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'We Are All Heartbroken': Sole Survivor Of South Carolina Mass Shooting Dies From Injuries

Phillip Adams's family noticed a serious decline in his mental health in the months leading up to the shooting of Robert Shook.

By Daniel Egitto
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The sole survivor of a South Carolina mass shooting died from his injuries Saturday afternoon, the sixth to die in this baffling brutal crime.

Robert Shook, 38, was repairing an HVAC unit with his work partner, 38-year-old James Lewis, at a home in Rock Hill, NC last Wednesday when former NFL player Phillip Adams arrived on the property with two guns, York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said at a press conference. Adams allegedly shot both repairmen, then entered the house and gunned down the family inside: Robert Lesslie, 70, his wife Barbara Lesslie, 69, and their grandchildren, Adah and Noah Lesslie, aged 9 and 5.

Police arrived on scene to find Lewis and the Lesslie family dead, while Shook was suffering from serious injuries. Shook was rushed to a hospital in Charlotte while investigators pieced together evidence.

Authorities arrived at Adams’s home later that evening. After hours of negotiations broke down, Adams was found dead in his bedroom from a self-inflicted gunshot wound around 2:30 a.m. on Thursday, local newspaper the Greenville News reports.

Robert Shook Fb

Meanwhile, Shook was fighting for his life. The repairman was among the first to report the incident, calling his supervisor at GSM Services after having sustained six gunshot wounds, WIS-TV reports. He remained in the hospital for the next several days, his family waiting anxiously nearby.

“I thought we might have a miracle,” Shook’s cousin, Heather Thompson, told WIS-TV.

Shook died from his injuries on Saturday afternoon, his workplace announced in a Facebook post. A spokesperson from the Charlotte Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed his death in a phone interview with Oxygen.com.

“We are all heartbroken. Please keep [Shook’s] family in your prayers tonight and in the coming days as we all face this together,” GSM Services wrote in their announcement.

Shook is survived by his wife, Holly Shook, and their children, 18-year-old Keleigh, 13-year-old Johnnie and 7-year-old Eli, WIS-TV reports.

As authorities investigate a motive for the shooting, Adams’s family told USA Today they'd noticed a serious decline in his mental health over the past several months. 

“His mental health degraded fast and terribly bad. There was unusual behavior. I’m not going to get into all that. We definitely did notice signs of mental illness that was extremely concerning,” Lauren Adams told the paper.

Adams played in 78 NFL games between 2010 and 2015. But following his retirement, the star lost all interest in the sport, often leaving the room if his family was watching football or asking them to turn it off, his sister said.

Adams’s father, Alonzo Adams, blames the sport for his son’s decline, according to WCNC-TV.

“He was a good kid. I think the football messed him up,” he said.

GSM Services has created a GoFundMe page to help provide for Shook and Lewis’s families. The page had raised almost $200,000 as of Monday afternoon.

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