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The man accused of harassing and threatening people at an event organized by Black student groups on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus Monday night — a disruption that sent shock waves through the university community — has been identified as 45-year-old Keegan Carlisle Wilson.
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Wilson was arrested by UNC Police that evening and admitted to the hospital due to apparent mental distress, according to a university spokesperson. Once he is medically cleared, the spokesperson said, he is set to be charged with disorderly conduct, vandalism, damage to property, and assault — and banned from campus.
Wilson graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2003 with a degree in the romance languages, according to that year’s commencement program.
Wilson’s mental health was in severe decline for years before the incident, court documents show. He had increasing involvement with the criminal justice system as his relationship with his adoptive mother deteriorated. She says he suffers from bipolar disorder and has not been taking his medication.
“I just want him to get mental health help,” his mother, Jenipher Riddle-Wilson, wrote in an Aug. 12 request for a domestic violence protective order against him that a judge granted the same day — less than three weeks before the incident at UNC.
Wilson was living with his 75-year-old mother at her home in north Raleigh until he left in early July, she wrote in court documents. He began sending messages to her employer and threatening emails and texts to her neighbors and family members, she said.
On Aug. 6, he broke into her home, smashed a glass panel and “ransacked” the house, the judge wrote. He was arrested for the crime on Aug. 11, with his bond set at $2,000.
He was released on bail on Aug. 12, the day the judge granted the protective order for his mother.
“The police have been called to the house several times,” she wrote in her request. “… Keegan has been jailed for stealing my car and hospitalized for his mental illness. Keegan has done so many things there is not enough paper to list all he has done. … I am truly afraid of him as all the ‘shenanigans’ (his word) are not resulting in his main goal to get someone to side with him.”
On Aug. 26, mere days before he showed up on UNC’s campus, he was charged with violating his mother’s protective order, showing up at her house and knocking on the door when he knew she was home.
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“I am not happy to be in this situation as I love Keegan and adopted him 34 years ago,” Riddle-Wilson wrote. “But this new Keegan is unrecognizable and scares me.”
He was kept in jail overnight before he was released by a judge on Aug. 27. His unsecured bail was set at one dollar and he was ordered not to go near or contact Riddle-Wilson.
On the evening of Aug. 31, he showed up at his alma mater.
He entered Greenlaw Hall, where students were attending a “Love Island” watch party hosted by Black student organizations. He began throwing things, arguing with and threatening students, and spraying a substance from an aerosol can. The Daily Tar Heel reported that he also had a lighter.
Students in Greenlaw Hall were under the impression that he may have had a gun, causing widespread panic. He used “physical intimidation and racial slurs,” according to James Orr, UNC’s senior vice provost for student success.
UNC says that Greenlaw Hall was locked as of 7 p.m. on Monday, “so, it is unclear how the individual gained access.”
As early as 2024, Riddle-Wilson struggled with Wilson. She went to court to evict him from her home that year, writing then that he made her feel unsafe.
The News & Observer attempted to contact Riddle-Wilson for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
He is scheduled to appear in court for the breaking and entering charge on Sept. 10 and again Oct. 16 for the charge of violating the protective order. It’s up to the district attorney’s office to determine whether his actions at UNC amount to a hate crime.
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