Suspect in Raleigh, N.C., mass shooting to blame prescription medicine in his defense

Twumasi Duah-Mensah, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Oct 1, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — The suspect in the October 2022 mass shooting in Raleigh’s Hedingham neighborhood that killed five people and injured two others will use “diminished capacity” and “voluntary toxication” defenses when he goes to trial in 2026, new court records show.

Lawyers for Austin David Thompson, 18, filed a notice of defenses on Wednesday of their “intent to use diminished capacity and voluntary intoxication due to therapeutic doses of a prescribed medication.” Thompson’s lawyers did not say which medication or condition it was prescribed for.

Thompson is accused of killing five people — including his brother and a Raleigh police officer who was heading to work — in the Hedingham neighborhood, six miles west of Knightdale and near the Neuse River Greenway Trail, in the afternoon of Oct. 13, 2022.

Thompson was 15 at the time and a student at Knightdale High School. He is being tried as an adult on five charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Raleigh police officer Gabriel Torres, 29; Nicole Connors, 52; Susan Karnatz, 49; Mary Marshall, 34; and James Thompson, Austin’s brother, 16.

For injuries to Lynn Gardner and Casey Clark, a Raleigh officer who responded to the shooting, Thompson is also charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer.

After the shooting, Thompson fled to a barn two miles from the Hedingham subdivision. Police eventually surrounded him but got into a shoot-out that resulted in Clark’s leg getting shot and Thompson injured. Thompson was transported to the hospital in critical condition.

When Thompson’s defense lawyers filed a motion to push the case to 2026, they said the teen was shot in the head during the incident and that “while he has since been declared competent to stand trial, he is still a brain-injured adolescent.”

Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway granted the motion. Thompson’s trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 2, 2026.

A lawsuit filed by victims’ family members and survivors in October 2024 alleged that Austin Thompson regularly got into altercations with neighbors, especially women, and used racial slurs and violent threats, The News & Observer reported. Thompson had run-ins with Connors, a Black woman, before the shooting and shot her 34 times, the lawsuit alleged.

Alan Thompson, Austin and James’ father, was convicted of storing a firearm with a minor’s unsafe access in September 2024, The N&O reported. Prosecutors said Austin Thompson had used a 9mm handgun in the shooting, which Alan Thompson kept in an unlocked box on a bedside table. Investigators seized 11 firearms and 160 boxes of ammunition from the home, according to search warrants.

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