That dubious honour belongs to Dr Gang Lu PhD, 28 of China who had recently received his doctorate in physics from the University of Iowa. On 1st November 1991 he used a revolver (he was also carrying another pistol) to shoot dead 5 people, then killed himself.

Just before 4 p.m., Lu shot and killed his professor, Christoph Goertz, 47; Linhua Shan, 27; department chair Dwight Nicholson, 44; and Robert A. Smith, 45, an associate professor in the department and Lu’s co-advisor. Shan, like Lu, was from China & had also recently received his PhD in the same subject.

Then, he walked 3 blocks to the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, where he shot and killed T. Anne Cleary, 56, an associate vice president and professor of education. He then shot himself.

According to the university, Lu was angry and jealous that his doctoral dissertation had not received a prestigious academic award. Instead, it was compatriot Linhua Shan who got it, the 1991 D.C. Spriestersbach award for outstanding doctoral dissertation. His dissertation concerned an explanation of the structure of Saturn’s ring system. He was also a member of the theoretical space physics team in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Linhua Shan was not yet 27 when he died

sources

• wikipedia
• uiowa.edu

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