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‘Killer Professor’ Turns Gun on Himself

GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) — After an intense manhunt, authorities in Mississippi said a college instructor wanted in the deaths of a woman he lived with and a university professor he worked with died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound as police closed in on him.

News of Shannon Lamb's death late Monday night brought to a close a chaotic, frightening day during which students and faculty at Delta State University hid in their rooms as authorities scoured the campus looking for Lamb.

Cleveland police Chief Charles "Buster" Bingham said Lamb was returning from Arkansas when a license plate reader picked up his plate as he crossed a bridge over the Mississippi River late Monday.

Police on the other side in Greenville followed Lamb but did not try to apprehend him, Bingham said. Lamb then pulled over and took off on foot. Bingham said the police were waiting for backup when they heard a gunshot. When backup arrived, they searched and found Lamb with a gunshot wound to the head.

"We didn't want it to happen this way. It wasn't our intention for it to happen this way. But unfortunately he made that decision," Bingham said.

Investigators said Lamb, 45, was a suspect in the slayings of 41-year-old Amy Prentiss, who was found dead in the home she shared with Lamb in Gautier; and 39-year-old Ethan Schmidt, a history professor who was killed in his office on campus in Cleveland.

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Law enforcement walk across the Delta State University campus to search for an active shooter in con …

The campus was on lockdown as armed officers methodically went through buildings — checking in closets, behind doors, and under tables and desks.

University President William LaForge said late Monday that the lockdown had been lifted. He said there would be no classes Tuesday but students, faculty and staff were invited to campus to attend a vigil in the evening.

Officers in the two cities said they had not uncovered a motive for either slaying. Bingham said it was still early in the investigation. LaForge said Lamb had earlier asked for a medical leave of absence, saying he had a health issue of some sort. But LaForge gave no information about the issue.

Gautier Police Lt. Scott Wilson said during a news conference Monday that police had spoken with Lamb.

In the news conference, another officer who was not identified said anyone coming into contact with Lamb should use extreme caution: "His statement was that he was not going to jail."

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This undated photo provided by Delta State University shows history professor Ethan Schmidt, who was …

Wilson said Lamb made the statement to law enforcement but would not say when or how police spoke to Lamb.

Lamb received a doctorate in education from Delta State University in spring 2015, according to his resume posted on the university's website. He started working there in 2009 and taught geography and education classes, and he volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.

LaForge said Lamb was teaching two online classes this semester.

The 3,500-student university in Cleveland is in Mississippi's flat, agricultural region near the Arkansas state line.

Charlie King was in a history class down the hall from where the shooting occurred.

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Delta State University students cross state Highway 8 under police escort to go to their dorms as th …

"A few minutes into the class, we heard these popping noises, and we all went completely silent," he said.

Some people thought that it might be a desk or door closing or firecrackers, but King said he thought it sounded like gunshots. A few minutes later a police officer — gun drawn — burst into the windowless room and ordered everyone to get against the wall away from the door. Some people hid in a storage closet, King said.

The professor gave the students chairs to throw if the shooter came in, said King's friend, Christopher Walker Todd.

Eventually police ushered the students into another building and questioned them about what they'd seen and how many shots they heard.

Charly Abraham was teaching a class of about 28 students at the university's Delta Music Institute when he and the students received a message through the university's alert system.

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Police respond to fatal shooting at the Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., on Sept. 14, 201 …

"Everybody's phone just sort of went off at the same time," Abraham said. About two hours or so after the initial lockdown, about 25 heavily armed police officers swept through the building, Abraham said.

In the southern Mississippi Gulf coast town of Gautier, authorities went to a house where Prentiss and Lamb lived after receiving a phone call about 10 a.m. notifying them of the shooting. They went into the house and found Prentiss' body.

Her former husband, Shawn O'Steen, said Prentiss was a "good person" to whom he was married for about seven years. O'Steen said they divorced 15 years ago but remained friends and had a daughter who's now 19.

"She was completely devastated. She and her mother were absolutely best friends," O'Steen said.

At Delta State, the slain professor directed the first-year seminar program and specialized in Native American and colonial history, said Don Allan Mitchell, an English professor at the school.

A history professor at Emporia State University in Kansas, where Schmidt studied, described him as one of the "brightest students."

"He was a super competent human being," Karen Manners Smith said. "He was president of his fraternity, in student government. He was an absolutely delightful student.,"

King, one of the students in Jobe Hall when the shooting happened, attended the same Episcopal church as Schmidt. King was studying history, and Schmidt was his adviser.

