Peter Odighizuwa looks up as he waits for the judge in General
District Court in Grundy, Virginia.
Saturday, September 27, 2003 Posted: 0303 GMT (11:03
AM HKT)
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Peter Odighizuwa looks up as he waits for the judge in General
District Court in Grundy, Virginia.
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GRUNDY, Virginia (AP) -- Former classmates of law school massacre suspect Peter Odighizuwa pointed to him in court Friday, telling a judge of hearing shots, screams and a dying man's words: "Peter shot me!"
District Court Judge Fred Combs certified the charges against Odighizuwa in the January 2002 mass shooting, finding probable cause to send the case to a grand jury.
Police said Odighizuwa, who had flunked out of the Appalachian School of Law, brought a gun to campus and killed Dean L. Anthony Sutin, Professor Thomas Blackwell and student Angela Dales and wounded three other students.
Odighizuwa, 45, has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, but this month he was found mentally competent to stand trial on murder, attempted murder and firearms charges. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Defense lawyer Jimmy Turk declined to comment on whether his mental state would be raised in his trial.
Former student Jeffery O. Moore testified he heard shots and passed Odighizuwa in a hallway before finding Sutin face-down on the floor, bleeding from the neck. He said Sutin was screaming for help, saying: "Peter shot me!"
This went on for about a minute, Moore said. Before Sutin died, he turned his face to look out the window.
One of the wounded students, Stacey Beans, recalled, "I looked at him and said, 'Please God ... Please don't shoot me."' She said the bullet entered her chest and exited out her back.
After the shootings, student Mikael Ray Gross said he saw Odighizuwa put his gun down and pace back and forth outside the school. Gross, who also is a police officer, went to his car for his gun and body armor.
As two other students wrestled Odighizuwa to the ground, Gross said he could hear Odighizuwa say: "I had to do it. I had nowhere else to go. I have nothing else to do."
The grand jury is set to take up the case Oct. 13.
