Just weeks before Alex Tilghman shot up a packed restaurant in Oklahoma City, the 28-year-old had made a series of concerning videos about demons.
If his YouTube videos are to be believed, the man who fired his gun into Louie’s Grill and Bar on Thursday night, injuring a female veteran and two young girls, believed he was under attack by demons, the devil is ‘after my f***ing a**’ and that his life was in danger.
Tilghman calmly told viewers of a clip labelled: ‘Please Contact Me If Your [sic] Real’ he was under ‘a hardcore amount of attack’ and needed ‘some real people in my life’.
‘I’ve just been dealing with a lot of shit recently and so I’m pretty stressed right now… I apologize, I’m not doing well, doing really really bad right now,’ he said.
‘My life is in danger.’
Alex Tilghman, who shot up a restaurant in Oklahoma City on Thursday night, made dozens of videos about seeing and hearing demons
Tilghman made pleas for help in the clips, where he would often be talking about demons or filming wildlife and claiming they were laughing at him or had been possessed
About 6.30pm on Thursday, he put on ear and eye protection, stood at the doorway of Louie’s and fired his gun at random. As an armed security guard, he was licensed to have a gun
Throughout a lot of his videos, Tilghman spoke of being lonely, suicidal, and unable to find ‘real humans’.
‘I really need a friend, if there’s someone real out there please get in touch with me,’ he said in one clip.
In another, titled ‘Someone Help Me, I’m Losing It’, he said he felt like he was living in a movie, and he was the only real person in the world.
Tilghman said he could hear ‘tapping, crazy-a** tapping’ and ‘big cracks and booms’ in his ceiling.
‘I even have my refrigerator attacking me. It’s extra loud since we live in a matrix,’ he said.
‘The devil can make things louder as well, so it’s pretty bad.’
Tilghman saw demons in living things as well, including gnats, squirrels, parrots and ducks.
One clip showed him in a park, where he filmed ducks quacking and told viewers they were demons laughing at him.
‘See them acting strangely, just quacking around,’ he said to viewers. ‘These are all demons.’
One video showed him claiming he was being followed by cicadas, which were made louder by the devil
Tilghman tried to walk away from the restaurant, but was confronted by two good Samaritans who were also armed. When he refused to drop his weapon, one of the men shot him dead
According to Tilghman’s biographic video ‘How God Has Transformed Me’, he was living in the basement of his mother’s home when he began to see the demons.
He said he had wanted to work at the time, but was too socially awkward to go out and find a job.
The 28-year-old eventually left the home when he ‘found out [his mother] was a demon’.
‘My brother was there with me too, I didn’t know he was a demon then, but he gave me some hints – he blinked his eye once and he pointed his finger once,’ Tilghman said.
‘Then I went to my dad’s house for a little bit. I didn’t know right away but then I found out he was a demon too.’
If he is to be believed, Tilghman then moved to a Salvation Army shelter before living in his car during the winter. He describes this as ‘the worst moment of my life’.
A man who identified himself as Tilghman’s brother told television station KOCO that Tilghman needed mental health treatment, saying: ‘Nobody reached out to him, you know. He was crying for help.’
Police said on Thursday about 100 people were inside the popular restaurant on Thursday when Tilghman began shooting
Two of his victims were military veteran Natalie Will (left) and her 12-year-old daughter Syniah (centre)
‘I was like the only one and a few other people… this tragedy could have been avoided.
‘Me, my family and his friends all thought he should be put into a behavioral unit.’
His brother said he did not think Tilghman was capable of shooting up the restaurant, but said he had been suicidal for ‘a few months’.
In the months leading up to his death, Tilghman became convinced transsexual people were demons.
The director of the LGBT rights group Freedom Oklahoma, Troy Stevenson, said Tilghman is the same man who distributed flyers across Oklahoma City earlier this year warning of demons taking over people’s bodies.
A reporter with the LGBT publication The Gayly conducted an interview in January with Tilghman, who warned of ‘demons in cloned transexual (sic) bodies.’
Following the interview, The Gayly say they contacted Oklahoma City Police, who collected information about the interview including transcripts and recordings, and the public information officer said: ‘This guy needs to be on our radar’.
Flyers with similar messages were plastered all over a vehicle that Tilghman drove, said Ryan Beaulac, who said he frequently saw the 28-year-old at his apartment complex in northwest Oklahoma City.
Beaulac said he saw Tilghman acting strangely Wednesday night.
‘He was twitchy, grabbing his hair and acting weird,’ the 35-year-old Beaulac said. ‘I was uncomfortable and definitely wanted to get away from him.’
Tilghman also believed transsexual people were demons, and had signs on his car saying so
The 28-year-old also distributed flyers with a similar message and directing people to his YouTube channel
On Thursday, Tilghman put on ear and eye protection, and stood in the doorway of Louie’s Grill and Bar in Oklahoma City holding his gun.
He fired into the packed out restaurant, which police estimate had 100 people inside.
In the shooting, he hit a mother-of-two and military veteran Natalie Will in the upper arm.
He hit her 12-year-old daughter Syniah Giles in the tailbone, leaving her with two bullet holes in her bowel and one in her bone, and one part of her colon so badly damaged it had to be removed in surgery.
Tilghman also hit a 14-year-old girl named Alex Speegle, who was with the family for her best friend’s birthday party.
Alex was hit in the collarbone, the upper arm and in her hand. She required metal plates be put in on her collarbone and arm, and could lose the use of her hand due to nerve damage.
After shooting the trio, Tilghman walked away from the restaurant and was confronted by two good Samaritans who had been nearby the restaurant and raced back to their cars to get their guns after hearing the shooting.
Bryan Whittle and Juan Carlos Nazario confronted the man, and when he refused to drop his weapon, Nazario reportedly fired the fatal bullet that killed him.
Bryan Whittle (left) and Juan Carlos Nazario (right) confronted Tilghman when he left the restaurant. Nazario is reported to have fired the fatal shot
