NC Teen Called Killers Saints While Brandishing AK-47

If you’ve been following my work for a while, the names Solomon Henderson and Natalie Rupnow should ring a bell. I wrote about Henderson back in January 2025, after he walked into Antioch High School in Nashville and shot 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante before turning the gun on himself.

I noted at the time that there appeared to be online connections between Henderson and Rupnow. She was the 15-year-old who opened fire at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, just weeks earlier in December of 2024. I said then that it wouldn’t be the first time that shooters from separate incidents knew each other online.

Well, here we might be again. Meet Eric Constantine Byrd, 19, of Raleigh, North Carolina. He called both Henderson and Rupnow saints, among others.

On March 5th, 2026, the FBI’s Raleigh Joint Terrorism Task Force became aware of two Instagram accounts that were posting what federal agents classify as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism, or REMVE. Both accounts reportedly belonged to Byrd, and the content was not subtle.

Over the course of several weeks between February and early March, Byrd posted photos of himself holding firearms while using white supremacist hashtags and made explicit, repeated references to his plans to become an active shooter. He posted a photo of himself with a Totenkopf, the Nazi SS death’s head symbol, superimposed over his face.

But the posts that are going to define this case, which, frankly, define Eric Byrd’s whole personality, are the ones where he talked about his heroes.

Byrd called Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter, a saint. He called Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in Isla Vista, California, in 2014, a saint. He called Solomon Henderson a saint. He called Natalie Rupnow a “saintess.” In one message exchange documented in the federal criminal complaint, he wrote that these killers were “cleansing the world that’s full of filth” and that they “literally did God’s work.”

He also said he watched Tarrant’s livestream of the Christchurch massacre repeatedly because he liked to “feel like I’m actually there.” He said he planned to get a GoPro for when he got “active,” a direct and deliberate callback to Tarrant, who wore a helmet-mounted camera to broadcast his massacre in real time.

Now, let’s circle back to Elliot Rodger for a moment. The only other times I have ever heard Rodger referred to as a saint are in incel spaces. For those unfamiliar, “incel,” short for “involuntary celibate,” refers to a deeply misogynistic online subculture built around the belief that certain men are owed sex and relationships and are being denied them by women and by society. Rodger is essentially the patron martyr of that movement. He left behind a lengthy manifesto before his 2014 killing spree, and in certain dark corners of the internet he has been treated as a hero ever since.

Solomon Henderson, meanwhile, also displayed incel-adjacent ideology. Misogynistic views layered on top of racist and neo-Nazi leanings. And Byrd? He said Henderson “lived a similar life as me.” So I’ll ask the question that the media seems reluctant to ask. Is Eric Byrd an incel? Because that combination of white supremacist ideology, incel grievance, and mass shooter worship is a particularly volatile cocktail.

However, this wasn’t just generalized hatred being vented into the void. Byrd had a specific person in mind.

On February 7th, 2026, Byrd posted to Instagram asking if anyone knew a Black man who was a former high school basketball player from the class of 2025. A few days later, in a direct message exchange with another user who noted that Byrd was “actually hunting,” Byrd confirmed it. He knew where this person lived because he had spotted him once in his neighborhood. Then came the line that all these tough guys say after the fact. “He was so lucky I was working that day.”

Byrd also posted explicit threats against Black people, Hispanic people, and gay people across his Instagram accounts, using the typical slurs and hashtags expected from such troglodytes. This was not a troubled kid blowing off steam online. This was someone looking for almost any excuse to fire rounds into a crowd.

Byrd lived at home with his parents, surprisingly, not in the basement. When FBI agents showed up on March 9th, 2026, his parents acknowledged that their son “has issues,” that he saw a therapist occasionally, and that he had been prescribed medication, which he did not take. They also told agents that Raleigh police had been called to their home in January 2026 after Byrd “lost his mind” when they tried to stop him from going out.

