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TOPICS: homicide, david metzler, heidi childs
Funeral services for David Metzler and Heidi Childs, Virginia Tech students found dead in a local forest, will be held Monday afternoon in Lynchburg.
Heritage Baptist Church lists the funeral times on its Web site. Metzler's funeral will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, followed by Childs' at 3 p.m. Both services will be held at Heritage.
Original Article: An e-mail from university president Charles Steger announced that the bodies of two Virginia Tech students have been identified as victims of an apparent double homicide on Wednesday night.
David Metzler, 19, a sophomore in industrial and systems engineering from Lynchburg and Heidi Childs, 18, a sophomore in biochemistry from Forest, Va., were identified as the victims by the Montgomery County Sheriff.
Both suffered gunshot wounds, and were found by a passerby early Thursday morning near the Caldwell Fields area of northern Montgomery County, roughly 12-15 miles from campus. They were in a day-use area known as Addison, Milton and George.
A search affidavit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court Thursday morning said Metzler's body was found inside a car and Childs was found outside. The car, a 1992 Toyota, was registered to Metzler.
Both were taken to the Roanoke medical examiner's office for autopsies.
Caldwell Fields is a popular area for Tech students.
Numerous Montgomery County police cars patrolled the area Thursday night. Craig Creek Road is located off of U.S. 460.
There is a public shooting range located close to the intersection of Craig Creek Road and U.S. 460. A parking area near where the bodies were found was closed from sunset to sunrise.
"Trauma like this is deeply painful to us all. Once again, this community is visited by senseless violence and tragedy upon aspiring young minds from our campus," Steger said in a statement.
Kent Gregory, Student Ministries Pastor at Heritage Baptist Church in Lynchburg, said Metzler and Childs were very involved with the church.
"They really lived their lives based on having a relationship with Jesus," Gregory said.
The religious activities they participated in at home carried over to their time at Tech, Gregory said.
"They loved the CRU, the Campus Crusade for Christ, at Tech," Gregory said. "They were highly involved with that."
Gregory said Metzler and Childs lived their lives actively, and together. They often played guitar together at the church.
"They were outdoor people and active people," Gregory said. "They not only enjoyed life, but they lived it in an incredible godly way."
Both Metzler and Childs lived off campus, and Gregory said they maintained strong relationships.
"They had such a close group of friends," Gregory said.
He said Metzler enjoyed playing golf and soccer.
No memorial services are planned at this time, but will be posted on the university Web site once approved by the families.
As the sheriff's investigation into suspects continues, anyone with knowledge of the incident should contact the sheriff at (540)382-2951.
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Virginia Tech, indeed, is safe. That's all.
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OakRaidFan: Are you not going to let your girls visit New York City or Washington, D.C.? or drive a car? or ride in a plane? As a recent graduate who was here for the shooting on April 16, I can say that I never felt unsafe during my 4 years at Tech and wish I could be back in Blacksburg. Violence is certainly not limited to Virginia Tech, and despite the recent tragedies it has a much lower crime rate than most colleges. You can't live your life in a bubble out of fear.
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Anonymous: You are a complete fool. The murders did not happen on campus so there was no reason to lock it down. What do you want Dr. Stegar to do? You are obviously are not a student or a student that lacks the capacity to make an informed statement. Virginia Tech is safe and Dr.Stegar is doing what he can do.
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pretty sure this didn't happen AT tech. it happened NEAR tech. meaning Steger was not the first person responsible, merely someone to be informed along the way during the investigation. so chill out asking him to resign.
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Pray for the students at VT and the families of these beautiful young people.
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lay off of steger! who knows when it was actually clear that these two were students at virginia tech. this did not happen on campus or anywhere near - in my opinion there was no need for a vt alert. family would have to be notified before names were released. give the guy a break. bad things happen everywhere. not stegers fault. geesh!
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I was shocked to see this linked from CNN this evening. Here at U.Va. we also made CNN today for having two students attacked by a (probably rabid) fox. I'm sure Blacksburg is a very low-crime area overall but I do sympathize with you Hokies for what looks like a string of murdered students. And especially with the poor parents--it's hard to imagine their shock and grief. Let's hope the killer is brought to justice quickly.
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Simply alerting students via the VT alerts system that a murder of two students happened off campus overnight and the murderer is still at large would not be asking too much. I would guess at least one of the students had a hokie passport on them, I mean most students I know carry those with them everywhere. You don't have to identify names to let people know to be on the lookout. For goodness sake they let you all know that some guy was masturbating in AJ today before they let you know two of your colleagues were killed. Is that the VT police dept you trust for your safety? I certainly hope none of you posting here are the next victim of the next crazy incident in Blacksburg. That place is going down hill fast. I was there a long time as an undergrad and grad student. I used to think I was safe too. May God keep you all safe during your time there. Yes it happened near Tech, no Steger was not the first one to know, but if the police had done their work in a reasonable time VT officials should have known well sooner than they did and warnings should have been issued in my opinion.
