MONETA, Va. — The fatal shooting of a reporter and cameraman unfolded on live TV during the early morning show on Wednesday, as tens of thousands of viewers watched a horrified anchor struggle to comprehend what had happened.

Within hours, the carefully scripted carnage carried out by a disgruntled former colleague spread to millions of viewers gripped by what had transformed into a social media storm. The governor initially described a car chase on his weekly radio show, with police on the shooter’s tail on an interstate highway.

Then, social media posts referencing the slain TV pair surfaced on an account under an on-air pseudonym used by the gunman – culminating with a first-person video of the ambush filmed by the shooter.

On Thursday, one day after the deaths shocked millions across the country, the grieving staff at WDBJTV came together for an emotional broadcast of its “Mornin’” show. At 6:45 a.m. – the time of the shooting that took the lives of reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward – the station observed a moment of silence, showing the victim’s photos on the screens.

Anchor Kim McBroom, who was on the anchor desk during Wednesday’s shooting and tried to reassure viewers immediately after the attack was broadcast, joined hands with weatherman Leo Hirsbrunner and fellow anchor Steve Grant, who came in from sister station KYTV in Springfield, Missouri.

“Joining hands here on the desk. It’s the only way to do it,” she said just before the moment of silence.

During his forecast, Hirsbrunner’s voice trembled as he recalled how Ward would check in with him every morning about the weather before going out on assignment.

“I don’t even know how to do weather on a day like this,” he said. McBroom told him: “Good job, partner. We’re going to get through this together.”

The morning broadcast include a series of news pieces on the shooting. One looked at the criminal investigation of gunman Vester Lee Flanagan II, the former WDBJ-TV reporter known to viewers by his on-air name Bryce Williams. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after the shooting.

His family released a statement through a representative, expressing condolences for the victims’ families and asking for privacy: “Words cannot express the hurt that we feel,” it read in part.

The social media post made Wednesday through an account under the name Bryce Williams name had a 56-second video clip. It shows Vester Lee Flanagan II quietly approach Parker and Adam Ward, gun in hand, as they conduct an interview. But Ward’s camera was aimed at the minigolf course nearby instead of the reporter. So the shooter waited, cursing Parker under his breath, for 20 seconds until the live television picture was back on the reporter. Then he fired eight shots without saying a word.

The attack seemed carefully planned. Flanagan was captured in a rental car he reserved at some point before the shootings; his own Mustang was found abandoned at the local airport, Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton said. The interview was done at a shopping center not yet open for the day at a remote lake in Moneta, some 25 miles away from WDBJ’s studios in Roanoke. The station promoted where the reporter would be, including a plug on Twitter just a half hour before the shooting.

About three hours after the killing, ABC News reported it received a 23- page faxed statement from Bryce Williams, the on-air name used by Flanagan.

Unlike so many crimes, which have to be pieced together in reverse, this one played out in real time on Twitter and Facebook. The station’s live footage of the shooting was being shared over and over before even station managers knew the fate of their employees. Some 40,000 viewers had initially tuned in, including the local sheriff, and heard Parker scream. They saw her run as the camera fell, capturing a fleeting image of a man holding a handgun .

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s assurance that an arrest was “imminent” spread quickly, only to be followed soon after with a post on the Twitter account Flanagan apparently used under the pseudonym: “I filmed the shooting see Facebook.” It was there that the video appeared.

Parker, Ward and their interview subject, local economic development official Vicki Gardner, don’t appear to notice Flanagan. They react as he opens fire, and Flanagan’s video goes to black after eight shots are fired; seven more are heard before it ends, more methodical than the initial burst.

It wasn’t Flanagan’s first encounter with the pair. The 41-year-old had been fired by the station in 2013 and had to be escorted out of the building, President and General Manager Jeffrey Marks said.

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