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[h=4]Overflow funeral crowd mourns 3 Muslims killed in N.C.[/h]Three Muslim students, honored by thousands in a candlelight vigil at Chapel Hill, N.c., will be buried Thursday in Raleigh as authorities try to determine when they were killed in a petty dispute over parking
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Neighbors and students react to the Chapel Hill shooting that killed three Muslim students. VPC
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 students on Feb. 11, 2015, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.(Photo: Brendan Smialowski, AFP/Getty Images)
The crowd of more than 5,000 mourners attending the funeral Thursday in Raleigh for three Muslims who were shot to death was so large the services had to be moved from a mosque to a nearby athletic field.
The service for 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, began after midday Muslim prayers.
The three were killed at an apartment building in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Tuesday in what police say was an apparently long-simmering dispute over a parking space. Police are also investigating whether religious hatred was a factor in the shootings.
Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who lived in the same condominium complex as Barakat and his wife, has been charged with three counts of murder.
The victims, of Syrian descent, were all born in the USA and grew up in the North Carolina area.
Before the prayer service, relatives viewed the victims' bodies in a small building apart from one of Raleigh's largest mosques, where the families have long been members. The service then moved across the street to the fields owned by North Carolina State University, where two victims had graduated and one was a student.
Three coffins sat before a covered stage — in gray, white and silver. At the service's end, about a dozen people carried each to hearses, which headed to an Islamic cemetery outside Raleigh.
The crowd was solemn and silent — only a few children crying in the distance could be heard. A large blue plastic prayer mat lay on the field, and some brought their own to use..
The three, who were also honored at a candlelight vigil in Chapel Hill, N.C., were shot to death Tuesday in the North Carolina college town.
Barakat and Mohammad, recently married, were well known in the Muslim community, 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 North Carolina State University 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.
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The killings shocked the quiet college town, with as many as 2,000 people turning out for the candlelight vigil in the heart of University of North Carolina campus Wednesday.
There was also moment of silence to honor the victims before Wednesday evening's game between Virginia and N.C. 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.
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.
"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."
USA TODAY
Listen: 911 calls during shooting of 3 Muslim students
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, a father of two of the victims and a local psychiatrist, said Thursday that he believes the killings was a "hate crime" that involved more than a parking dispute.
"My daughter, Yusor, complained and she told us she felt that man hated them for the way they looked and the Muslim garb they wore," he told MSNBC's Ronan Farrow Daily. "She felt the heat has risen after she moved into the apartment and her friends came to visit and most of them wore Muslim attire. So she was worried about that."
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."
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)
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."
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
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)
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