When I was in grad school a professor was murdered in the mens room

[undeterred]

on a sunny Tuesday in May. The building was full of people because there was a booksale going on that day on the first floor. I was in the building about a half hour before it happened, and I heard about it from another student. He was shot through the head execution style while sitting on the toilet. A student found him about ten minutes later, and no one saw anything.

The murder was never solved, and after a brief investigation it seems like the police just left it alone.

The professor was Romanian, he had been doing some political writings, and apparently he was executed- in the middle of a beautiful spring day, in an academic building full of people, without anyone hearing or seeing a thing.

I knew him, but not very well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/erosmagicandthedeath.htm

[BOSSHOG]

1. At the University of Arkansas in 81

a young man with a shotgun broke into a sorority and held a bunch of the girls hostage while they satat the dinner table. The police snuck in and blew him away. He died before they got him to the hospital. That was incredibly intense and just one victim.

[kestrel91316]

2. OMG!!!! WHY DIDN'T THEY SHUT DOWN THE CAMPUS????

:sarcasm:

[undeterred]

3. What is wrong with you?

[kestrel91316]

6. Quite sick of the Monday morning quarterbacking about VTech

with all the know-it-alls screaming that they should have shut down the entire campus when two bodies were found in a dorm.

You been paying ANY attention?

[undeterred]

8. Has nothing to do with my post.

[Withywindle]

4. Ioan Culianu!

I remember this case - it's haunted me for a long time because I really love his book Eros and Magic in the Renaissance. I refer to it all the time. And also one of my favorite fiction writers, John Crowley, was a friend of his and dedicated a book to him, they dealt with a lot of the same themes.

I'm sorry for your loss. He sounded like a fascinating man, I would have loved to have met him.

[undeterred]

5. I was in another department

at the Divinity School. He was young and very friendly to the students. After his death, we realized none of us really knew him. He was brilliant, very European, very otherworldly. I sat in on a few of his classes and talked to him at a couple of parties.

They were giving oral exams in the History of Religions the week he died. His students were very close to him and they were absolutely devastated. We had a service for him in Bond Chapel, just students and faculty, and one of his students read the Mourner's Kadesh that Jewish children read when they bury their parents. As he was reading a storm came out of nowhere with all kinds of thunder and suddenly it was pouring rain. It was very dramatic.

I try not to think about the 'unsolved' aspect of it - but its creepy to think that nobody saw a thing, and I was there that day.

He had a lot of good work ahead of him.

[etherealtruth]

7. How terrible ...

Unfortunately, that is something that can haunt you for a long time :(

Poor guy.