When agents asked about firearms in the home, Byrd’s mother initially claimed the gun in the house was stored safely and that Byrd didn’t have access to it. After some hesitation, she walked an agent upstairs. The Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm (Are you happy, gun nerds?) was found in a blue box in the closet of Byrd’s own bedroom, with a piece of styrofoam sitting on top of it. That was the safe storage. A box. In his closet.

But this wasn’t Byrd’s first foray with firearms.

In December 2025, Byrd acquired an AK-47. His own text messages explain exactly how it happened. He reached out to multiple people selling pistols, but they wanted him to be 21 and have a concealed carry permit. So he kept looking until he found someone willing to sell him an AK-47 privately, no such requirements attached. On December 20, 2025, he sent a video and the message: “Merry Christmas to me AK-47 in this bih.” A few days later, he was up in the middle of the night teaching himself how to maintain it.

His parents eventually found out about the AK-47, and Byrd appears to have sold it. Probably to make it disappear before his parents could take it. Then, on February 11th, 2026, Byrd went on Armslist and purchased 1,000 rounds of ammunition. It was shipped to his home address the following day.

For those who aren’t familiar, Armslist is essentially the craigslist of guns. It is a marketplace specifically designed to connect private gun sellers with buyers, and in states like North Carolina, it functions as the living embodiment of what’s called the private sale or gun show loophole. Private sellers on Armslist are under no legal obligation to run a background check. You find a seller, arrange the transaction, hand over the money, and that’s it. No questions asked. I used to write about them a lot. Maybe I need to put them back on my radar.

In 2023, North Carolina actually managed to make things worse by repealing its pistol purchase permit requirement. This was a law that had previously required buyers to get a permit from their county sheriff before purchasing a handgun, even through a private sale. That extra layer of screening is now gone. So Eric Byrd, who was already known to law enforcement, who was not taking his prescribed psychiatric medication, and who had been broadcasting his intentions to commit a mass shooting on Instagram for weeks, was able to order a thousand rounds of ammunition to his front door.

Then again, that’s North Carolina for you.

I also want to talk about the strong likelihood that Eric Byrd is a full participant in what is known as the True Crime Community, or TCC. You know, mass shooter fanboys.

The TCC is a sprawling online subculture built around an obsession with mass shootings and the people who commit them. At its most benign, it’s people listening to podcasts and watching documentaries. At its most toxic, it is a space where mass shooters are romanticized and idolized, where their manifestos are shared and discussed approvingly, and where killers like Rodger and Tarrant acquire cult followings of devoted admirers.

The TCC has a well-documented overlap with gore culture, the consumption of graphic videos depicting real-world death and violence. And here is where Byrd fits the profile almost perfectly. In text messages from January 19th, 2026, Byrd wrote that he loved watching people suffer, that gore “rejuvenates” him and “makes me feel not alone.” He also had compiled videos of people’s suicides set to his favorite music. This is textbook TCC behavior. It is also, not coincidentally, almost identical to what we documented about Solomon Henderson and Natalie Rupno. Both of them were consumers of gore content and moved in the same toxic online spaces, where Byrd openly worshipped them.

The connections between Henderson and Rupnow were alarming enough on their own. Byrd idolized both of them. He was plugged into the same ecosystem, consuming the same content, and absorbing the same ideology.

And here’s the thing about the TCC that parents need to understand. If history is any indicator, Byrd almost certainly fell into this world well before he turned 18. These communities target young people. The radicalization process is gradual. It can start with ‘normal’ true crime content, then it migrates toward extremism until it normalizes violence incrementally. Then one day a teenager is posting that he wants to livestream himself committing a mass shooting.

Byrd’s parents knew he had issues. They knew he wasn’t taking his medication. And somewhere in that house, apparently without anyone putting the pieces together, sat a loaded 9mm pistol and a thousand rounds of ammunition.

On March 26th, 2026, Eric Byrd made his first appearance in federal court. The man who had spent weeks posting photos of himself pointing guns at the camera, calling for racial violence, sat before a judge answering questions with a quiet “yes” or “mm-hmm.”

