Apr 17, 2007 12:29 pm US/Central
List Of Virginia Tech Shooting Victims
BLACKSBURG, Va. (CBS News) ―
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Among the Virginia Tech shooting victims were Ryan Clark (left, in a 2002 yearbook picture), a popular triple-major and band member, and Kevin Granata, a biomechanics professor researching cerebral palsy.
CBS News
The following is a list of confirmed victims in the April 16, 2007, shooting spree on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., during which 32 people were killed before the shooter took his own life. Names were confirmed by and the Associated Press or CBS News. Police have identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior and English major at the school.
Ross Abdallah Alameddine, 20, of Saugus, Mass., was a sophomore who had just declared English as his major.
Friends created a memorial page on Facebook.com that described Alameddine as "an intelligent, funny, easygoing guy."
"You're such an amazing kid, Ross," wrote Zach Allen, who along with Alameddine attended Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Mass. "You always made me smile, and you always knew the right thing to do or say to cheer anyone up."
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James Christopher Bishop, 35, taught German at Virginia Tech and helped oversee an exchange program with a German university.
Bishop decided which German-language students at Virginia Tech could attend the Darmstadt University of Technology to improve their German. "He would teach them German in Blacksburg, and he would decide which students were able to study" abroad, Darmstadt spokesman Lars Rosumek said.
The school set up a book of condolences for students, staff and faculty to sign, along with information about the Virginia shootings. "Of course many persons knew him personally and are deeply, deeply shocked about his death," Rosumek said.
Bishop earned bachelor's and master's degrees in German and was a Fulbright scholar at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.
According to his Web site, Bishop spent four years living in Germany, where he "spent most of his time learning the language, teaching English, drinking large quantities of wheat beer, and wooing a certain fraulein."
The "fraulein" was Bishop's wife, Stephanie Hofer, who also teaches in Virginia Tech's German program.
Brian Roy Bluhm, 25, a graduate student in civil engineering, was an avid fan of the Detroit Tigers, who announced his death before their Tuesday, April 17, 2007, game against Kansas City, which Detroit went on to win 7-6.
"He went to a game last weekend and saw them win, and I'm glad he did," said Bluhm's close friend, Michael Marshall of Richmond, Va.
Bluhm received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at Virginia Tech and was getting ready to defend his thesis. He already had accepted a job in Baltimore, Marshall said.
Bluhm moved from Iowa to Detroit to Louisville, Ky., before coming to Virginia Tech. His parents moved to Winchester, Va., while he was in school, so Blacksburg became his real home, Marshall said.
Bluhm also loved the Hokies, and a close group of friends often traveled to away football games. But Marshall said it was his faith and work with the Baptist Collegiate Ministries that his friend loved most.
"Brian was a Christian, and first and foremost that's what he would want to be remembered as," Marshall said.
Ryan Christopher Clark was called "Stack" by his friends, many of whom he met as a resident assistant at Ambler Johnson Hall, where the first shootings took place.
Clark, 22, was from Martinez, Ga., just outside Augusta. He was a fifth-year student working toward a triple-degree in psychology, biology and English and carried a 4.0 grade-point average. He was also a member of the Marching Virginians band.
"He was just one of the greatest people you could possibly know," friend Gregory Walton, 25, said after learning from an ambulance driver that Clark was among the dead.
"He was always smiling, always laughing. I don't think I ever saw him mad in the five years I knew him."
Austin Michelle Cloyd, 18, was an international studies major.
The Virginia Tech freshman was so inspired by an Appalachian service project that helped rehab homes that she and her mother started a similar program in their Illinois town, her former pastor said.
The Cloyds were active members of the First United Methodist Church in Champaign, Ill., before moving to Blacksburg in 2005, the Rev. Terry Harter said. The family moved when Cloyd's father, C. Bryan Cloyd, took a job in the accounting department at Virginia Tech, Harter said.
Harter described Cloyd as a "very delightful, intelligent, warm young lady" and an athlete who played basketball and volleyball in high school. But, he says it was the mission trips to Appalachia that showed just how caring and faithful she was.
"It made an important impact on her life, that's the kind of person she was," he said.
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor at Virginia Tech, was instrumental in the push to create the first French school in Truro, Nova Scotia, where she lived in the 1990s with her husband, Jerzy Nowak, who is the head of the horticulture department at Virginia Tech.
Richard Landry, a spokesman with the francophone school board in Nova Scotia, said Couture-Nowak had two girls.
