shortly into Thompson’s 10th grade year. The staff at Cumberland County Youth Detention Center, where he has stayed for most of the time since the Hedingham slayings, gave similar reports.

Thompson arrived at the 18-bed Fayetteville detention center after his discharge from the hospital, where he had a lengthy recovery from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Behavior specialist Darcie Ross described him as a big reader who quickly moved from bronze to gold level, earning more privileges.

“He never crossed the line,” she said. “Sometimes he liked to push the line.”

He graduated from the Cumberland County academy, where detention center officials held a formal ceremony including a rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Thompson was the only graduate in his class.

Testimony in the first-degree murder sentencing is expected to finish this week.

This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 2:37 PM.

Josh Shaffer

The News & Observer

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Josh Shaffer is a general assignment reporter on the watch for “talkers,” which are stories you might discuss around a water cooler. He has worked for The News & Observer since 2004 and writes a column about unusual people and places.