HOUSTON (KTRK) — A Rice University student is being remembered after she was killed in her dorm room Monday.
According to police, the shooting was a murder-suicide.
On the first day of the fall semester, Andrea Rodriguez, a third-year political science student with big dreams, was gunned down in her dorm room at Jones College by a young man she was dating.
Employees in her department said they were stunned.
“The people that helped her, people that were her professors, people that were just, you know, people from the department that talked to her about work-related things, there were just so many people that were connected to her. So at least my department is really shocked,” Pamela De La Cruz said.
Friends of Rodriguez said she was driven by success.
After humble beginnings at the local community college in Maryland, she spent a summer at Johns Hopkins University before enrolling at Rice University last January, where she quickly joined the student government and served as an academic adviser in the dormitory where she died.
“It was shocking. I’m very sad for my Jones friends,” said freshman Diego Delgado.
The gun violence shattered the serenity of Delgado and his friend at a college known for its lush, peaceful environment.
However, they said the university responded quickly.
“I got a lot of support from my senior classmates and the counselors here,” said Ghoyh Malembi. “They all provided a safe place for people to come together and talk about the situation.”
Houston police are leading the investigation as the campus tries to move forward without Rodriguez, a young woman with big dreams.
“There were graduate students who said they felt terrible when they recognized their name, when they saw that they had taught them last year, that they had taught them last semester and that they would be teaching them this semester,” De La Cruz said.
The identity of the shooter was not disclosed, but he was not a student.
Investigators believe he took his own life after shooting Rodriguez.
University police said they believed they had found a note left by the shooter.
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