Collegiate Times

Baloons were tied to a cross that memorializes the deaths of Virginia Tech students Heidi Childs and David Metzler.

Caldwell Fields area residents affected by the year-old deaths of two Virginia Tech students they never met were drawn to a camp fire Thursday night at the site of a crime that turned their community upside down.

About 13 people gathered Thursday night around a cross in the Caldwell Fields parking lot where Heidi Childs and David Metzler were found dead on Aug. 27, 2009. The Tech sophomores had gone to the remote field on Aug. 26, 2009, to light a campfire and play the guitar.

Attendees were protected and questioned by multiple law enforcement officers, including members of the Virginia State Police, Tech Police and Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators still have no strong suspects. In a press conference last week, representatives of a multi-agency task force said they have followed more than 1,100 leads.

Lisa Gardner, a former police officer in Washington, D.C. area and a Blacksburg native, organized and publicized the vigil, which was not associated with Tech or the Childs or Metzler families.

Gardner spent most of the afternoon walking the field and watching police officers file in and out of the parking lot as they continued to search for new details.

Although Gardner said she was not afraid to be in the area, she was openly carrying a handgun and said she had another in the car.

“It’s kind of eerie, too, if you think about it this moment, I think, he could be watching us,” she said. “And you know, you’re thinking, this guy’s come back on the one-year anniversary and he’s just as interested in it as we are, but for different reasons.”

Though the guests gathered around the camp fire had known Childs and Metzler, the loss of the students’ lives affected the lives of those in attendance.

Carol Glass, who owns, runs and lives in Camp Tuk-A-Way, a Christian camp for children from the third to 12th grades with her husband, had recently moved to the area when Childs and Metzler were killed.

The camp is about five miles down Craig Creek Road from the site of the murders.

“It was a shock,” Glass said. “We had kids here when it happened.”

The police presence Thursday, she said, was not much different than a normal day.

“We’ve seen quite a few,” she said, “They make their presence known.”

Though Glass was shocked by the crime that happened close to her home, “we don’t live in fear,” she said.

“It’s a quiet valley.”

Glass gathered with others in that quiet valley. The fire was lit along with candles while marshmallows and hot dogs roasted.

Gardner, currently a resident of Christiansburg, likened her feelings on the students’ deaths to the sense of incredulity she felt following the April 16, 2007 shootings on Tech’s campus.

“I’m a native of this area,” she said. “And I guess it’s that I feel a sense of, as a local community member and a mother, just a sense of responsibility of some sort, that,

‘How could something like this happen?’ And, ‘It couldn’t possibly happen here,’ just like the Virginia Tech massacre.”

Matusevich said the aspect of the murders that bothers her most is the lack of answers investigators have been able to provide.

“The only thing that scares me to death is that it keeps on going,” she said.

The informal ceremony culminated in a group rendition of “Amazing Grace,” led by Kerri Taylor, a radio host for Radford-based Mix 100.7.

Taylor, as a member of the media, said she wanted to participate in the vigil to help the community honor the memories of Childs and Metzler.

“Anything that can bring closure for them,” she said.

After the song and a closing prayer, the guests filed out down Craig Creek Road, where they were stopped at a police roadblock. Licenses and vehicle registrations were recorded. Drivers were questioned about their motives for attending the vigil and their level of involvement with the case.

“You never know when a clue could happen,” Taylor said, “and that’s why this is important.”

A version of this article appeared in the Aug 27 issue of the Collegiate Times.