CLEVELAND, Miss. -- A professor was killed in his office at Delta State University in Mississippi, forcing students and teachers to hunker down in classrooms as investigators searched for another school employee in connection with that killing and another on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, officials said Monday.
Authorities said late Monday that the suspect, Shannon Lamb, was pronounced dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Investigators had been searching for Lamb, 45, in the slayings of 41-year-old Amy Prentiss, who was found dead in the home she shared with Lamb in Gautier; and 39-year-old Ethan Schmidt, a history professor who was killed in his office on campus in Cleveland, Miss., about 300 miles away.
Officers in the two cities said they had not uncovered a motive for either slaying.
Delta State University Police Chief Lynn Buford said late Monday that police in Greenville, about 37 miles from campus, were following Lamb when he pulled over, jumped out of his car and ran.
Buford said police heard one gunshot and found Lamb with the gunshot wound. They took Lamb to the hospital in Greenville, where Buford said the suspect was pronounced dead.
Gautier police Lt. Scott Wilson and another officer whose name was not given said during a news conference earlier Monday in Gautier that they had spoken with Lamb.
The unidentified officer said Lamb told police "he's not going to jail." They would not say when or how they spoke to him.
Lamb received a doctorate in education from Delta State University in the spring of 2015, according to his resume posted on the university's website. He started working there in 2009 and taught geography and education classes. He also volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, according to the resume.
Delta State President Bill LaForge said Lamb was teaching two online classes this semester.
The 3,500-student university in Cleveland, in Mississippi's Delta region near the Arkansas-Mississippi state line, was first put on lockdown around 10:45 a.m. amid reports of an active shooter. Everyone on campus was told to take shelter away from windows.
Charlie King was in a history class down the hall from where the shooting occurred.
"A few minutes into the class, we heard these popping noises and we all went completely silent," he said.
Some people thought the sound was from a door closing or firecrackers, but King said he thought it sounded like gunshots. A few minutes later a police officer -- gun drawn -- burst into the windowless room and ordered everyone to get against the wall away from the door. Some people also hid in a storage closet, King said. The officer didn't explain what was going on, but King said the students understood.
"We put two and two together," he said.
Eventually police ushered the students into another building and questioned them about what they'd seen and how many shots they heard.
Freshman Noah Joyner, 18, was in his dorm building when reports of an active shooter began to spread. He hunkered down in a bathroom and heard others desperate to get in.
"There were like people banging on the doors to have somebody let them in," said Joyner, a swimmer at the college. "It was pretty terrifying."
Eventually, about two hours or so after the initial lockdown, about 25 heavily armed police officers swept through the building, Abraham said. The students were sent back to their dorms, and other people such as faculty members and students who live off campus were sent to the university's coliseum, Abraham said, though most were later allowed to leave.
The slain professor directed the first-year seminar program and specialized in American Indian and colonial history, said Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor at the school, who called him "a gentleman in every sense of the word."
"Dr. Ethan Schmidt was a terrific family man, a good friend, a true son of Peabody, Kan., and his beloved Emporia State University," he said.
One of his history professors at Emporia State University described him as one of the "brightest students" she'd ever taught.
"He was a super competent human being. He was president of his fraternity, in student government. He was an absolutely delightful student," said Karen Manners Smith.
King, one of the students who was in Jobe Hall when the shooting happened, attended the same Episcopal church as Schmidt. King was studying history, and Schmidt was his adviser.
"I looked up to the man," King said.
Information for this article was contributed by Kevin McGill, Rebecca Santana, Alina Hartounian and Roxana Hegeman of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/15/2015