Police Released The Virginia Walmart Shooter's "Death Note" As Survivors Recount What Happened During The Attack

"The way he was looking at people’s faces, and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out."

Jessie Wilczewski had only been working at the Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, for five days before the deadly shooting occurred.

On Tuesday, her shift began as normal, with a meeting in the breakroom at 10 p.m., and then, all of a sudden, she looked up and saw the "team lead" in the doorway with his hands up holding a gun, Wilczewski recalled in an interview with CNN.

"At first, it didn't even look real or register as real," she said. "The only thing that made it real was the vibrations hitting your chest and the ringing from the gun going off, and it just kept going and going and going."

Wilczewski quickly got under a table.

"I had to sit on the floor and in front of me watch my coworker have her last moments," Wilczewski told NewsNow. "The sound of all the blood dripping off the chairs. That replays, that replays. It doesn't stop.

"He had the gun pointed at me. And he went like this, put the gun up, looked at me, and said, 'Jessie, go home,'" she added, also telling the Associated Press, "The way he was looking at people’s faces, and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out."

Wilczewski told CNN that she remembers grabbing her bag when she got up from under the table and running as fast as she could.

"I just remember thinking, If he's going to shoot me in the back — well, he's going to have to try really hard 'cause I'm running, and I booked it," she said. "I didn't stop until I got to my car, and then I had a meltdown."

On Nov. 22, Walmart "team leader" Andre Bing, 31, killed six people and injured several others after opening fire at the Walmart. The shooter also killed himself, authorities said.

The six victims have been identified as Lorenzo Gamble, 43; Brian Pendleton, 38; Kellie Pyle, 52; Randall Blevins, 70; Tyneka Johnson, 22; and 16-year-old Fernando Chavez-Barron.

As of Thursday, two others remained hospitalized with injuries, according to officials.

Police confirmed Friday that the shooter, who had worked for Walmart since 2010, used a 9-millimeter handgun that he had legally purchased from a local store Tuesday morning, just hours before the shooting occurred. He had no criminal history, the police added.

Authorities also released a message found on the shooter's phone, titled "Death note."

"My only wish would have been to start over from scratch and that my parents would have paid closer attention to my social deficit," he wrote in the message, also claiming that he'd been mocked by colleagues.

Some current and former employees of Walmart have said that the shooter was known for being "verbally hostile" to workers and wasn't well liked.

"Everyone called him weird," Shaundrayia Reese, a former Walmart employee, told the New York Times. "That was all anyone could say about [him]."

Another former Walmart employee told the New York Times that the shooter had "an attitude" and was "kind of aggressive" and "a little hostile."

In a statement sent to BuzzFeed News, a Walmart spokesperson said that there is nothing that can justify taking innocent lives. "Our focus continues to be on the families who are grieving and supporting our associates through this difficult time," they added.

When the officers arrived at the Walmart store Tuesday night, they discovered the bodies of two people in an employee break room as well as that of the shooter, with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Another victim was found dead near the front of the store.

"All of a sudden, you just hear pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa," Briana Tyler, a Walmart employee who witnessed the incident, told CNN. "There were people just dropping to the floor. ... Everybody was screaming, gasping, and yeah, he just walked away after that and just continued throughout the store and just kept shooting."

Tyler, who began working at Walmart two months ago, told the Associated Press that it all happened so fast, the shooter was "just shooting all throughout the room," and "it didn't matter who he hit."

"He didn't say anything. He didn't look at anybody in any specific type of way," Tyler said.

Tyler told the outlet that she had never had a negative experience with the shooter but that coworkers had told her to look out for him because he had a history of writing people up for no reason, she explained.

When the violence occurred, authorities said, there were at least 50 people inside the Walmart.

Another Walmart employee, Kevin Harper, recalled hiding in a clothing area during the incident. "I couldn't tell you how long I hid in there," Harper told ABC News. "Time just stopped at that moment."

Harper told the outlet that as he was running to the store's employee exit, he saw two people on the floor, including a woman covered in blood.

"I'm just praying for my Walmart family," he said.

Workplace mass shootings are not rare in the US. Last year, a former employee of a FedEx facility in Indianapolis killed eight coworkers and himself. Two years earlier, a man resigned from his job and then fatally shot 12 others at a Virginia Beach municipal building. In 2016, a shooter killed three people at a turf company in Hesston, Kansas, before being killed by police.

As the investigation into the incident at Walmart continues, Chesapeake officials announced that a vigil for the victims will take place Monday evening at City Park.

The American Public Health Association says gun violence in the US is a public health crisis. It is a leading cause of premature death in the country, responsible for more than 38,000 deaths annually. As of Nov. 28, at least 40,000 people have died from gun violence this year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

Correction: At least 40,000 people in the US have died from gun violence in 2022. An earlier version of this post misstated the number.

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