NBC Nightly News
6:30 pm - Saturday, October 9, 2010
"Welcome back to the broadcast. We return with the chilling account of a seemingly ordinary College Professor who has entered the minds of many as the face of evolved terrorism in this country. With the crisis of the Company only just beginning to settle the revelation that Columbia University History Professor Rupert Carmichael is allegedly the mastermind behind the terrorist group Messiah has been another powerful shock to a city and a country already facing so much trouble."
"Born in 1969 in New York City to investment banker Jonathan Carmichael Senior and his wife Olivia, Rupert Carmichael grew up alongside his younger brother Jonathan Carmichael Junior. A graduate of Brown University, Carmichael had a passion for political debate and history, he obtained his masters degree and went on to pursue a career in teaching. Studying abroad in England in 1994 he met physical anthropologist Cristabella Montclaire who eventually would return with Carmichael to New York City where she would be introduced to Carmichael's brother Jonathan."
"Over the next few years, Jonathan and Cristabella's troubled relationship would serve as the foundation for Rupert's withdrawal from society, speculated by family members to be when he began to pursue more radical political and social views. He allegedly hit rock bottom in 1998 following the death of his parents in a tragic car accident that he was the only survivor of. It wasn't until Jonathan and Cristabella's engagement was broken off in 2000 that Carmichael seemed to return to his normal self, but now family members are doubting this turn around."
"Over the next few years, as his brother joined the Department of Homeland Security following the September 11th 2001 terror attacks in New York City, Rupert returned to teaching at Columbia University. In 2004 Cristabella, now living with Rupert, was diagnosed with an unknown degenerative neurological disorder that significantly limited her cognitive functions. Rupert signed himself over as Cristabella's primary caretaker while juggling his responsibilities at Columbia University, up until the 2006 nuclear explosion in Midtown Manhattan."
"This period of Rupert's life is largely unknown by both colleagues and family. What little is known is that Rupert left the United States for close to a year, traveling to Europe and later India before returning to America following the revelation of the Evolved in 2007. According to Carmichael's manifesto — The Evolved Messiah — he had 'awakened to a new sense of spirituality and enlightenment' that he believed guided him to the realization that the Evolved were, in his mind, 'destined' to be the dominant species of the world and that this was the twilight hour of humanity."
"From 2007 onward, much of Carmichael's private life is detailed only by way of references through the hundreds of pages of rambling documentation in his manifesto, discussing how he planned to stage an uprising of the Evolved people to overthrow the United States Government, hoping to inspire other Evolved groups around the world to rise up and claim superiority over their lessers. Rupert Carmichael managed to hide his descent into insanity from friends, family and even colleagues at Columbia University, all the while secretly pursuing the ideals of the Evolved as a savior race."
"In his manifesto, Rupert Carmichael reveals personal involvement with prior terrorist organization such as PARIAH, secretly funneling funds into the group to buy the illegal weapons they used to kill and destroy in the name of zealous pro-evolved and anti-government idealism."
"In 2009 Rupert's brother Jonathan was killed in a military transport plane that crashed after experiencing violent turbulence and electrical failure, though members of the Carmichael family stated that Rupert did not even show for his own brother's funeral when he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery."
"Only now to we begin to see the true depths to which the paradigm shift we all went through in 2006 had changed Rupert, turning him from a caring family man and blossoming history student into a cold and calculating man with delusions that have taken the lives of so many innocent people."
"At the end of Carmichael's manifesto there is a line that reads: 'It's not who we are but it's the fight we fight, it is the blood that we spill in the name of freedom.'"
"In his own words, Rupert Carmichael's idea of freedom is the deaths of thousands."
"When we return to the program, further coverage…"