Man who shot ex-wife and son confesses on Facebook, says she deserved what she got

Earl Valentine had just critically injured his ex-wife and killed his
namesake son in North Carolina, authorities said. He was somewhere on a
dark road, possibly driving to Richmond to kill his former in-laws.

That’s when Valentine went on Facebook and started broadcasting live.

“She
lied on me, had warrants taken out on me,” he told the camera early
Tuesday, as he divided his gaze between the phone and the road. “She
drug me all the way down to nothing. I loved my wife, but she deserved
what she had coming.”

In his chilling Facebook livestream, which was later re-posted on YouTube, Valentine acknowledged that the violent chain of events he started could end in his own death.

“Pleasure
knowing all y’all,” he said. “I’ve been very sick for months. And this
is something that I could not help. So I don’t know if I’m gonna make it
where I’m going, but if I don’t, I wish all of you a good life.”

Police in
Norlina, a town of 1,100 people about an hour east of Raleigh, spent
Tuesday and Wednesday trying to unravel what caused Valentine allegedly
to kick in the door of his ex-wife’s single-story home and open fire —
and then admit to the crime on social media.

But more than anything, they want to find Earl Valentine.

Authorities
from the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service have joined local and
regional law enforcement agencies in a manhunt stretching from Virginia
to South Carolina, Norlina Police Chief Taylor Bartholomew told The
Washington Post.

Bartholomew said Valentine was carrying a pistol and a shotgun and is considered “extremely” dangerous.

He
said he talked to Valentine on the phone and described him as “cold and
callous,” saying he showed no remorse for the shootings.

“For
somebody that had just done something like that, he was calm but he was
aggressive,” Bartholomew said. “He was trying to pump me for
information. His main focus was to make sure his ex-wife was dead.”

Bartholomew
also quoted Valentine as saying that he wouldn’t be taken alive and
that he planned to kill his in-laws, then himself.

Keisha Valentine and her teenage son had moved to Norlina nearly nine
months ago to get away from her abusive ex-husband, Bartholomew said.

A
year-long domestic violence restraining order she was granted had
expired last month. But the police chief said there’s evidence that Earl
Valentine had exchanged heated words with his ex-wife’s family
on Facebook.

Still, it’s unclear what prompted Tuesday morning’s assault on Hyco Street.

About
1:30 a.m., Earl Valentine burst through the front door of the house and
marched to his ex-wife’s bedroom, Bartholomew said. Keisha Valentine
leaned against the door, trying to keep him out, but he managed to shoot
her anyway.

Their son, awakened by the commotion, confronted his father. But the teenager fell to the floor and was shot in the chest.

Before he died, he called police and told them what had happened.

Earl Valentine faces a first-degree murder charge in his son’s death, Bartholomew said.

Since
Facebook Live launched in April, millions have used the service to
offer a glimpse into the big moments and small details of their lives. 

The view isn’t always pretty.

Earl Valentine is the latest example of a person using Facebook Live to discuss a violent act — or to showcase the act itself.

In June, Larossi Abballa, a terrorism suspect accused of killing a French police captain and his partner in their home, broadcast the aftermath of the attack on Facebook Live. An
occasionally tearful Abballa, speaking a mix of French and Arabic,
swore allegiance to the Islamic State militant group and encouraged
others to follow his example and kill police.

A month later, a Georgia mother went on her daughter’s Facebook account to broadcast herself beating the teenager — punishment for posting sexually explicit pictures on the site.

“This
is my page now,” Shanavia Miller told the camera after she fixed her
hair. “Now I’m gonna need y’all to send this viral. Please share this
because I’m not done. More to come.”

A July shooting in Norfolk that injured three men was inadvertently captured on Facebook Live.
In the video, three men are sitting in a car, smoking and listening to
rap music. Five minutes into the video, there’s a series of 30 gunshots.

And after police in Minnesota fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in July, his girlfriend opened Facebook and began livestreaming the aftermath. The video was viewed millions of times, sparking outrage and widespread protests.

The
nascent live-streaming service is raising philosophical questions about
the power of unfiltered Internet video that can reach millions
instantly.

As The Post’s Caitlin Dewey wrote in July:

Facebook
Live, which launched globally in April, has quickly emerged as one of
the Internet’s dominant platforms for streaming unfiltered, real-time
video. As Facebook has learned in the past week, however, that status
comes with unique challenges.

Real-time video is exceedingly
difficult to moderate, as it reaches its largest audience
instantaneously and can be redacted only after that moment of impact.
That limits the power of even a dedicated, 24-7 moderation team, which
Facebook Live has. Despite growing concern that the tool could be abused
— several shootings, a police standoff and an accused jihadist’s confession
have streamed on Facebook already — the company has remained
intentionally (and characteristically) vague on the composition and
guidelines of its moderation team.