Mystery of ‘no motive’ Virginia Beach mass shooting that left 12 dead two years ago

A two-year investigation into the gunman who murdered 12 people in Virginia Beach in 2019, has failed to identify a motive despite more than 1,000 people being interviewed.

On May 31, 2019, Dewayne Craddock killed a dozen people and injured five more in a municipal building where he had resigned as a city engineer just hours earlier, in an attack lasting for 44 minutes. 

The 40-year-old later died in a police shoot-out.

But the reason behind the murders has remained a mystery, according to a 47-page report by The Virginia Beach Police Department, concluding that Craddock was a “very private person” who told no one of his plans, had no criminal history, suffered no known mental health problems and “left no note nor any other account that would explain his actions”.

Officers spent 20-months interviewing more than 1,000 people who had connections with Craddock as well as examining 504 pieces of evidence.

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“Despite exhaustive investigative work and in spite of unsubstantiated rumours and accusations, it appears we may never know why he committed this heinous act,” police said in the report.

Paul Neudigate, current police chief, told Wavy.com: “We need specific facts and circumstances that guide us towards what is in this individual’s mind. It’s hard for police, it’s hard for anybody to tell you what is in your mind and what spurred your actions.”

The report, which comes just days after a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado, left 10 dead, and after Virginia became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty, is unlikely to satisfy families of the victims who have pointed to an alleged “toxic” atmosphere at his place of work and a reported failure of supervisors to recognise warning signs.

Immediately following the killings nearly two-years-ago, Craddock had been described as a “disgruntled employee”, although one of his colleagues went on to tell CNN in 2019 that he had never been disciplined and that he had claimed he was resigning for “personal reasons”. 

Hours before the shooting he sent a short and courteous resignation letter, telling a Virginia Beach official it had been a “pleasure” to work for the city.

“I want to officially put in my [two] weeks’ notice to vacant my position of Engineer III with the City of Virginia Beach.” Craddock wrote. “It has been a pleasure to serve the city, but due to personal reasons I must relieve my position.”

Hours later, he fatally shot 12 people, almost all of whom were colleagues.

Less than a year before the shooting, Craddock had reportedly received an inadequate evaluation, leading to a lack of a pay-rise, but police did not deem it serious enough to spark the incident.

It was the second-deadliest mass shooting of 2019, after the shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in which 23 people were killed, as reported by CNN.