Prosecutors to play confession in church shooting trial

FILE - In this June18, 2016 file photo, Dylann Storm Roof is escorted from the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C. The trial for Roof, a white man accused of killing nine black people at the church, started Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, at the federal courthouse in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE- In this June 18, 2015 file photo, two Charleston police officers stand in front of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. The trial for Dylann Roof, a white man accused of killing nine black people at the church, started Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, at the federal courthouse in Charleston, SC. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton, File) (The Associated Press)

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Prosecutors in South Carolina say they plan to play Dylann Roof's recorded confession during his federal death penalty trial in the Charleston church shootings.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson says he plans to play the confession for jurors Friday as the trial enters a third day.

Roof is on trial on 33 federal counts, including hate crimes, in the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last June. Prosecutors say Roof shot and killed nine black parishioners during Bible study there because he wanted to start a race war.

On Thursday, jurors saw stark 360-degree photographs of the crime scene in the church's fellowship hall. They saw the victims lying in pools of blood with bullets and ammunition magazines scattered around the scene.