2 students dead in Mich. apparent murder-suicide

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-11 09:57

DEARBORN, Mich. – A student fatally shot a female classmate before turning the gun on himself Friday in an apparent murder-suicide that prompted a lockdown at a community college west of Detroit, police said.

2 students dead in Mich. apparent murder-suicide
A student is interviewed while a Dearborn, Mich., police officer stands outside the Grant MacKenzie Fine Arts Center at the Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn after police say two people have been killed in what they believe was a murder-suicide at the school on Friday, April 10, 2009. [Agencies]

The bodies of Asia McGowan, 20, of Ecorse, and Anthony Powell, 28, of Detroit, were discovered inside a classroom at a Henry Ford Community College building after police responded to an emergency call of an assault and shortly afterward reports of a shot being fired on campus, said Dearborn Deputy Police Chief Gregg Brighton.

As officers entered the MacKenzie Fine Arts Center, they heard another gunshot, Brighton said.

Powell apparently used a shotgun to kill McGowan and himself, police said.

They took at least one class together — a theater course that had met earlier in the day, Brighton said. Police did not believe anyone else was in the room at the time of the shooting.

The 17,000-student commuter school sent alerts through an e-mail and cell phone system and locked down the campus, said Marjorie Swan, Henry Ford's vice president/controller.

"Nothing like this has ever occurred on campus," Swan said.

The lockdown later was lifted but classes for the rest of the day were canceled, as were Saturday's classes.

The shooting happened on Good Friday, and the campus wasn't as busy as usual, based on how full the parking lots were, Swan said.

"Our hearts go out to the family and the friends of the young woman who lost her life today," she said.

Turahn McGowan said his daughter was "beautiful, an aspiring actress and dancer" who had planned to try out for the Fox television competition "So You Think You Can Dance."

A call to a phone number listed for Anthony Powell in Detroit wasn't immediately answered Thursday night.

Christian Plonka, a 12-year-old who attends a theater program in the building, said he heard "one gunshot, and I saw someone getting pulled back into the room they were in."

Christian and other students in the program ran into a parking lot at the adjacent University of Michigan-Dearborn campus, where they waited until police allowed them to leave.

Earlier Friday, a 19-year-old gunman wounded three people at a vocational training college in Athens, Greece, before killing himself, authorities said.

The shootings came a week after a man walked into the American Civic Association center in Binghamton, N.Y., and killed 14 people before turning the gun on himself.