A Colorado university student was arrested on murder charges Monday morning in the deaths of a fellow student and another person found fatally shot inside of a dorm room last week, Colorado Springs police said.
Nicholas Jordan, 25, of Detroit was captured by Colorado Springs police after he was located in a car, the department said on social media. An arrest warrant had been issued late Friday, hours after the bodies of a student and a woman were found in a University of Colorado Colorado Springs dorm.
The school confirmed the suspect is enrolled in the university.
“Investigative efforts continue to indicate this was an isolated incident between individuals who were known to one another and not a random attack against the school or other students at the university,” police said in a news release Monday.
Jordan was being booked in the El Paso County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder.
The victims were found dead Friday at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs’ Crestone House residence. They were identified over the weekend as Samuel Knopp, 24, a student at the university, and Celie Rain Montgomery, 26. She did not attend the school, the police department said in a previous statement.
The deaths, which prompted an hourlong campus lockdown until it was determined there was no active shooter, were being investigated as homicides.
Knopp was from the town of Parker, about 60 miles north of the campus, and was a senior studying music, university officials said. His mother had posted Friday morning on Facebook, apparently before knowing he was killed, that the shooting “hits way too close to home and it makes me want to vomit.”
Montgomery had studied culinary arts for a semester at Pueblo Community College.
“These deaths, and the ensuing unimaginable pain, are happening much too often in an environment where teaching and learning should be our only concern,” the college said in a statement.
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs was closed over the weekend, and Monday classes were canceled so students could participate in a “day of healing,” the institution said in a letter to its campus community.
“We encourage everyone to come together throughout the day to support one another and intentionally set aside time for healing,” the school said.
Emilie Ikeda contributed.