According to Landry, Couture-Nowak obtained her degree at the teacher's college in Truro in 1989. She taught at a community college and also was a substitute teacher.
A student who identified herself as DeAnne Leigh Pelchat wrote of her gratitude to Couture-Nowak on one Web site. Pelchat wrote in French, "You'll always have a place in my heart."
A scholarship is being established in Couture-Nowak's name at the Nova Scotia Agriculture College, in Truro, where she and her husband worked before moving to Virginia.
Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, of Peru, was a student of international relations, according to the Virginia Tech Web site.
He was killed while in a French class at Norris Hall, according to his mother, Betty Cueva.
His father, Flavio Perez, spoke of the death to RPP radio in Peru. He lives in Peru and said he was trying to obtain a humanitarian visa from the U.S. consulate here. He is separated from Cueva, who said she had lived in the United States for six years.
A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Lima said the student's father "will receive all the attention possible when he applies" for the visa.
Kevin Granata, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics.
Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the school's engineering science and mechanics department, called Granata one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.
Engineering professor Demetri P. Telionis said Granata was successful and kind.
"With so many research projects and graduate students, he still found time to spend with his family, and he coached his children in many sports and extracurricular activities," Telionis said.
Granata was a gifted scientist, known worldwide for his research into how the body's various muscles accomplish complicated movements, said Stefan Duma, a mechanical engineering professor.
"He liked to ask the big questions," Duma said. "When we had students defending their Ph.D., and he kept asking, 'Did we have the total solution?' He was really interested in whether we answered the big questions. That's really a sign of a great scientist."
Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, 24, was on the brink of finishing his graduate degree and was planning to return to his hometown for a new job and to be near his parents.
He was a master's student in civil and environmental engineering and was attending Virginia Tech on a fellowship, according to his father, Greg Gwaltney, of Chester, near Richmond.
"Matt came home Thursday night. He had an interview in Richmond Friday morning, and we got to have dinner with him," said Linda Gwaltney, his stepmother. "He went back to school Friday after his interview."
It was the last time they saw their only child.
Gwaltney had been the school newspaper's sports editor and named "Best guy to take home to your parents," his high school principal, Robert Stansberry, said.
At Virginia Tech, where also earned his undergraduate degree, his favorite place was Cassell Coliseum, his parents said.
"He went to every women's and men's basketball game, and went to every football game," Linda Gwaltney said. "If there was a football game, we knew he wasn't coming home that weekend."
In a message to CBSNews.com, Paul Lamborn wrote that Gwaltney "was passionate about life and got everything he could out of anything that he did."
Caitlin Millar Hammaren, 19, of Westtown, N.Y., was a sophomore majoring in international studies and French, according to officials at her former school district.
"She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I've had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator," said John P. Latini, principal of Minisink Valley High School, where she graduated in 2005. "Caitlin was a leader among our students."
As a resident advisor, she was expected lead to lead by example. Students on her floor say she did much more.
"She's just one of those people who would do anything for you," said Rochelle Low, who lives in the same dorm suite as Hammaren. "She stayed up until 5 or 6 in the morning when she had an 8 o'clock class to help you no matter what."
An only child, she was her parents' pride and joy.
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Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, of Bellefonte, Pa., was pursuing graduate work in civil engineering at Virginia Tech, according to officials at Penn State.
Herbstritt had two undergraduate degrees from Penn State, one in biochemistry and molecular biology from 2003, and another in civil engineering from 2006.
He grew up on a small farm in Spring Township, just outside the central Pennsylvania borough of Bellefonte, where his father, Michael, raised steer and sheep.
Herbstritt's career goal was to be a civil engineer and he talked of getting into environmental work after school.
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Rachel Elizabeth Hill, 18, a freshman from Glen Allen, Va., was studying biology according to her father, Guy Hill.
A 2006 graduate of Grove Avenue Christian School in Henrico County, Hill was an only child and was extraordinarily close with her family, said Clay Fogler, school administrator for Grove Avenue Christian School.
She was popular and funny, had a penchant for shoes and was competitive on the volleyball court.
"Rachael was a very bright, articulate, intelligent, beautiful, confident, poised young woman. She had a tremendous future in front of her," said Fogler, who knew Hill for almost four years. "Obviously, the Lord had other plans for her."
Emily Jane Hilscher, 19, of Woodville, Va., a freshman majoring in animal and poultry sciences, lived on the same dorm floor as victim Ryan Clark.
