Snap video leaves a lingering image from one of the Charleston victims

Before Tywanza Sanders was shot and killed at his Bible study at Emanuel AME in Charleston, he published two Snaps to his social media profile.

One Snap showed Sanders at a barber shop, said Keon Gordon, Sanders’ friend since high school. The other was of the Bible study at the church on June 17, 2015, shortly before Sanders and eight other black parishioners were shot and killed.

The video he captured was dark and the caption was illegible on the courtroom’s small screens Friday. The video he captured was dark and the caption was illegible on the courtroom’s small screens Friday. But the video showed in the background the man he believed to be “the killer,” Gordon said.

Gordon, 26, was the 11th witness on the second day of the federal death penalty trial of Dylann Roof, 22.

A Snap, he said, is a short video of 10 seconds or less, that is deleted 24 hours after it is published. It was available only to Sanders’ friends.

Gordon said when he learned the next day of the slaying, he thought it was “surreal that someone would do something like that.”

Then, he testified under questioning of Justice Department attorney Stephen Curran that he noticed there was a notification that Sanders had taken a Snap.

Gordon said he grabbed another phone to record his friend’s last post.

“Just because it was the last thing he posted and I thought it was something worth keeping,” said Gordon of the video.

He took three screenshots of the Snap and turned them over to the FBI, he told the jury.

Roof remained motionless throughout Gordon’s testimony.

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 8:25 PM with the headline "Snap video leaves a lingering image from one of the Charleston victims."