On Thursday night, newly published interviews with those who knew alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof provided disturbing details about the man accused of killing nine people in a racially motivated attack yesterday.

In an interview with ABC News, roommate Dalton Tyler told the network that Roof had been “planning something like that for six months.”

“He was big into segregation and other stuff,” Tyler told ABC. “He said he wanted to start a civil war. He said he was going to do something like that and then kill himself.”

Tyler also confirmed earlier reports that Roof’s parents bought him a gun for his birthday, but said that his roommate was only allowed to take the gun from their house this past week.

In a separate interview, childhood friend Joseph Meek Jr. said that Roof erupted into a racist rant during a recent outing. From the Associated Press:

The two reconnected a few weeks ago after Roof reached out to Meek on Facebook, Meek said.

Roof never talked about race years ago when they were friends, but recently made remarks out of the blue about the killing of unarmed black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida and the riots in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, Meek said.

“He said blacks were taking over the world. Someone needed to do something about it for the white race,” Meek told the AP. “He said he wanted segregation between whites and blacks. I said, ‘That’s not the way it should be.’ But he kept talking about it.”

[Image via AP Images]