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Dentistry students and others watch as a makeshift memorial is made during a vigil at the University of North Carolina following the murders of three Muslim students on Feb. 11, 2015 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.(Photo: Brendan Smialowski, AFP/Getty Images)
Three Muslim students, who were honored by thousands in a candlelight vigil at Chapel Hill, N.C., will be buried Thursday in Raleigh as authorities try to determine whether they were killed in a petty dispute over parking space or whether religious hatred played a role.
Deah Shaddy Barakat, a 23-year-old dental student, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh were killed with shots to the head at their apartment in Chapel Hill, N.C., allegedly by a neighbor, Craig Stephen Hicks.
The funeral will be held in Raleigh at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Police say an initial investigation indicates that the execution-style shootings erupted after a long-simmering dispute, but authorities are also probing whether the killings involved hate crimes.
The victims, of Syrian descent, were all born in the U.S. and grew up in the North Carolina area.
Barakat and Mohammad, recently married, had volunteered to help the homeless and also raised money to help Syrian refugees in Turkey. They met while helping to run the Muslim Student Association at N.C. State before he began pursuing an advanced degree in dentistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mohammad, who graduated in December, planned to join her husband in dentistry school in the fall.
"This was like the power couple of our community," said Ali Sajjad, 21, the president of the Muslim Student Association at N.C. State, WTVD-TV reports.
The killings shocked the quiet college town, with as many as 2,000 people turning out for a candlelight vigil in the heart of University of North Carolina campus Wednesday evening.
There was also moment of silence to honor the victims before Wednesday evening's game between Virginia and NC State at PNC Arena. Students also wore green ribbons in their honor. Vigils were also planned Thursday at N.C. State and at East Carolina University.
Hicks, 46, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and is being held without bond.
A Second Amendment rights advocate with a concealed weapons permit, Hicks often complained about both Christians and Muslims on his Facebook page. "Some call me a gun toting Liberal, others call me an open-minded Conservative," he wrote.
A woman who lives near the scene described Hicks as short-tempered.
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"Anytime that I saw him or saw interaction with him or friends or anyone in the parking lot or myself, he was angry," Samantha Maness said of Hicks. "He was very angry, anytime I saw him."
Local authorities stressed that they are probing all aspects of the "senseless and tragic act," said Chris Blue of the Chapel Hill Police Department.
"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," he said. "Our thoughts are with the families and friends of these young people who lost their lives so needlessly."
The killings prompted an outcry on Twitter -- under the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter -- over what many charged was anti-Muslim bias. The Council of American Islamic Relations also called on law enforcement authorities to find out if hate was a factor in the killings.
Mohammad Abu-Salha, father of two of the victims, said there had been an ongoing dispute over parking, but said the style and brutality of the killings pointed to anti-Muslim bias.
"The media here bombards the American citizen with Islamic, Islamic, Islamic terrorism and makes people here scared of us and hate us and want us out," said Abu-Salha, a local psychiatrist. "So if somebody has any conflict with you, and they already hate you, you get a bullet in the head,"
Hick's wife, Karen disputed that claim. Flanked by attorneys Rob Maitland and Michelle English, she met with reporters Wednesday and said the argument "had nothing to do with religion ... but was in fact related to the long-standing parking disputes."
She then issued another brief statement through her lawyer, saying she's divorcing him.
"It has nothing to do with terrorism. It has nothing to do with anything but the mundane issue of this man being frustrated day in and day out and not being able to park where he wanted to park," Maitland added. "These victims were there at the wrong time and wrong place."
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, enters the courtroom for his first appearance at the Durham County Detention Center in Durham, N.C. Hicks, 46, is accused of shooting Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, at a condominium complex near the University of North Carolina campus.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Chuck Liddy, The News and Observer, via AP)
Hicks' ex-wife, Cynthia Hurley, said that before they divorced about 17 years ago, his favorite movie was "Falling Down," the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a divorced unemployed engineer who goes on a shooting rampage.
"That always freaked me out," Hurley said. "He watched it incessantly. He thought it was hilarious. He had no compassion at all," she said.
Contributing: Associated Press
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Neighbors and students react to the Chapel Hill shooting that killed three Muslim students. VPC
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