Tennessee Church Shooting: Suspect Confesses, Police Say

ANTIOCH, TN — Emanuel Samson, the suspected gunman in the deadly shooting at an Antioch church Sunday, confessed to investigators he "fired upon the church building," according to an affidavit.

Twenty-five-year-old Samson, of La Vergne, was arrested and charged with criminal homicide Sunday evening after he was treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Metro Police say Samson killed Melanie Crow Smith, 39, of Smyrna, in the parking lot of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ as services were ending Sunday morning and then entered the church's sanctuary, wearing a mask and "firing indiscriminately," injuring seven other people, including the church's minister and his wife, before he was subdued by a church usher and taken to the hospital with an apparently accidental gunshot wound to the chest.

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READ MORE: Tennessee Church Shooting: 1 Dead, 8 Others Including Suspected Shooter Injured

Samson, who was born in Sudan and emigrated to the United States in 1996, is being held without bond and is scheduled for his first court appearance Wednesday.

The affidavit charging Samson with murder indicates he waived his right to silence and to an attorney before admitting he fired a gun at the church.

"During an interview of the defendant, following his signing of a rights waiver, he stated he arrived at the church at approximately [10:55 a.m.]. He also stated he was armed with a handgun and that he fired upon the church building," the affidavit reads, in part.

Metro Police have not released a motive for Sunday's deadly attack. Samson had attended the church on Pin Hook Road in the past, parishioners told police, but it had been a few years.

Image via Metro Nashville Police