8/29/00

2 Die in Arkansas Campus Shooting

By MELISSA NELSON

Associated Press Write

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A longtime professor and a graduate student who had been taking classes for 10 years were shot to death Monday at the University of Arkansas in an apparent murder-suicide on the first day of the fall semester, authorities said.

Associate professor John Locke, 67, died in his English department office on the second floor of Kimpel Hall, a classroom and office building near the heart of the campus.

Bruns identified the other victim as James Easton Kelly, 36, of Marianna, a graduate student in the comparative literature program in which Locke taught.

Police hadn't determined the motive for the shootings or who pulled the trigger, Bruns said. He said the gun found at the scene belonged to Kelly.

Kelly had been taking courses in a doctoral program for 10 years and had a pattern of enrolling in comparative literature courses and then dropping them, Bruns said.

On Aug. 21, a committee of six professors voted to dismiss him from the degree program but to allow Kelly to continue to take classes as a

non-degree student. Locke was on the committee but abstained from the vote, Bruns said.