RALEIGH, N.C. — A young man who went on a killing rampage that left five people dead in North Carolina in 2022 pleaded guilty Wednesday to all the charges against him, a rare conclusion to a mass shooting case that was expected to go to trial and be closely watched in the state.

Lawyers for the man, Austin Thompson, now 18, filed a plea notice Tuesday and confirmed his guilty plea in a Raleigh courtroom Wednesday. When the judge asked a series of basic questions as part of the process of approving his plea, such as whether he understood that he was pleading guilty to 10 offenses, Thompson looked straight ahead and replied, “Yes,” each time.

The charges included five counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of assault of an officer with a gun. Since Thompson was 15 at the time of the attack, he cannot receive the death penalty. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole. The sentencing hearing will begin next month, and it is expected to last several days.

In a country in which mass shootings seem all too frequent, it is extremely uncommon for people who commit such crimes to plead guilty. In recent months, it appeared that Thompson was poised to face a jury, with his lawyers writing in court filings that they intended to blame prescribed medication.

But after lengthy discussions about how the trial would proceed, the lawyers wrote, Thompson decided that he wanted to spare the community from further trauma.

Prosecutors say Thompson shot himself in the head before his arrest, resulting in a “serious brain injury,” according to his lawyers.

Thompson’s lawyers, Kellie Mannette and Deonte’ Thomas, wrote in a court filing that because of the brain injury, “Austin cannot explain why he committed this shooting.”

But Joseph Latour, an assistant district attorney in Wake County, said Wednesday that Thompson’s online search history was telling. The young man had looked up various mass shootings and school shootings, how police would respond to such events, the types of weapons the shooters had used and the “locations that would be more likely to be deadly.”

His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 2.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Eduardo Medina/Veasey Conway
c. 2026 The New York Times Company