Were 3 slain in N.C. for their religion or their parking space?

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Police are trying to determine whether hate played any role in the killing Tuesday of three Muslims, a crime they said was sparked by a neighbor's long-simmering anger over parking and noise inside their condominium complex.

Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, describes himself as a "gun toting" atheist. Neighbors say he always seemed angry. His ex-wife said he was obsessed with the shooting-rampage movie Falling Down and showed "no compassion at all" for other people.

His current wife, Karen Hicks, said he "champions the rights of others" and said the killings "had nothing to do with religion or the victims' faith." Later Wednesday, she issued another statement, saying she was divorcing him.

Hicks appeared in court Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad, 21; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. He pleaded indigence and was appointed a public defender.

Officers were summoned by a neighbor who called 911 reporting five to 10 shots and the sound of people screaming.

The women's father, Mohammad Abu-Salha, said police told him each was shot in the head inside the couple's apartment. He said it was a hate crime.

"The media here bombards the American citizen with Islamic, Islamic, Islamic terrorism and makes people here scared of us and hate us and want us out," said Abu-Salha, who is a psychiatrist. "So if somebody has any conflict with you, and they already hate you, you get a bullet in the head."

A Muslim advocacy organization pressed authorities to investigate possible religious bias. Many posted social-media updates with the hashtags #MuslimLivesMatter.

"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue said in an e-mail.

Chapel Hill police asked the FBI for help in their probe, and Ripley Rand, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, said his office was monitoring the investigation. But Rand said the crime "appears at this point to have been an isolated incident."

About 2,000 people attended a candlelight vigil for the victims in the heart of the University of North Carolina campus Wednesday. Several people who knew them spoke about their selflessness as friends and recounted kindnesses that they had extended to others through the years.

Barakat and Mohammad were newlyweds who helped the homeless and raised funds to help Syrian refugees in Turkey. They met while running the Muslim Student Association at North Carolina State University before he began pursuing a degree in dentistry at Chapel Hill. Mohammad planned to join her husband in dentistry school in the fall.

Many condos in the complex are rented or owned by students and UNC graduates. The campus is about three miles away.

Abu-Salha was visiting Tuesday from Raleigh, where she was majoring in design at N.C. State.

"This was like the power couple of our community," said Ali Sajjad, 21, the association's current president.

Hicks had less success: Unemployed and driving a 15-year-old car, he has been studying to become a paralegal, his wife said.

Hicks, a Second Amendment rights advocate with a concealed-weapons permit, often complained about both Christians and Muslims on his Facebook page. "Some call me a gun toting Liberal, others call me an open-minded Conservative," Hicks wrote.

The killings were "related to long-standing parking disputes my husband had with various neighbors regardless of their race, religion, or creed," Karen Hicks said.