Just another internet tough man, frothing at the mouth, who becomes as timid as a mouse when standing before a judge.

His court appearance was actually delayed because a bomb threat forced an evacuation of the federal courthouse on March 25th. Probably a coincidence, but I’ll note that coordinated bomb threats are not outside the behavioral repertoire of the more extreme corners of the TCC. Make of that what you will.

Byrd is charged with one federal felony count of transmitting threats in interstate commerce to injure another person. If convicted, he faces up to only five years in prison and/or fines. He was ordered held in federal custody pending a detention hearing, at which point a judge will decide whether he can be released before trial. The way the country is today, don’t be shocked if he is released.

But notice what he is not charged with. He is not charged with anything related to the AK-47 he obtained through a private sale at 18 years old. He is not charged with anything related to the thousand rounds of ammunition he ordered online. In North Carolina a young man with documented mental health issues, a history of violent outbursts, and weeks of public mass shooter content on his Instagram can legally possess a handgun and legally receive ammunition in the mail purchased through a no-background-check marketplace. The most the federal government can currently charge him with is the words he used to describe what he planned to do with them.

At Byrd’s detention hearing today, a federal judge ruled that Eric Byrd is a serious danger to the community and will remain in federal custody. That ruling was largely driven by a piece of new evidence that should put to rest any remaining debate about whether Byrd poses a genuine threat.

While Byrd was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital following his arrest, he wrote a letter that was eight to nine handwritten pages. Prosecutors submitted it into evidence today.

The letter contained a list Byrd titled “Things I need to do when I get home.” The items on that list tell you everything you need to know about how seriously he took his situation. He wrote about deleting suspicious photos from the internet, text messages, and his Telegram account. He also allegedly wants to create new social media accounts using fake information while using VPNs to conceal his identity online.

In other words, his plan, upon getting out, was to immediately begin covering his tracks and rebuilding his online presence under a new identity. The ideology wasn’t going anywhere. He just had to be more careful about hiding it.

But the to-do list wasn’t even the most alarming part. The letter also contained handwritten messages that read…

“If you’re reading this, **** the FBI. I’m long gone and skipping states.”

He also wrote about being forced to take medication and acknowledged needing therapy, which would be almost touching if it weren’t sandwiched between an escape plan and a note about how to make a shank out of a toothbrush.

He also wrote about his family, claiming that he’s always been alone, that he has no loyalty to them, and that the world can go to hell with them.

You may recall that this is the same family whose mother told investigators his gun was stored safely while it was sitting in a box in his bedroom closet. The same mother who, according to FBI testimony today, was speaking Spanish to Byrd on the phone while investigators were present. Apparently she didn’t realize one of the officers understood Spanish. Byrd’s mom allegedly told Byrd she would only hand over one of his laptops, not both. She was so surprised when the officer responded in Spanish that she ultimately handed over two laptops and a cell phone.

As I am fond of saying, blood is dumber than water.

Byrd also apparently tried to downplay his Instagram posts in the letter, claiming they reflected his beliefs but were otherwise meant to be taken as jokes. Ah yes, jokes. The last line of defense whenever one of these comedians is caught. But if glorifying mass murderers and ordering 1000 rounds of ammunition online is a joke, I don’t get it.

Lastly, early Sunday morning on March 29th, Raleigh Fire responded to a fire at the home of Byrd’s mother. Neighbors were told it was caused by a faulty lithium-ion battery. Raleigh Police called it electrical in nature.

If I were a conspiracy-minded man, I would say there was something suspicious about an electrical fire starting at Byrd’s mom’s house from a lithium-ion battery. You know, the kind of battery that powers most phones and laptops. And just two days before his detention hearing, at the home of the woman who allegedly tried to hide evidence from federal investigators.

Could you imagine if she had been successful in helping her son avoid arrest before he went on to commit a mass shooting? I’m sure she would have told the media that she did all she could.

(Sources)