FARMINGTON — Late Monday morning, a 16-year-old was sleeping in his family’s home on North Dustin in Farmington when he heard a volley of gunfire.
When he looked outside he saw police officers entering the house where his friend lived, just down the block. The 16-year-old sent his friend a SnapChat, thinking he was at school, to let him know what was going on.
He never heard back.
Police say Beau Wilson, 18, roamed up and down the street — a busy thoroughfare lined with churches and homes abutting a quiet middle class neighborhood — shooting indiscriminately into houses and cars. They said he used three different weapons, including an “AR-style rifle.”
Three women, all over the age of 70, were killed and six others, including two police officers, were injured.
Responding officers shot and killed Wilson, about a quarter mile from his home.
Authorities identified Wilson, a student at Farmington High School, as the shooter during a news conference Tuesday.
The 16-year-old said he saw a video on TikTok of his friend being shot by officers. He said he knew instantly — by the way Wilson was walking — who it was.
The 16-year-old said in some ways he was surprised by what happened, saying “I knew he was going to do something bad but I didn’t think it was going to be something like that.”
But, he said, he knew the older teenager was “different.”
Once, a couple of years ago at a sleepover on Halloween the 16-year-old said he awoke to hear Wilson talking to people who weren’t there.
“I was really confused,” the teenager recounted. “I was like ‘are you OK?’ He was like ‘yeah.’ He said ‘these voices just keep getting to me.'”
The teenager said Wilson was respectful and protective of those he liked, but had a hard time meeting new people. The two had been messaging last week about Wilson selling his Xbox, but the suspect has since deleted all of the messages.
“What he did was wrong,” the teenager said. “But everyone is going to see him as the mass shooter of Farmington and I’m going to see him as Beau.”
At Tuesday’s news conference, officials said Wilson had no serious criminal history but found, through interviews, some indication he had mental health issues.
