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December 2, 2008 10:42:49 AM CST

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NIU Shooting Victims Profiled

Posted Feb 16, 08 2:08 PM CST in Crime & Courts,  US 

(Newser) – An Army Corps of Engineers vet who wanted to be a first grade teacher. A violinist who knit for fun. A rugby player and frat man who worked for the student newspaper. The Chicago Tribune profiles the five students gunned down in their oceanography class Thursday at North Illinois University, while police are still searching for the killer's motive. All of the victims—four of them women—had Illinois hometowns.

One family said they'd urged their daughter, who served in the Army in Bosnia, Laos and Tonga, to leave the military and return to college; as the Iraq war escalated, they feared for her safety and wanted her near home. Others remembered kindnesses, talents, hopes. "She was ten thousand times better than the best parts of each of us," one girl's family said in a statement. "Our hearts are broken."

Source Chicago Tribune

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This combination of five photographs shows the victims of the Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 shooting at Northern Illinois University. Top row, from left   (Associated Press)
The sun sets over six crosses bearing the names of the five victims and the gunman in Thursday's shooting, on a hill on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill., Friday, Feb. 15, 2008....   (Associated Press)
Mason Properties employee Steve Miner places a U.S. flag at half-staff for the victims of the Thursday shootings at Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Ill., Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul...   (Associated Press)
A poster at a makeshift memorial to the victims of Thursday's campus shooting is shown Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)   (Associated Press)
Marquette University fans hold a sign in support of the victims of the Northern Illinois University shooting incident before their game against the Pittsburgh Panthers basketball game Friday, Feb. 15,...   (Associated Press)
Students gather around a makeshift memorial Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 after a campus vigil on Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb, Ill. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)   (Associated Press)
Ulysses Diaz kneels in front of a cross memorializing his late friend Catalina Garcia on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. Crosses symbolizing the students...   (Associated Press)
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Iraq war • Chicago • shooting • Illinois • school shooting • Northern Illinois University


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