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Tragedy Strikes Two Campuses, Threatens One

An Auburn University student was found shot to death on a highway and the University of North Carolina student body president was found fatally shot on a Chapel Hill, N.C. street. Meanwhile, eight dorms at the University of California, Davis were evacuated Wednesday night and a student was arrested after explosives were found in a dorm room.

The Auburn student, Lauren Burk, a freshman, was found wounded Tuesday night on Alabama Highway 147 and later died. Police later found her car engulfed in flames. University officials wrote students in an e-mail Wednesday that there was “no indication of additional danger to campus or student safety.”

Eve Marie Carson, a UNC senior from Athens, Ga., had been shot several times, police said, adding that the crime appeared to be random, according to the Associated Press. Officials said there are no suspects and no arrests have been made.

“We have lost someone whom we cherish and love,” Chancellor James Moeser told a massive crowd of mourners at UNC, according to the Associated Press. “We’re all in a state of shock.”

At UC Davis, officers found two pipe bombs and arrested economics major Mark Woods, a 19-year-old freshman from Torrance, Calif. He was charged with two felonies: possession of chemicals to make explosives and possession of explosive materials on school grounds.

About 455 students had to leave their rooms while a bomb team investigated.

No injuries were reported. The evacuated students spent the remainder of the night in an on-campus dining area.

“We evacuated students as a precaution. We do not expect further disruption to the university,” said Fred Wood, vice chancellor for student affairs. “We are confident that university police and other local law enforcement agencies have the situation contained.”

The incident began at about 9 p.m. when UC Davis police received a call from a woman who said there might be explosive devices inside a dormitory room.

Finding suspicious material on the third floor of the Tercero Residence Halls, a cluster of buildings located on the west side of the main campus, university police evacuated the building and withdrew to a safe distance until the arrival of city law enforcement and fire agencies. 

Wood has since been transferred to the Yolo County Jail in Woodland, Calif.

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