What we know about the 2 National Guard members shot near White House
Win McNamee/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Two National Guard members from West Virginia remain in critical condition after being shot in downtown Washington, D.C., near the White House on Wednesday, according to officials.
“Unfortunately today, as most families join together to give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed upon them, two families are shattered and destroyed and torn apart as a result of the actions of one man,” Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Thursday.
The victims were identified as 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, officials announced on Thursday. They were sworn in just 24 hours before the shooting, officials said.
Brigadier Gen. Leland D. Blanchard II, commander of the D.C. National Guard, was emotional while discussing the struggles the families of the victims will face this Thanksgiving — with all their lives “changed forever because one person decided to do this horrific and evil thing.”
The two Guardsmen were armed at the time of the shooting, Jeffrey Carroll, the executive assistant chief for the Metropolitan Police Department, said on Wednesday.
The National Guard was deployed to the nation’s capital as part of President Trump’s federal takeover of the city in August. According to the most recent update, there are 2,188 Guard personnel assigned to D.C.
After the shooting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said President Donald Trump has asked to send another 500 National Guardsmen to D.C.
The suspected shooter was identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who allegedly drove across the country from Washington state to the nation’s capital and targeted the Guardsmen, officials said.
Lakanwal was charged with three counts of assault with the intent to kill while armed and criminal possession of a weapon, but he could also face the charge of first-degree murder depending on the conditions of the Guardsmen, Pirro said.
A photo of Theresa Fusco is shown during a press briefing with the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, Oct. 15, 2025. ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Authorities in suburban New York believe they have closed a murder case that had been open for more than 40 years.
In November 1984, 16-year-old Theresa Fusco disappeared after she was fired from her job working the snack bar at a roller rink in Lynbrook. Three men who had been convicted of her death were exonerated in 2003 based on DNA evidence.
On Wednesday, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office announced 63-year-old man Richard Bilodeau has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Fusco’s death. The indictment further charges him with second-degree murder during the commission or attempted commission of first-degree rape.
A discarded smoothie cup was the critical piece of evidence in the nearly 41-year-old murder case that Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said “sent shockwaves through the tight-knit Lynbrook community” and a fear that young women were at risk.
Investigators had been surveilling the suspect for months when a break came in February. Bilodeau went to get a smoothie not far from his home in Center Moriches and investigators recovered the discarded cup and straw from the trash and brought it for testing, officials said.
“The DNA from that straw, Richard Bilodeau’s DNA, was a match,” Donnelly said during a press briefing Wednesday. “The DNA in this case led us straight to Richard Bilodeau.”
Donnelly said Bilodeau, who lived by himself in Center Moriches, had been under investigation since early 2024.
He was arrested Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charge. Donnelly said he denied knowing Fusco, “but science proves otherwise.”
“Through his denials that he had ever known her name, who she was, he made kind of a flippant comment about the 1980s. He said, ‘People got away with murder.’ Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Bilodeau, I’ve got you now,” Donnelly said.
Fusco’s father said he “never gave up hope” and the indictment “brings closure” to him and his family.
“It’s heartbreaking to go through this over and over again, but this seems like a finalization and I’m very grateful, very grateful, for me and my family to come to an end like this, than to constantly be a cold case situation,” Tom Fusco said during Wednesday’s press briefing.
In 1984, Bilodeau was a 23-year-old living with his grandparents in Lynbrook, a mile from Hot Skates, the roller rink where Fusco had worked, officials said.
Fusco’s body was found buried under leaves and shipping pallets. Police said she had been strangled, sexually assaulted and beaten.
The murder stunned her Nassau County community, especially when two other teens went missing in the same area, which became known as the Lynbrook Triangle, a local take on the Bermuda Triangle, known for its disappearances.
Three men were charged in Fusco’s death, convicted and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
The men insisted they were innocent, and, in 2003, DNA technology caught up to the case and confirmed semen found on the girl’s body was from another man and their convictions were vacated.
One of the wrongly convicted, John Restivo, told “Good Morning America” in 2003, “For years … someone would ask me how I’m doing today. I’d say, ‘Not good, I woke up on the wrong side of the wall this morning.’ Yesterday I was able to say, ‘I woke up on the right side of the wall this morning.'”
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Sean Grayson fatally shot Sonya Massey while responding to her 911 call for help. (Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office)
(PEORIA, Ill.) — The trial began on Wednesday of Sean Grayson, the former sheriff’s deputy, who was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the July 2024 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 to report a possible intruder at her home in Springfield, Illinois.
The Sangamon County deputy was charged with a total of three counts in connection with Massey’s death — first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.
Grayson’s attorney, Daniel Fultz, declined to provide comment to ABC News ahead of the trial, but confirmed on Friday that his client has “pleaded not guilty to all charges.”
Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser, who delivered opening arguments on Wednesday for the prosecution, walked the jury through key moments during the night that Massey died.
“Make no mistake, we are here in this courthouse today because of the actions of Sean Grayson,” Milhiser said. “On July 6, 2024, in her kitchen, without lawful justification, he shot and killed [Sonya Massey]. That’s why we are here.”
“You will see captured on video what happens when the defendant gets mad at a woman who is standing in her own kitchen calling for help,” he added.