"I looked up to the man," King said.

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Solis reported from Cleveland, Mississippi. Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi; Kevin McGill in Gautier, Mississippi; Rebecca Santana in New Orleans; Alina Hartounian in Phoenix; and Roxana Hegeman in Wichita, Kansas, contributed to this report.

Police: Suspect in Delta State U. shooting is dead

Shannon Lamb was wanted in the slayings of his live-in girlfriend and a college professor.
Apparent suicide

North Korea announced that its main nuclear site is fully operational on Tuesday, and that it is improving its nuclear weapons "in quality and quantity", according to state news agency KCNA. The propaganda arm of the North Korean regime also said that the country is ready to stand up to U.S. aggression in the region with nuclear weapons "at any time."

The Yongbyon nuclear complex was closed in 2007 and North Korea had previously threatened to reopen it, particularly in 2013 after the country's third nuclear test. The director of North Korea's Atomic Energy Institute, unnamed in comments quoted by KCNA and reported by Sky News, said that its scientists had "made innovations day by day" in order to "guarantee the reliability of the nuclear deterrent...as required by the prevailing situation."

"In the meantime, the U.S. anachronistic hostile policy toward the DPRK that forced it to have access to the nuclear weapons has remained utterly unchanged and instead it has become all the more undisguised and vicious with the adoption of means openly seeking the downfall of the latter's social system," the director added.

"If the U.S. and other hostile forces persistently seek their reckless hostile policy towards the DPRK and behave mischievously, the DPRK is fully ready to cope with them with nuclear weapons any time."

The hermit kingdom regularly makes bold threats against the outside world and overexaggerates its military might but its nuclear capabilities remain unclear. The latest claim is set to worsen relations with both of its main enemies, the U.S. and South Korea.

Tensions increased on the Korean Peninsula last month when South Korea restarted its loudspeaker broadcasts across the demilitarized zone after a landmine, planted by North Korea exploded, injuring two South Korean soldiers, and leading to an exchange of rocket fire between the two countries.

Kim Jong Un, North Korea's leader, ordered his frontline troops on the border with South Korea to be "on a war footing" to prepare for conflict with the South. However, both Pyongyang and Seoul subsequently agreed to reduce tensions.

South Korea and the U.S. also staged annual joint military exercises last month, which simulates a North Korean attack, involving 50,000 Korean and 30,000 American soldiers in a Korean Peninsula-wide operation. North Korea protested the drills to the U.N. Security Council, requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the exercises they perceive to be preparation for an invasion.

N. Korea ready to use nuclear weapons 'any time'

Wochit
Russia Positioning Tanks at Syria Airfield: U.S. Officials

Dushanbe (Tajikistan) (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday pledged to continue military support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad after Washington sounded the alarm over an alleged military build-up by Moscow in the war-torn country.

"We support the government of Syria in its fight against terrorist aggression, we provide and will go on providing it with all necessary military assistance," Putin said at a regional security conference in ex-Soviet Tajikistan.

A US military official told AFP on Monday that Russia has sent artillery units and seven tanks to a Syrian air base as part of moves to boost its military presence there.

The alleged increase of Russian hardware in Syria has caused concerns in the West about the implications of Moscow militarily helping its long-time ally Assad.

Russia has denied it is expanding its military presence in Syria but has pledged to continue support for Assad.

US officials have expressed fears that Russia may strike Western-backed rebel groups battling Assad and ultimately risk a confrontation with forces fighting the Islamic State (IS) group.

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Russian T-90 tanks roll on June 28, 2010, on a training field outside Moscow (AFP Photo/Alexey Sazon …

Moscow has been pushing for a broader coalition of forces to take on IS, but key regional players such as Saudi Arabia have ruled out fighting alongside Assad.

Putin said that Assad was willing to work with Syria's "healthy" opposition to find a political solution to the four-and-a-half year civil war but insisted that tackling IS was the priority.

"Undoubtedly the need to unite forces in the fight against terror comes to the forefront today," Putin said.

The Kremlin strongman blasted critics of Moscow's support for the "legitimate" Syrian authorities and said the current migrant crisis rocking Europe would be even more dire if Russia had not backed Assad.

"If Russia had not supported Syria the situation in the country would be even worse than in Libya and the flow of refugees would be even greater," he said.

Syria's conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011.

But after a bloody crackdown by the ruling regime, it spiralled into a multi-front civil war that has left more than 240,000 people dead.