CHAPEL HILL, N.C. >> Family, friends and thousands of well-wishers gathered Thursday for solemn funeral and prayer services for three young adults gunned down in North Carolina in what police call a long-running dispute over parking spaces.

Relatives viewed the victims’ bodies in a small building apart from one of Raleigh’s largest mosques, where the Muslim families have long been members. Then — because of the sizeable crowd — the service was moved across the street to athletic fields owned by North Carolina State University, where two victims had graduated and one was a student.

That service began after midday Muslim prayers. A man facing east sang an opening prayer. Then the crowd was solemn and silent — only a few children crying in the distance could be heard. A large blue plastic prayer mat lay on the field, and some brought their own to use.

Three coffins sat before a covered stage — in gray, then white and silver.

Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were found dead Tuesday at the newlywed couple’s home near the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill campus.

Those gathered Thursday grappled with questions about whether the violence had some connection to their Muslim faith. The father of the two slain women says hatred of Muslims might explain why the dispute erupted into death. Officials have said they are still investigating any possibilities the crime was hate-motivated.

“We are definitely certain that our daughters were targeted for their religion,” the women’s father, Mohammad Yousif Abu-Salha, told The Associated Press. “… This is a moment of truth. I have just viewed their bodies.”

Charged with three counts of first-degree murder is Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who has described himself as a “gun toting” atheist. Neighbors said he always seemed angry and confrontational. His ex-wife said he was obsessed with the 1993 shooting-rampage movie “Falling Down” and showed “no compassion at all” for other people.

His current wife, Karen Hicks, said that her husband “champions the rights of others” and that the killings “had nothing do with religion or the victims’ faith.” She then issued another brief statement, saying she’s divorcing him.

The newlywed wife’s father said, “She felt that he was hateful and he did not like them, who they were and the way they looked.”

Mohammad Yousif Abu-Salha said he had urged law enforcement to look beyond their explanation of the long-running parking dispute in the complex where the victims and suspect lived. “This is not a parking dispute,” he said. “These children were executed with shots in the back of the head.” Police have said they are not commenting on evidence in the case, including manner of death.

“We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case,” Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue said in an email Wednesday.

Chapel Hill Police asked the FBI for help, and Ripley Rand, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, said his office was monitoring the investigation. Rand said the crime “appears at this point to have been an isolated incident.”

About 2,000 people attended a candlelight vigil for the victims Wednesday evening at UNC. Several people who knew them spoke about their selflessness as friends recounted kindnesses they had extended to others through the years.

Barakat and wife Abu-Salha were newlyweds who helped the homeless and raised money to help Syrian refugees in Turkey. They met while helping to run the Muslim Student Association at N.C. State before he began pursuing an advanced degree in dentistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, who graduated in December, planned to join her husband in dentistry school in the fall.

Abu-Salha was visiting them Tuesday from Raleigh, where she was majoring in design at N.C. State.

Hicks had less success. His wife said Hicks, unemployed and driving a 15-year-old car, had been studying to become a paralegal.

A Second Amendment rights advocate with a concealed weapons permit, Hicks often complained about organized religion on Facebook. “Some call me a gun toting Liberal, others call me an open-minded Conservative,” Hicks wrote.

Imad Ahmad, who lived in the condo where his friends were killed until Barakat and Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha were married, said Hicks complained about once a month that the two men were parking in a visitor’s space and their assigned spot.

“He would come over to the door, knock on the door and then have a gun on his hip saying, ‘You guys need to not park here,'” said Ahmad, a graduate student at UNC. “He did it again after they got married.”

Hicks and his neighbors complained to the property managers, who apparently didn’t intervene. “They told us to call the police if the guy came and harassed us again,” Ahmad said.

“This man was frustrated day in and day out about not being able to park where he wanted to,” said Karen Hicks’ attorney, Robert Maitland.

The killings were “related to long-standing parking disputes my husband had with various neighbors regardless of their race, religion or creed,” Karen Hicks said.

Namee Barakat, father of Daeh Barakat, said Thursday that he heard after the shootings that Craig Hicks had visited the condo once before. “He raised his jacket and he showed them his gun, and Yusor told her dad that this guy, he does not like us,” he said. “He does not like our hijab. She was concerned.”

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Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker in Raleigh, Allen G. Breed in Chapel Hill, Jonathan Drew in Durham and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.