Police are scouring a Mississippi college campus after a history professor was killed in his office Monday — and investigators say another employee at the school could be connected to the case.
Delta State University history professor Ethan Schmidt was shot in the head, Bolivar County Deputy Coroner Murray Roark said. The shooter remains at large, the coroner said.
Investigators say an instructor at the school in Cleveland, Mississippi, is a “person of interest” in the case, and police in a town 300 miles away described him as a suspect in another homicide there.
Authorities are searching for Shannon Lamb, Cleveland Police Chief Charles Bingham said. He described Lamb as an employee of the university and person of interest, but Bingham did not detail why investigators are calling him a person of interest or what his connection could be to the slain professor.
The person of interest could be driving a black Dodge Avenger, the school said on Twitter, asking anyone with the information to call police.
“At this time we don’t think he’s on campus,” Bingham told reporters, “but we’re not taking anything lightly.”
The university, which is about 115 miles south of Memphis, remained on lockdown hours after the shooting, and police were working to clear buildings on the campus, the school said in a statement. Officials canceled classes for the remainder of the day Monday and Tuesday.
A biography of Lamb posted on the school’s website says he received his Ph.D. from Delta State in 2014, and has taught geography and social sciences education courses there.
Connected to another case?
Meanwhile, police in Gautier, Mississippi, are investigating a homicide that happened in the area Monday morning that could be connected to the fatal shooting of the Delta State University professor, Detective Matt Hoggatt with Gautier Police told CNN.
Hoggatt said Lamb is a suspect in the Gautier shooting. He was last seen driving a green SUV, Hoggatt said, and that vehicle has also been linked to the Delta State University shooting.
Authorities have not named any suspects in the university shooting. Gautier is about 300 miles away from the university.
‘Beloved’ professor
At Delta State, the hunt for Schmidt’s killer brought together campus police and city police as well as the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Bolivar County Sheriff’s Department and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The school said it was scheduling a series of counseling sessions for Tuesday.
“We lost one of our beloved professors today,” Michelle Roberts, vice president of university relations, told reporters. “We are grieving on this campus.”
Schmidt’s Delta State biography says that he taught undergraduate courses in American history, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 2007. Schmidt had written several books and scholarly papers and had expertise in Native American history.
Before working at Delta State, he taught for six years at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2011.
