Virginia Tech campus shut down during police search
August 21, 2006
BLACKSBURG, Va. – Virginia Tech shut down its campus Monday and ordered everyone to remain inside as authorities searched for an escaped inmate suspected of killing a hospital guard and a sheriff’s deputy.
William Morva, 24, had been seen near the campus, authorities said.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Cpl. Eric E. Sutphin was closing in on the fugitive Monday morning along a trail off the university campus when he was fatally shot, sheriff’s department officials said.
Officials canceled Monday’s first day of classes for the more than 25,000 students at Virginia Tech as a precaution.
FASTTRAK
If it happened here:
From ISU Police Captain Eugene Deisinger:
The ISU Police Department would contact the Ames Police Department and the local sheriff’s department to obtain additional personnel to help obtain the suspect and protect the campus.
Depending on the details, police officers may send out a notice to all campus facilities to go into lockdown or to close off portions of campus with police officers.
Students are advised that in the event of a situation to remain alert to notifications from the police department and campus authorities, to take shelter in a locked building, not allow anyone they do not recognize into the building and cooperate with law enforcement officers.
Deisinger said ISU Police’s first priority is the safety of the ISU campus. Their second priority is to locate and isolate the suspect so no one else is put at risk.
“The suspect is armed, he has no problems with shooting … We don’t need innocent people being around the area,” said Kurt Krause, Virginia Tech vice president.
Morva was described as wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and khaki shorts. Police said he had shed his orange prison jumpsuit after the hospital shooting.
“The fact that the guy can blend in so well with campus students is kind of scary,” said Josh Burnheimer, 20, a Virginia Tech junior from Ashburn, Va. “Everywhere you look there are police snipers on the roof.”
Morva, an inmate at Montgomery County Jail, had been taken from the jail to Montgomery Regional Hospital for treatment of a sprained leg and wrist.
He escaped early Sunday after overpowering a sheriff’s deputy, taking the deputy’s gun and then shooting the unarmed hospital security guard, authorities said. The hospital guard was identified as Derrick McFarland, 26. The deputy was in stable condition with injuries he suffered in the attack.
Morva had been jailed awaiting trial on charges of attempting to rob a store last year.
Authorities used both helicopters and dogs to sweep an area that included the university campus, about one block from the Blacksburg Police Station.
“Whatever it takes, until he’s caught,” said Blacksburg Police Lt. Joe Davis.
