The deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history leaves a grief-stricken campus searching for answers, hope, and meaning | Jamie Dean
Haiyan Cheng remembers the black gun. In the split second the Virginia Tech doctoral student glimpsed Cho Seung-Hui coming out of a classroom in Norris Hall on April 16, one thing stood out: the black-clad young man's long, black gun, clutched in his right hand.
Cheng wasn't supposed to be in Norris Hall that day. The 36-year-old research assistant rarely teaches, but agreed to fill in for an out-of-town professor. On her way to class, she saw Liviu Librescu, a 76-year-old engineering professor, rummaging through his briefcase in the classroom across the hall. Less than an hour later, Librescu, a Romanian-born Holocaust survivor who taught for 20 years at this 135-year-old university in the rolling green hills of the Blue Ridge, was dead. And Cheng was praying for her life.
Victims
Ross Alameddine, 20, sophomore English major from Saugus, Mass.
Jamie Bishop, 35, German professor and Fulbright scholar who taught at Virginia Tech for two years, survived by his wife, Stephanie Hofer.
Brian Bluhm, 25, a graduate student in engineering from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A close friend said Bluhm would want to be remembered first and foremost as a Christian.
Ryan "Stack" Clark, 22, senior psychology, biology, and English major from Martinez, Ga., member of the Marching Virginians and student resident assistant, shot after rushing to the aid of the first victim, Emily Hilscher.
Austin Cloyd, 18, international studies major from Blacksburg, Va., active member of her church and had helped start a service project that rehabilitated homes in Illinois.
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COVER STORY |
Issue: 
No pious baloney
