PHILADELPHIA — He was estranged from family, tenuously employed, and posting online about how to identify “evil spirits.” He started wearing body armor and guns around the house. God, he believed, was telling him to purge his community of violence with violence.
A troubled portrait has come into focus of Kimbrady Carriker, the 40-year-old man who on Monday night allegedly committed one of the deadliest mass shootings in Philadelphia history, fatally shooting five people, including a 15-year-old, while injuring four more.
Police records, interviews and now-deleted social media posts reviewed by The Inquirer depict Carriker as a “biblical extremist” who had become increasingly agitated in the days before he walked out his Southwest Philadelphia rowhouse with an AR-15-style rifle and opened fire upon his neighbors and passersby at random.
Carriker surrendered to police without incident after the rampage and was arraigned Wednesday on five counts of first-degree murder and other charges. He was last arrested in 2003 on drug and weapons charges, and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for carrying an unlicensed firearm.
Despite a recent pattern of erratic behavior, few people appeared close enough to Carriker to have addressed any potential warning signs.
His father, a veteran and former professional welterweight boxer who had until last year lived at the Coatesville VA Medical Center, declined comment. His mother could not be reached and other relatives also declined to talk about recent interactions with Carriker.
A year after his first arrest, in 2004, deed records show, Carriker’s grandmother transferred a house on Belmar Terrace, in Southwest Philly, into his name. He continued living there, on and off, up to the time of the shooting.
Court records show the city later pursued Carriker multiple times over unpaid taxes and water bills, and the property was repeatedly cited for violations over weeds and other nuisance complaints.
In a 2013 appeal filed over these citations, Carriker wrote that he had been in a car accident and moved in with his mother, but by the time of the shooting, he was back in the house, renting to relatives and several other men, according to police sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the case.
Several neighbors told The Inquirer that Carriker kept a low profile, although one described him as volatile, and in “a dark place” in recent months. One relative called him a “biblical extremist,” according to the police sources.
Carriker’s light social media trail depicted scattered interests: software development, video games, the Second Amendment, military hardware, and, more recently, appreciation of right-wing media personalities such as Tucker Carlson.
“I have a twitter because of Carlson,” reads a post on one of Carriker’s Twitter accounts. “I thought I could avoid this platform. But for Tuck; I got you.”
Conservative media outlets claimed Carriker was transgender based on Facebook photos of him dressed in feminine clothing. However, Carriker is identified as male on public records and district attorney officials said Wednesday that he identifies as male.
It was unclear exactly how Carriker made a living aside from renting out his home, although one public profile lists Carriker as a freelance web designer and includes examples of sample websites he designed, including one for tactical survival gear.
Throughout the 2010s, Carriker also promoted a homemade software project on Facebook under the name “LDS Frame Works.” The purpose of the software is unclear and as of 2020 appeared unfinished.
His postings presented a mix of political views.
During the 2020 protests over the police shooting of George Floyd, he posted images of a clenched fist and videos of unrest in Center City. He followed a local Facebook account from the activist group Black Lives Matter Philadelphia.
Voter registration records also show Carriker is a registered Republican. And on his Facebook profile over the last year, Carriker alternated between posting humorous memes and conservative content. (His profile has since been deleted.)
As an outspoken supporter of the Second Amendment, Carriker was frequently critical of President Joe Biden.
Matt Wolfe, a lawyer and Republican ward leader, said Carriker had worked several recent elections, including serving as a minority party inspector at a polling place during last year’s primary. Wolfe said Carriker was just one of many election workers recruited through mass mailers.
“He seemed normal, but I don’t really remember him well,” Wolfe said. “We hadn’t heard anything, good or bad, about his work during those elections.”
Among Carriker’s posts was more sinister content pointing to vigilante fantasies and a belief in dark spiritual forces at work in the world.
One, from Sunday, linked to a news article instructing readers on how to determine whether “an evil spirit” was following them. He posted a link to an image of a T-shirt depicting a graphic image of Gary Plauche, who achieved notoriety in 1984 for fatally shooting a man on live TV who had kidnapped and molested his son. On another profile, Carriker bookmarked a guide to making bulletproof armor at home for $30 in materials.
In his final social media posts, Carriker described going on “patrols” through his neighborhood. He cast blame on elders in the neighborhood he believed were encouraging young people to commit crime, and expressed a lack of sympathy for those eventually claimed by gun violence.
“They are without a doubt promoting and participating in robbing, prostitution, scamming, and murder,” Carriker wrote on June 20. “When one of their monsters is killed they cry foul. Boohoo.”
According to police interviews, at the time of the shooting, Carriker was again living in the Belmar Terrace house, sleeping in a converted dining room and spending a great deal of time on his computer.
Several witnesses said Carriker had been “acting strange” in recent days, raving and quoting verses from the Bible at all hours of the day and night, espousing his belief that more community members needed to step up and help police fight crime.
A relative described seeing Carriker pacing throughout the house on Belmar Terrace, wearing body armor and carrying an AR-15-style rifle. One neighbor told police of observing Carriker wearing a tactical face mask.
Carriker is accused of stalking his own community in his tactical equipment Monday, firing over and over at apparently random targets, injuring four, and killing Da’Juan Brown, 15; Lashyd Merritt, 21; Ralph Moralis, 59; Dymir Stanton, 29; and Joseph Wamah Jr., 31.
Unlike his victims, Carriker emerged unscathed, and was taken into custody by police.
During a later interrogation, Carriker told detectives that “Yahweh” was sending more people to help him, before declining to speak further. He is represented by a public defender, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Searching his home after the shooting, police found a handwritten note from Carriker delegating his few assets, including his house, vehicle, computer, rifle and other weapons.
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(Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Chris Palmer and Rodrigo Torrejón contributed to this article.)
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