* Son shot father with bow and arrow in college classroom
* Woman fatally stabbed shared home with shooter’s father
* Son stabbed himself to death after back-to-back slayings
By Keith Coffman
Dec 1 (Reuters) – A Wyoming college professor slain by bow
and arrow in his classroom died at the hands of his son, who
also killed the woman who shared his father’s home before
stabbing himself to death, police said on Saturday, a day after
the double murder and suicide.
Police also said the father, Jim Krumm, 56, who taught
computer science at Casper College, managed to stagger to his
feet despite being “mortally wounded” from the arrow shot to his
head, and grappled with his son, allowing his students to flee
the classroom unharmed.
Authorities found the attacker, Chris Krumm, 25, and his
father dead or near death in the third-floor classroom. The son
had driven a large knife into his father’s chest after they
struggled, then stabbed himself numerous times, according to the
Casper Police Department.
Authorities later found Heidi Arnold, 42, who taught
mathematics at Casper College and lived with the elder Krum,
stabbed to death at their home.
Police said she had been slain by the son that morning
before he set out for campus.
Chris Krumm arrived at the school armed with a bow-and-arrow
weapon called a compound bow – a type of crossbow – and two
knives, all wrapped together inside a blanket, police said.
Casper police initially said the victims’ injuries were
caused by a sharp-edged weapon. They revealed additional details
of the slayings in a statement and news conference on Saturday.
“I can’t even imagine what the students in that room had
gone through,” Police Chief Chris Walsh told reporters,
explaining that students watched horrified as Chris Krumm
stepped into the classroom and unleashed an arrow at his father
from his crossbow.
The students had all safely fled the classroom before the
final moments of the bloodbath, he said.
Police offered no possible motive for the killings, but the
assailant and Arnold knew each other, and the attacks appeared
to have been planned in advance.
Walsh said the suspect, who had lived most recently in
Vernon, Connecticut, and was not a student of the community
college, had come to Casper days earlier and was staying at a
local motel.
Jim Krumm was born in England and also lived in Germany
while growing up, then attended the University of Wyoming and
Colorado State University, where he earned a master’s degree in
computer science, according to a biography posted on the Casper
College website.
Arnold earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of
California at Davis, and master’s of science from the University
of Oregon.
Casper College, where some 5,000 students are enrolled,
canceled classes for the rest of Friday and made counselors
available to students.
Casper, with a population of about 55,000, is the
second-largest city in Wyoming after Cheyenne, the state
capital.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver: Writing by Alex
Dobuzinskis; Editing by Steve Gorman and Xavier Briand)