Milhiser said that prosecutors will show the jury the body camera footage, which shows the incident from the point of view of Grayson’s partner, who also responded to the scene. The footage released by Illinois State Police shows the incident from the partner’s point of view because Grayson did not turn on his own body camera until after the shooting, according to court documents reviewed by ABC News.
“The defendant does not turn on his bodycam — Which is a pattern you’ll see throughout this trial,” Milhiser said.
Meanwhile, Grayson’s attorney Daniel Fultz, who delivered opening arguments for the defense on Wednesday, urged jurors not to make up their minds early about this case.
“Making your mind up early closes the possibility you will miss facts that will affect your decision,” Fultz said, arguing that Grayson “believed that he would suffer great bodily harm or death” during his encounter with Massey.
“Ms. Massey made the decision to lift the pot of boiling water above her head to attempt to throw that at Dept. Grayson. It was at that moment and only at that moment that Dept. Grayson discharged his weapon,” Fultz said.
“What happened [to] Ms. Massey was a tragedy. But it was not a crime,” he added.
Witness testimony also began on Wednesday in the trial, which is being held in Peoria, Illinois.
The trial began with jury selection on Monday, where a panel of 12 jurors was seated, according to ABC News’ affiliate in Springfield, WICS. The process took more than five hours and ended with a jury made up of nine white women, one Black man and two white men, as well as two white men and one white woman selected as alternate jurors.
The trial was moved from Sangamon County to Peoria County due to extensive media publicity.
What the video shows
Body camera footage of the incident released by Illinois State Police on July 22, 2024 shows Massey telling the two responding deputies, “Please, don’t hurt me,” once she answered their knocks on her door.
“I don’t want to hurt you; you called us,” Grayson responded.
Later in the video, while inside Massey’s home as she searches for her ID, Grayson points out a pot of boiling water on her stove and says, “We don’t need a fire while we’re in here.”
Massey then appears to pour some of the water into the sink and tells the deputy, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” video shows.
Grayson threatens to shoot her, the video shows, and Massey apologizes and ducks down behind a counter, covering her face with what appears to be a red oven mitt. She briefly rises, and Grayson shoots her three times, the footage shows.
Massey died from a gunshot wound to her head, according to an autopsy report released in July 2024, Sangamon County Coroner Jim Allmon confirmed to ABC News.
Prosecutors alleged that Grayson discouraged his partner from retrieving the medical kit to render aid to Massey after the shooting because he allegedly thought the injuries were too severe to revive her.
“No, headshot, dude. She’s done. You can go get it, but that’s a headshot,” Grayson tells his partner after he says he is going to retrieve the medical kit, body camera video shows. “What else do we do? I’m not taking pot boiling water to the [expletive] face and it already reached us,” Grayson adds.
The judge in the case ruled during a pre-trial hearing last month against the defense’s request to exclude body camera footage that shows what happened after Massey was shot, according to WICS.
Grayson said he feared for his life during his encounter with Massey, according to documents released by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in August 2024.
“While on scene, I was in fear Dep. (redacted) and I were going to receive great bodily harm or death. Due to being in fear of our safety and life, I fired my duty weapon,” Grayson wrote in his field case report.
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents Massey’s family, said during a statement at the time that the autopsy confirmed that this was an “unnecessary, excessive use of force, completely unnecessary, certainly not justified.”
Crump said that Massey struggled with her mental health and body camera footage released in Sept. 2024 shows her interacting with officers on July 5 — 16 hours before she was fatally shot — after her mother called 911 to report that her daughter was having a mental health episode.
A review of the case by the Illinois State Police found Grayson was not justified in his use of deadly force. Garyson was fired in July 2024 by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office after he was indicted in this case.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A Utah man is facing terrorism charges after being arrested for placing an incendiary device under a news media vehicle in Salt Lake City, according to authorities.
Adeeb Nasir, 58, of Magna, Utah, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of placing the explosive device, which was lit but “failed to function,” according to police.
On Friday, Salt Lake City Police Bomb Squad and Unified Fire Authority Arson/Bomb Squad responded to a suspicious device placed underneath a news media vehicle parked next to an occupied building, which was found to be real.
Nasir faces nine charges, including two counts of weapon of mass destruction and two counts of threat of terrorism.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assumed primary jurisdiction over the investigation and served a federal search warrant at the residence on Saturday with the help of local authorities’ bomb squads.
“The FBI discovered what appeared to be potentially hazardous materials that could pose a threat to public safety,” the FBI said in a statement to ABC News.
After the FBI’s initial investigation, two suspects were associated with the incident and both resided at the same residence where the search warrant was served.
The second individual was listed as Adil in Nasir’s probable cause summary, and arrest documents have not been found at this time. The relationship of the two individuals has not been released.
“The initial FBI search warrant authorized the seizure of evidence specifically related to the incendiary devices,” documents said.
Squad members cleared the home and found two hoax weapons of mass destruction inside, along with two firearms and illegal narcotics.
Neighboring homes were evacuated during the search due to the explosives found.
There was no information about a possible motive.
Nasir was booked into Salt Lake County Jail and ordered to be held without bail, according to documents.
