Washington DC shooting latest updates: Suspect Elias Rodriguez charged with murder after Israeli couple Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky shot at ‘21 times’ near Capital Jewish Museum

New details are emerging about the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.

Police recovered 21 fired bullets from the scene, CNN reported court documents as saying, suggesting the couple were fired at at least 21 times.

He had purchased the fun recovered from the crime scene in March 2020 in Illinois, the ATF discovered. While allegedly flying from Chicago to Washington, D.C., Elias Rodrigues – the suspect who has been charged – declared a firearm in his checked bag, according to court documents.

Milgrim was an American citizen who hailed from Overland Park, Kansas, where a former youth director at Congregation Beth Torah remembers a brilliant girl with a perpetual smile and a sense of purpose.

“She had a passion for Judaism and for Israel, and she wanted to do some good,” said Marcia Rittmaster, the former youth director. She recommended Milgrim for a Jewish leadership internship upon the young woman’s graduation from high school.

Milgrim went on to the University of Kansas, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies in 2021 and was a warm, uplifting presence at Shabbat dinners and holiday gatherings at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life.

“She believed in connections, in building community and bringing people together,” Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel said. He said she loved asking questions, enjoyed insightful conversations and “was filled with so much love.”

After graduating, Milgrim worked at a Tel Aviv-based organization centered on technology training and conflict dialogue for young Palestinians and Israelis, according to her LinkedIn profile.

It said she had been trained in religious engagement and peacebuilding by the United States Institute of Peace, an organization that promotes conflict resolution and was created by the U.S. Congress.

After earning a master’s degree in international affairs from American University in 2023, she went to work at the Israeli Embassy, where her job involved organizing events and missions to Israel.

A standing-room only crowd gathered for a vigil for Milgrim in her hometown Thursday night.

Her college roommate related how her friend was an animal lover who faithfully walked her dog, took care of her pet rabbit and was a member of the beekeeping club. She was a passionate advocate for the environment, Amanda Birger said.

“She was very tactful about how she used her voice, which sometimes came off as cautious,” Birger said. “But when it looked like wasn’t speaking up, it’s because she was trying to keep the peace.”

She was “the ultimate peacemaker in her personal life and her professional life,” Birger said.

Milgrim held her Jewish values dear and showed Birger how someone their age could live a joyful Jewish life.

“She stood so proudly in her Judaism. She wore it with a smile, happily educating anyone who asked about it. She made me want to be more Jewish,” Birger said.

Ron Prosor, a veteran Israeli diplomat who knew Yaron Lischinsky, said that he and Sarah Milgrim were “a young couple with a bright future, planning their life together.”

More details about the Lischinsky and Milgrim are continuing to emerge, with the former reported to have grown up partly in the German city of Nuremberg and moved to Israel at 16.

He then served in the Jewish state’s military “and chose to dedicate his life to the state of Israel,” said Prosor, who taught Lischinsky at Israel’s Reichman University, where he earned a master’s degree in government, diplomacy and strategy.

“He embodied the Judeo-Christian values and set an example for young people worldwide,” Prosor said on X.

A friend, David Boskey, recalled Lischinsky as someone unafraid to broach hard questions in order to interrogate his own convictions, hailing him as a “mensch.”

“He was looking to see where he was going to go in life, asking questions about calling and about identity and about what he was going to study, where he was going to work, what he wanted to pursue in life,” Boskey said, describing Lischinsky as “a truth-seeking type of person, mixed with a very, very kind and gracious willingness to serve other people.”

Lischinsky helped found the Israeli-German Society’s youth forum, according to its counterpart in Germany, and took a job at the Israeli Embassy in Washington in 2022.

There, he worked as a research assistant whose responsibilities included keeping track of important events and trends in the Middle East and North Africa, his LinkedIn profile said.

He said he advocated for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding and was an “ardent believer’ in deepening Israel’s ties with the Arab world through the U.S.-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.

On Instagram, his bio included a yellow ribbon symbolizing the struggle to free the hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip.

Here’s a reminder of the most recent updates on the killings we’ve had from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C.:

The FBI and police are investigating texts that have been attributed to Elias Rodriguez, who was charged with murder on Thursday over the shooting deaths of two Israeli embassy staff.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino posted on social media that investigators were “aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect” and hoped to soon have updates regarding their authenticity.

Bongino’s statement appeared to refer to a manifesto signed with Elias Rodriguez’s name that was posted to an anonymous X account on Wednesday night shortly before the shooting.

Posted with the title “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,” it condemned Israel’s killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians since the October 2023 Hamas attacks, and discussed the morality of “armed” action.

“In the wake of an act people look for a text to fix its meaning so here’s an attempt,” the document read. “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.”

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said the fatal shooting of two staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim,” was part of an international move to “delegitimize and demonize Israel”.

“We’re called the worst kinds of names. Our prime minister is called a war criminal. All of our soldiers are referred to in such derogatory fashion,” he said in an interview with PBS on Thursday.

Asked what he thought was causing this sort of hate, Leiter said it was “the demonization of the state of Israel, the attempt to say that we are interlopers or colonizers or occupiers, that we don’t really belong.”

Leiter said global leaders including Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron had explaining to do over their criticisms of Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“Stop beating up on Israel. Stop condemning us. Stop delegitimizing us. We’re not doing anything that is comparable to what we’re being charged with doing,” he said.

Outside the White House, mourners gathered for a candlelit vigil for the couple who were shot dead at a Jewish event in Washington D.C.

About 200 people gathered at the makeshift memorial on Thursday evening, the New York Times reports, and tea light candles were arranged in the shape of the Star of David.

The group sang Hebrew songs, the newspaper reported, as well as the Star Spangled Banner.