Hilscher was known around her hometown as an animal lover.
"She worked at a veterinarian's office and cared about them her whole life," said Rappahannock County Administrator John W. McCarthy, a family friend.
A friend, Will Nachless, also 19, said Hilscher "was always very friendly. Before I even knew her, I thought she was very outgoing, friendly and helpful, and she was great in chemistry."
Jarrett Lane, 22, a senior civil engineering student was valedictorian of his high school class in Narrows, Va., just 30 miles from Virginia Tech.
At Narrows High School, Lane played the trombone, ran track, and played football and basketball. The school put up a memorial that included pictures, musical instruments and his athletic jerseys.
"We're just kind of binding together as a family," Principal Robert Stump said.
Lane's brother-in-law Daniel Farrell called Lane fun-loving and "full of spirit."
"He had a caring heart and was a friend to everyone he met," Farrell said. "We are leaning on God's grace in these trying hours."
Matthew Joseph La Porte, 20, a freshman from Dumont, N.J., was a 2005 graduate of Carson Long Military Institute, in New Bloomfield, Pa.
Carson Long posted a memorial photograph of La Porte in his school uniform on its Web site.
La Porte credited the military institute with turning his life around. In a graduation speech printed in the school yearbook, La Porte said that the military institute was his second chance.
La Porte was attending Virginia Tech on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, according to officials in Dumont.
First Lieutenant Garry Hallman was a friend and instructor at Carson Long who said he kept in touch with his former student. He says La Porte was a member of Virginia Tech's Corps of Cadets and was considering majoring in political science.
According to his profile on a music Web site, La Porte's favorite artists were Meshuggah, Metallica, Soundgarden, Creed and Live.
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Henry J. Lee, 20, was a freshman from Roanoke, Va., majoring in computer engineering and French.
Also known as Henh Ly, he was the ninth of 10 siblings whose family fled to the United States from Vietnam, arriving in Roanoke in 1994.
Friends described the diminutive Lee as a serious student who wasn't necessarily a serious person.
Nathan Spady, a Virginia Tech classmate who lived in Lee's hall, described Lee as "an extremely bubbly guy, always ready to go."
William Fleming High School Principal Susan Lawyer Willis told The Roanoke Times that Lee was the school's salutatorian in 2006, and brought many in the audience to tears with his story about his family's journey to America.
Liviu Librescu, 76, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was known for his research, but his son said the Holocaust survivor will be remembered as a hero for protecting students as the gunman tried to enter his classroom.
Librescu taught at Virginia Tech for 20 years and had an international reputation for his work in aeronautical engineering.
"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.
After surviving the Nazi killings, Librescu escaped from Communist Romania and made his way to the United States before he was killed in Monday's massacre, which coincided with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Librescu's son, Joe, said his father's students sent e-mails detailing how the professor saved their lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the approaching gunman before Librescu was fatally shot.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Librescu's son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
A funeral service was held for Librescu on Wednesday, April 18, in Brooklyn, N.Y. On Friday, family and friends gathered at a cemetery in Ra'nana, Israel to remember the professor as a survivor, and bury him as a hero.
Librescu's body lay wrapped in a traditional white Jewish funeral shroud, surrounded on one side by family, and on the other by media photographers.
Through tears, Librescu's widow Marlena said she has received many e-mails from Virginia Tech students saying their lives were saved by her husband, reports CBS News correspondent Robert Berger.
"I will never know what passed through your mind in the last moments, but I hope you take care of your family from where you are now," she said at the service.
Librescu's son, who stood at his mother's shoulder, came to the microphone and said, "I walked today with my head up, proud having such father. I'm just proud of you, father."
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G.V. Loganathan, 51, was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai and had been a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech since 1982.
He won several awards for excellence in teaching, had served on the faculty senate and was an adviser to about 75 undergraduate students.
"We all feel like we have had an electric shock. We do not know what to do," his brother G.V. Palanivel told the NDTV news channel from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "He has been a driving force for all of us, the guiding force."
Lauren McCain, 20, was originally from Oklahoma but most recently lived in the Hampton, Va., area.
The freshman, who was an avowed Christian, planned to major in international studies.
Home-schooled, McCain had worked at a department store for about a year to save money for college.
Her uncle, Jeff Elliott, speaking to The Oklahoman newspaper, described her as an avid reader who was learning German and had almost mastered Latin.
She spent several years of her childhood in Oklahoma but her father's Navy career also took the family to Florida, Texas and then to Virginia.
