SAN DIEGO — A North Carolina teen has been charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with the May shooting rampage by two teens at the Islamic Center of San Diego that left three men dead.

Federal officials said the woman, who turned 17 years old less than six weeks before the attack, helped by disseminating the livestream and releasing the manifesto the two teens had authored. She was arrested last week and later indicted. She is being charged as an adult.

On May 18, Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, stormed the Clairemont mosque, killed three men including a security guard who engaged in a gunbattle with them, then drove off and killed themselves a few blocks away.

Monday’s news conference in Winston-Salem, where the woman lives, included new details of the San Diego attack.

“Their plan that day was to commit mass murders not only at the mosque but to follow up at a local Jewish temple and finally at a predominantly African American high school there in town,” said Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill. Winston-Salem is in Forsyth County.

O’Neill said the teens wore GoPro helmets to livestream the attack, and that three people were watching it, including a female living in the Eastern time zone. He also said a security guard got off a shot that struck and wounded Clark.

Investigators believe that the two teen boys — Clark lived in San Diego, Vazquez lived in Chula Vista — met online, where they were radicalized by hate.

O’Neill said that the woman was looking at maybe three or four years in prison if the case were tried federally, and that officials approached his office.

He said the evidence shows the San Diego County teens’ “purpose and plan” that day was twofold: “Number one was to kill as many people possible on that day. And secondly, they wanted this — their carnage and destruction — recorded, livestreamed, and disseminated out.”

Killed in the attack were Nadir Awad, 57, husband of a teacher at the mosque’s school and a neighbor who ran to help after hearing gunshots; Mansour Kaziha, 78, a founder and caretaker at the mosque; and Amin Abdullah, 51, a security guard at the mosque.

San Diego police are investigating the killings as a hate crime. There were 140 people, most of them schoolchildren, at the site when the teens opened fire.

San Diego County District Attorney spokesperson Tanya Sierra said Monday that the investigation includes identifying anyone who has potential criminal liability.

O’Neill said the teen was arrested before a grand jury could indict her because, with the new school year approaching there, “we didn’t know what she was capable of.”

Monday’s announcement is the first arrest in the case. She is being charged under the law of the state of North Carolina — law that O’Neill said is “clear.”

“A person may be guilty of a crime although he or she personally does not do any of the acts necessary to constitute the crime, a person who aids and abets another to commit a crime is guilty of that crime,” he said.

O’Neill said that under state law, a 17-year-old “who engages in this unbelievably terroristic and treacherous behavior can be treated as an adult in North Carolina.”

“The purpose of this livestream that day was to memorialize the two terrorists,” O’Neill said. “There are platforms out there that play this kind of garbage.”

The national Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday it welcomed news of the indictment.

“Today’s indictment is an important step toward ensuring that anyone who allegedly helped facilitate or support this horrific White supremacist attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego is held accountable,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

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(Staff writer Caleb Lunetta contributed to this report.)

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