COLUMBIA, SC — A professor at the University of South Carolina’s public health division was gunned down Thursday in a campus building in what authorities say was a murder-suicide that locked down most of the campus for several hours, sources told The State newspaper.
The names of the two people who died have not been disclosed officially in the first multiple shooting death at USC in more than three decades.
But sources told The State newspaper that Raja Fayad was shot and killed. Fayad, 45, was a graduate director, head of the division of applied physiology and an expert in colon cancer at the urban campus’ Arnold School of Public Health. Witnesses said the shootings occurred on the fourth floor of the five-story building along busy Assembly Street.
Sources said they were not able to confirm the name of the shooter.
State Law Enforcement Division agents late Thursday afternoon were at a home the professor owned in a Lexington County subdivision near Lake Murray. Neighbors said he was Lebanese and moved into the neighborhood in 2009. University documents show Fayad received a degree in Allepo, Syria.
