“He pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, but it went ‘click,'” because the chamber was empty, said Kevin Singleton, the son of 59-year-old Myra Thompson.

“His plan was never to leave that church,” Singleton said…

Singleton, 40, a magazine publisher in Charlotte, N.C., said it appeared that Roof’s original intent was to kill the church’s well-known minister, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

But when the Rev. Daniel Simmons, 74 and retired, grappled with him, he unloaded on Simmons and the others, Singleton said.