The suspected gunman in the shooting at a South Carolina church, Dylann Roof, has been caught in Shelby, North Carolina, a local television station and other news outlets reported on Thursday.
WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina posted the report on its Twitter page but gave no other details.
CNN and MSNBC also reported his capture.
Authorities have identified the suspect in the shooting, in which nine people died, as 21-year-old Dylann Roof.
Police in Charleston, South Carolina had released images of the white gunman who opened fire inside an African-American church during a prayer service, killing nine people in the attack which is being investigated as a hate crime.
Early on Thursday morning, Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen released photos taken from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of the suspect, as well as a black sedan he was seen leaving in.
The suspect, who has not been identified, remains on the loose. Mullen told reporters there was “no reason to believe” he was not still in the Charleston area.
Police in Charleston said that white gunman sat with the churchgoers for about an hour before the shooting.
Police Chief Greg Mullen told reporters that six females and three males were murdered in the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday night, and that three people survived the attack.
Mullen added that the unidentified gunman remained on the loose and that officials had no information on a “specific location” where he was.
He was said to have been given a gun by his father as a 21st birthday present in April, his uncle told Reuters on Thursday.
Law enforcement officers were at the home of Roof’s mother on Thursday morning, the uncle, Carson Cowles, said in a telephone interview.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified the gunman as Roof on Thursday.
Cowles said he recognized Roof in a photo released by police, and described him as quiet and soft-spoken. Roof’s father gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday this year, Cowles said.
“Nobody in my family had seen anything like this coming,” Cowles said. “I said, if it is him, and when they catch him, he’s got to pay for this.”
He said he had told his sister, Roof’s mother, several years ago that Roof was too introverted.
“I said he was like 19 years old, he still didn’t have a job, a driver’s license or anything like that and he just stayed in his room a lot of the time,” Cowles said.
A woman who answered the cellphone of the suspect’s mother Amelia Roof, also known as Amy, declined to comment.
“We will be doing no interviews ever,” she said, before hanging up.
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