COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (TCD) — A 25-year-old man was taken into custody three days after he allegedly opened fire inside a dorm room on the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) campus and killed two people, including his roommate.
On Friday, Feb. 16, just before 6 a.m., UCCS dispatch received a call about a shooting inside a dorm on campus. Officers arrive and entered the room at 6:05 a.m., where they found one male and one female deceased from apparent gunshot wounds. UCCS officers contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department at 6:10 a.m., and homicide officers soon arrived at the scene to take over the investigation.
Colorado Springs Police said investigators do not believe the deaths were a murder-suicide.
The El Paso County Coroner’s Office conducted autopsies on the two victims and identified them as 24-year-old Samuel Knopp and 26-year-old Celie Montgomery. Knopp was reportedly a student at UCCS, but Montgomery was not. In their statement, Colorado Springs Police said the shooting was an “isolated incident between parties that were known to one another and not a random attack against the school or other students at the university.”
Knopp and Montgomery’s deaths are being investigated as homicides.
Police identified Nicholas Jordan as the primary suspect and obtained a warrant on Feb. 16  for his arrest on two counts of first-degree murder. The Colorado Springs Police Department’s Violent Offender Fugitive Task Force began searching for Jordan after the warrant was issued, and got a break in the case on Monday, Feb. 19.
On Monday just before 8 a.m., Colorado Springs Police Department Motor Vehicle Theft Unit investigators found Jordan inside a car on the 4900 block of Cliff Point Circle East. The department’s Tactical Enforcement Unit responded to the area at 8:37 a.m. and took him into custody without incident.
KKTV-TV reports Jordan and Knopp were roommates at the school. UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet said in a statement following the shooting that Knopp was a “beloved” student in the Visual and Performing Arts department, adding, “He was an accomplished guitar player and an extremely talented musician.”
Sobanet wrote that even though Montgomery was not a student at the school, she “will be mourned by our campus community.”
A third student also died last week “due to a personal medical emergency.”
El Paso County Jail records show Jordan is being held on $1 million bond.
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