Savannah McNealy was talented, smart and the type of student who made people want to work on college campuses.
Family and friends of the 22-year-old, as well as Colorado State University staff, gathered on campus Friday afternoon to honor McNealy, a CSU senior set to graduate in December. McNealy and Tristian Kemp, 26, of Destin, Fla., were after being dropped off by a ride share. Another woman was taken to the Medical Center of the Rockies for treatment and is expected to live.
“She made everyone around her feel loved,” McNealy’s bestfriend Chessa Hastings said. “She really gave a light to this world that will never be replaced… I’ll strive to be like her every day.”
The large group comforted each other and talked of McNealy. Photos of the young woman smiling and wearing CSU gear lined the vigil. People pinned green ribbons to their shirts, passed out candles and tissues, and wrote notes to McNealy.
McNealy was the only person involved in the shooting who was affiliated with CSU. She was an art major and worked at the Rocky Mountain Student Media Corporation, which operates the Collegian newspaper.
“I don’t stand here with words that can make sense out of this,” university president Tony Frank said. “I don’t believe those words exist.”
Frank said he did not know McNealy personally, but spoke from a position of someone who similarly lost a person he loved from violence in college.
“That pain you all feel, that emptiness that seems without limit, will recede,” Frank said. “What won’t recede is your memory of Savannah.”
McNealy was persistent, said Tony Milligan, vice president of external relations where McNealy interned. She sent seven emails so she could wrangle an internship. She was the spirit behind the creation of the Ram Walk, the orange stripe leading to the new on-campus football stadium.
She was a talented designer and incredibly creative, he said. Not only was she a good student but she was always busy.
“You just don’t run into people that good, that smart, that young that often,” Milligan said.
The rideshare driver who dropped off McNealy, Kemp and the third victim had already driven away , Fort Collins Police Chief Terry Jones said.
The Larimer County Coroner identified the shooter as Michael A. Zamora, 30. He died from a single gunshot to the head that is believed to be self-inflicted. Zamora was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the base confirmed to Denver7.
“Right now we don’t know what the motive was,” Jones said in a phone interview Friday morning. “We’re not ruling out a love triangle.”
The shooting happened just before 2 a.m. Thursday at 720 City Park Avenue, just west of CSU. Students told the Collegian on-campus newspaper they heard about 10 gunshots.
Police spokeswoman Kate Kimble said r in the hours before the shooting, but Zamora did not take a ride share with them. Police recovered two rifles and a handgun registered to Zamora at the scene.
Jones said detectives are working intensively to figure out why the shooting happened.
“We want to know what happened so we can bring it back to the families,” he said. “We’re trying to piece it together.”
One piece of the equation is that the three victims had called ride-sharing company, either Uber or Lyft, at a time when many restaurants or nightclubs are closing, Jones said.
“When you are talking that time of the morning, several restaurants, bars and nightclubs are closing. It’s dark. It’s night-time,” he said. It’s a more precarious time of the night.”
Jones called the shooting catastrophic for the families who are involved. He said the shooting also is devastating to the young woman who was shot and survived.
“My heart goes out to all of the people,” Jones said. “It’s very sad. Lives are eliminated and destroyed and they have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