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It floors me to this day how people will defend Steger. As a VT student, I have no faith in the administration and would have attended a different institution had I known what would go on during my time at VT. I am embarrassed to say that I go to VT as it usually invokes sympathy from the listener. Why do VT students insist on standing behind a president that is, in my opinion, incompetent? I realize that other schools have violent crime, but it is VT's reaction to such incidents that to this amazes me.
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Purely protocol and common courtesy. As President, Dt. Steger has to do a lot of things that he doesn't like to do. The same protocol (confirming the details via the authorities/police, contacting the parents, and THEN alerting the VT community) would have occurred if these events happened anywhere in the world. This just happened to occur at Caldwell Fields. Any leader from any other school/organization/group would have done the same thing.
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It floors me that people think the University should inform students every time something happens when it's not even on campus. Do the cops send you an email every time something happens in your city? Get real. The job of the University is to protect students while on campus. If you don't want your precious children to be in danger, lock them up inside and don't let them out.
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It is no surprise that this type of incident has occurred. The bad guys have the guns and the students are not allowed to carry weapons of self-defense. I think we will see more of this in the future unless students have the right of self-defense returned to them. Yes, Steger and his policies are a big part of the problem.
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I will never forget what happened on 2007. But this has nothing in common with that tragedy. The thing is that those memories are still fresh in all of us. This killing happened off campus and tihs happens, so get over it. I know that no killing is justify but, no one knows what really happened yesterday, so please do not make assumptions about it. In my opinion, cops are making a terrible job arround this area. So we should blame them. I will never forget how on 2007, while the killing was still going arround Norris Hall, cops were watching the situation without knowing what to do. All they care about is speeding tickets and, alcohol and drugs tolerance, but no about security. About Dt. Steger, he just wrote on that letter what parents and family want to hear, but he knows that VT has nothing to do about it becuase is out of its jurisdiction.
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Jon: The Virginia Tech and Blacksburg police were at the barricaded doors of Norris Hall trying to force entry within THREE minutes of 9-1-1 receiving Emily Haas' emergency call from inside the building on April 16, 2007. They got in the building within another three minutes -- Cho's chained doors did pose a challenge, they had to find a door they could breach with a shotgun and open. The Virginia Tech police department is a fully accredited state law enforcement agency and it does among other things, have a SWAT unit which trains tactically for emergency situations. They did fine on April 16, 2007 -- the blame lies with the screwups in handling Cho _before_ that fateful day. No cop was just looking around not knowing what to do if they were in earshot of Norris that day.
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Jane, these murders took place more than 20 miles off campus, near a shooting range that is popular with students. Weapons are not otherwise allowed on national forest lands outside of hunting seasons. If you think that law should be changed, take it up with the feds. It doesn't have anything to do with being a student.
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While it's not on the campus, the proximity of Caldwell Fields to VT, along with the fact that students frequent the area, make an alert worthwhile. Also, where the heck does the mention of the nearby shooting range fit in? This bears no relevance to the story unless the shooter was there. The last place someone would be murdered is at a range where everyone has guns, and since carrying guns in VA is legal (with certain restrictions, of course), proximity to the range has little to do with the case as it is currently understood.
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what intrigues me about this is what were they doing there on a school week nite that late when the parking area was closed sunrise to sunset? didnt they both live off campus? i am sure there is someone who knows why they went out there that late at night when it was closed...it is just tragic, everything about it...why was she outside of the car and he inside? Terrible, God help the families!
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This event, while off-campus and not directly related to Tech (at least as far as we know right now), demonstrates the rawness that is still present in our community. As a VT employee, I don't feel that it was the university's responsibility to notify me about this incident. However, I do feel they let me down and did not protect me on April 16, 2007. I am reminded of this every time our administration sends out one of its emotionless e-mails trying to reassure us all that everything is okay. Truth is, we're not okay. We still need to heal and I wish that our leaders could see that. It's time to stop thinking about legacies and start caring about your community. It's time for a change at Virginia Tech.
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It's maddening to try to read these comments, filtering to find a gem among the fool's gold. The university informed the community within minutes of the information being released to the public. These investigations take time. CSI and its spawn have given the impression that it takes mere minutes to determine identity and clean up a crime scene, but in the words of our Sheriff, [it was a] "very brutal crime scene." Also, perhaps educate yourselves about the timeline of public reporting. The original press release, notifying the public of this heinous crime, was sent around noon. By 1700, full details were made available and the families were notified. This crime was not within the jurisdiction of either the Virginia Tech Police nor the Blacksburg Police. The crime occurred 15 miles (by road, 9 miles straight line distance) from the campus, and is being investigated by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. If you truly feel that notification to the campus community should have been made sooner, express that to the Montco Sheriff's Office and to the university. However, if you expect a VT Alert for every violent crime in a ten mile radius, you'll quickly turn off your phone from the volume of SMS spam.
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Anonymous, the police followed every process perfectly in the investigation of Karl Thornhill. I guess you feel the police should have assumed that a person of interest in the murder of a female and a male wouldnt be a boyfriend who wasn't there with a knowledge of firearms, but in fact that an apt person of interest would be a mass-murdering psychopath. They obtained warrants, it's not like they just broke down his door without any due process. Don't be ignorant.
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