9-14-15

Historian Ethan Schmidt shot and killed in his office by a geography professor

● Interview with Ethan Schmidt in the AHA (Sept. 2013)

● His two books on Amazon

Key Facts

● Professor Schmidt was an assistant professor of history at Delta State University in Mississippi and author of 2 books on Native Americans: The Divided Dominion: Social Conflict and Indian Hatred in Early Virginia and Native Americans in the American Revolution: How the War Divided, Devastated, and Transformed the Early American Indian World.

● He was killed in his office on Monday September 14. He was shot three times, in the neck, cheek and eye. The school was immediately put on lockdown.

● Police quickly linked his death to the killing of a woman a few hundred miles away. Her boyfriend turned out to be a geographer at Delta State, Shannon Lamb. Police suspected Lamb had killed her. When they began to close in on him he killed himself, vowing not to be taken alive.

● Police do not have a motive, though Fox News reported a live triangle was suspected. On Tuesday, according to the Clarion Star-Ledger, police said "they have no indication of any relationship between Schmidt and Prentiss," Shannon Lamb's girlfriend.

● The killer, Shannon Lamb, left a note of apology for murdering his girlfriend. “I loved Amy and she is the only person who ever loved me.”

● Professor Schmidt, age 39, leaves behind a wife and three children.

● He was raised in Kansas and earned his PhD at the University of Kansas. Before Delta State he taught history at Texas Tech.

● He knew Shannon Lamb and thanked him in one of his books.

● Peabody, Kansas, Schmidt's hometown, is in shock. "You just know everybody's family and when something happens to them, you know, it's a small town. It pretty much happens to everybody and puts them in shock.”

● Moving tribute by historian Jonathan Earle, who knew Schmidt when both were at Kansas. "Dr. Schmidt became an accomplished historian of how, in his words, the 'use of force [came to] seem unquestioned' as a Euro-American right in pursuit of property in 17th-century Virginia."

● Shannon Lamb is being remembered by students as inspiring, but agitated.

Excerpt: Associated Press Story

GREENVILLE, Miss. — A college instructor suspected in the fatal shootings of a woman he lived with on Mississippi's Gulf Coast and a professor at Delta State University 300 miles away died Monday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after trying to flee police, authorities said.

Shannon Lamb had earlier told authorities that he was "not going to jail."

Police in Greenville, Mississippi, were following Lamb as he was driving when the suspect pulled over and jumped out of his car, Lynn Buford, chief of the Delta State University police, told The Associated Press. One of the victims was killed at the university earlier Monday.

When police gave chase, they heard one gunshot and then found Lamb, Buford said. They took him to a hospital in Greenville where he was pronounced dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Buford said.

Lamb's death brought to an end a chaotic day that saw terrified students and teachers hunkered down in classrooms for hours. The Delta State campus was put on lockdown as armed officers methodically went through buildings, checking in closets, behind doors and under tables and desks.

Excerpt: Story in the Washington Post

A male professor at Delta State University in Mississippi was killed in a campus shooting Monday morning and the school has canceled classes for the rest of the day as police investigate, according to school officials, police and the county coroner’s office.

Officials said they are aware of the one fatal shooting, and authorities say they are looking for a shooter, who remains at large. No students were involved in the incident, school officials said. Buildings at the small college near Cleveland, Miss., were on lockdown for much of the day, and police are clearing buildings one-by-one to ensure student and staff safety.

Jennifer Farish, a Delta State spokeswoman, said that students and faculty who have been cleared from academic buildings are being escorted to Sillers Coliseum, and school officials urge students who are still in residence halls to remain there. Campus administrators are working to get food, water and counselors to the coliseum. A planned celebration to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the campus Tuesday also has been postponed.

Bolivar County deputy coroner Murray Roark and school officials confirmed that the deceased is assistant history professor Ethan Schmidt, and that he was killed in his office in Jobe Hall. Schmidt received his doctorate from the University of Kansas and specialized in Native American history and taught courses on topics as varied as the Old South and baseball.

The school, founded in 1925 as a teachers college, is located 120 miles north of Jackson, Miss., and has an enrollment of 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students. ...