Accused teen Austin Thompson to plead guilty in Raleigh’s Hedingham mass shooting
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Austin Thompson will plead guilty, avoiding trial and moving to sentencing.
- Plea cites Thompson’s head injury and seizure history as factors in the decision.
- Officer and four civilians were killed; shooting spanned neighborhood, woods and standoff.
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Raleigh mass shooting in Hedingham neighborhood
On Oct. 13, 2022, seven people were shot in Raleigh, NC, in the Hedingham neighborhood near the Neuse River Greenway Trail. Five were killed, including a Raleigh police officer. High school student Austin Thompson was charged with their murders. Read The News & Observer’s ongoing coverage of the mass shooting, Thompson’s guilty plea and his sentencing hearing.
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Austin Thompson, the teenager charged with murdering five people and injuring two others in Raleigh’s Hedingham neighborhood, will plead guilty in the 2022 mass shooting.
This move, announced by his attorneys in a court filing Tuesday, will avoid a trial and send the case straight to sentencing.
The plea makes much of the injury Thompson suffered in a standoff with police, shot in the head while being apprehended.
“Austin was 15 years old when these events occurred,” the plea states. “While the serious brain injury he suffered has made it such that Austin cannot explain why he committed this shooting, he has always accepted that he did this. He recognizes the deep pain he has caused the victims’ families as well as his own family.
“After lengthy discussions with his attorneys about how a trial would proceed, he has decided he wishes to save the community and the victims from as much additional infliction of trauma as possible,” it states. “Austin understands he can never change what happened, but he hopes that pleading as charged and moving into a sentencing hearing only will allow for the victims, the community, and his family to be spared a trial, and he hopes that the material presented at the sentencing hearing brings as much peace and closure as possible.”
Just last week, Thompson’s attorneys filed a motion asking for accommodations during the trial because the teen suffers from seizures related to his head wound.
Thompson had a seizure on Jan. 10 — his first in two years, they wrote the court.
“Given that the results of recent testing was very positive, there is concern that the stress of the upcoming trial contributed to this event,” his attorneys wrote. “Additionally, detention staff informed the team that there is an increased risk of recurrence in the month following a seizure.”
Thompson, now 18, is accused of killing five people, including his older brother, James, in the family’s house in Hedingham, and Raleigh police officer Gabriel Jesus Torres, who was on his way to work. Victim Nicole Connors died from gunshot wounds at her house two doors down from Thompson’s; Mary Marshall and Susan Karnatz were killed on the nearby greenway trail.
Raleigh police officer Casey Joseph Clark and Marcille Gardner were injured in the attack.
The teen’s path started at the family home, wound through the neighborhood and onto the greenway along the Neuse River, where Thompson allegedly ducked into the woods wearing camouflage and carrying a shotgun.
He entered a barn-like building on McConnell Oliver Drive and started a lengthy standoff with police, ending with his own head wound and a Raleigh officer shot in the leg.
Thompson is expected to plead guilty to all charges in Superior Court Wednesday, where a judge will set the date for a sentencing hearing.
“We are ready to move forward,” Wake District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said Tuesday. “Our thoughts are with the families of the victims.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 10:05 AM.
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