"She had a brilliant mind just in the way she thought about things and the way she went about her work," said Gary Heatherly, a former youth minister at Portland, Tex., First Baptist Church.
Partahi Lumbantoruan, of Indonesia, was a 34-year-old graduate student. He had been studying civil engineering at Virginia Tech for three years. His goal was to become a teacher in the U.S.
Lumbantoruan's family sold off property and cars to pay his tuition, said his father, Tohom Lumbantoruan, a 66-year-old retired army officer. "We tried everything to completely finance his studies in the United States," he said. "We only wanted him to succeed in his studies, but ... he met a tragic fate."
His stepmother, Sugiyarti, says he had called almost daily to talk to the family; in their last conversation, he had asked for the latest news on Indonesian politics. She wept as she asked why people can bring guns to campus.
Daniel Patrick O'Neil, 22, a graduate student in engineering, played guitar and wrote his own songs.
Friend Steve Craveiro described him as smart, responsible and a hard worker, someone who never got into trouble.
"He would come home from school over the summer and talk about projects, about building bridges and stuff like that," Craveiro said. "He loved his family. He was pretty much destined to be extremely successful. He just didn't deserve to have happen what happened."
O'Neil graduated in 2002 from Lincoln High School in Rhode Island and graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., before heading to Virginia Tech, where he was also a teaching assistant.
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Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, was teaching a class as part of his graduate program in civil engineering at Virginia Tech.
The family's neighbors in the San Juan suburb remembered Ortiz as a quiet, dedicated son who decorated his parents' one-story concrete house each Christmas and played in a salsa band with his father on weekends.
"He was an extraordinary son, what any father would have wanted," said Ortiz's father, also named Juan Ramon Ortiz.
Marilys Alvarez, 22, heard Ortiz's mother scream from the house next door when she learned of her son's death. Alvarez said she had wanted to study in the United States, but was now reconsidering.
Minal Hiralal Panchal, 26, a first-year graduate student in building sciences, wanted to be an architect like her father, who died four years ago.
She was very keen to go to the United States for postgraduate studies and thrilled when she gained admission last year, said Chetna Parekh, a friend who lives in the Mumbai neighborhood of Borivali, India, where Panchal lived before coming to Virginia Tech.
"She was a brilliant student and very hardworking. She was focused on getting her degree and doing well."
Panchal was worried about her mother, Hansa, living alone and wanted her to come to the U.S., neighbor Jayshree Ajmane said. Hansa left earlier this month for New Jersey, where her sister and brother-in-law live.
Ajmane called Panchal a bright, polite girl who would help the neighborhood children with their schoolwork.
Erin Nicole Peterson, 18, of Chantilly, Va., was a freshman majoring in international studies.
She was a member of Phi Sigma Pi - Alpha Rho Chapter, Alpha Eta initiate class.
Peterson was a Westfield High School classmate of victim Reema Samaha and the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui. Fairfax County Public Schools officials say Peterson and Samaha both graduated from Westfield in 2006.
The 6-foot-1 Peterson played center for the school's girls basketball team, helping lead it to a district championship in her sophomore year.
High school teammate Anna Richter said Peterson could do a layup on anyone and recalled that Peterson's parents attended nearly every game and were among the most enthusiastic fans.
Pat Deegan, Peterson's high school coach, said Peterson was a good leader.
Peterson's godfather, Williams Lloyd, said she and her dad were inseparable -- except when it game to their pro-football allegiances. "She was a Redskin," he says. "He was a Cowboy."
Michael Steven Pohle Jr., 23, of Flemington, N.J., was expected to graduate in May 2007, with a degree in biological sciences, said Craig Blanton, Hunterdon Central's vice principal during the 2002 school year, when Pohle graduated.
"He had a bunch of job interviews and was all set to start his post-college life," Blanton told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
At the high school, Pohle played on the football and lacrosse teams.
One of his old lacrosse coaches, Bob Shroeder, described him as "a good kid who did everything that good kids do."
"He tried to please," Shroeder told the newspaper. "He was just a great kid."
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Julia Kathleen Pryde, 23, was a graduate student in biological systems engineering from Middleton, N.J.
"[Julia] was an exceptional student academically and personally," said Saied Mostaghimi, chairman of the biological systems and engineering department where Pryde was seeking her master's degree.
"She was the nicest person you ever met," Mostaghimi told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
The previous summer, Pryde had traveled to Ecuador to research water quality issues with a professor. She planned to return this summer for follow-up work, Mostaghimi said.
A 2001 graduate of Middletown North High School, Pryde was on the school's the swim team and played softball in two town leagues.
Her hometown has been touched by tragedy before, losing 37 residents and former residents in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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Mary Karen Read, 19, was born in South Korea into an Air Force family and lived in Texas and California before settling in the northern Virginia suburb of Annandale.
She considered a handful of colleges, including nearby George Mason University, before choosing Virginia Tech. It was a popular destination among her Annandale High School classmates, according to her aunt, Karen Kuppinger. The freshman had yet to declare a major.
"I think she wanted to try to spread her wings," said Kuppinger, of Rochester, N.Y.
Kuppinger said her niece had struggled adjusting to Tech's sprawling 2,600-acre campus, but she had recently begun making friends and looking into a sorority.
Kuppinger said the family started calling Read as news reports surfaced. "After three or four hours passed and she hadn't picked up her cell phone or answered her e-mail ... we did get concerned," Kuppinger said. "We honestly thought she would pop up."
Relatives described the 19-year-old as someone who seemed to burst with life. Mary Courtney, another of Read's aunts said, "We called her our little princess."
Her father, Peter Read, encouraged participation in the April 20 Day of Mourning by saying he wants the world "to know and celebrate our children's lives."
"...we believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of great tragedy," he said. "These kids were the best that their generation has to offer."
Reema Joseph Samaha, 18, a freshman from Centreville, Va., was a 2006 graduate of Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va.
Samaha loved to dance and was a fan of ballet and belly dancing, as well as a member of the school's Contemporary Dance Emsemble.
She had recently taken up belly dancing, a nod to her family's roots in Lebanon, which the Samahas visited each summer, friends said.
Watching her on stage was captivating, said Lauren Walters, a Westfield graduate who is now enrolled at Clemson University.
"She was just beautiful and when you watched her, I thought she was one of the most gorgeous girls in the world inside and out."
Samaha's brother, Omar Samaha, himself a Virginia Tech graduate, said of the whole experience, "It's going to take a while to sink in."
He told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that at first, he recounted, his sister was "apprehensive" about the large university, but once she found her sea legs, she began to "flourish" there. "She started to take things on. She was doing everything here."
He described her as someone who was "completely unique in every way. She always wanted to be unique. Always wanted to be different. Always had a unique flair."
Samaha was a Westfield H.S. classmate of victim Erin Peterson. The gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, had also attended the school.
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Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, of Zagazig, Egypt, was a doctoral student in civil engineering at Virginia Tech.
His roommate, Fahad Pasha, says Shaalan was married and the father of a 1-year-old son.
Pasha said Shaalan was like a big brother to him. Pasha's family moved to the U.S. from the United Arab Emirates in 2000, so he and Shaalan had many discussions about being in a new country.
Shaalan came to Virginia Tech last year to work with G.V. Loganathan, an engineering professor who also was also killed in the campus massacre, Pasha and other friends said.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Egyptian embassy in Washington was taking necessary measures to fly his body home.
Leslie Geraldine Sherman, a sophomore from Springfield, Va., was studying history and international studies.
An avid traveler, Sherman was headed to Russia this summer to study.
Her grandmother, Gerry Adams, said Sherman loved reading and socializing with her "gaggle" of more than 15 cousins spread out at colleges across the country. She text-messaged one of them the evening before she died.
Maxine Shelly Turner, a senior chemical engineering student, from Vienna, Va., had finished her required credits and was preparing for her May graduation.
Her father, Paul Turner, said she took German as an elective, It was in that class where the 22-year-old lost her life.
"She was very excited - she was very excited about school in general," her father said.
Turner was accepted by a handful of high profile schools, including Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore. But she was determined to be a Hokie, her father said.
"We tried to convince her to go elsewhere. When you get accepted to Johns Hopkins, it's a very prestigious school," he said. "But no, she wanted to go to Virginia Tech."
Turner recently helped found a chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a sorority for women in engineering.
Her interests included Tae Kwon Do, Shakespeare and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
She had accepted a chemical engineering job with W.L. Gore and Associates, in Elkton, Md.
Nicole White, 20, of Hampton Roads, Va., was majoring in international studies at Virginia Tech.
She graduated from Smithfield High School in 2004, according to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.
White worked at a YMCA as a lifeguard and was an honor student in high school, the newspaper reported.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)