The student accused of killing two people in a dorm room on the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus last week was the roommate of one of the victims, police confirmed Tuesday.
Colorado Springs police on Monday arrested Nicholas Trevon Jordan, 25, on suspicion of two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting of Samuel Knopp, 24, and Celie Rain Montgomery, 26.
Knopp and Jordan, both students, were roommates in the Crestone House dormitory at CU Colorado Springs, police spokesperson Caitlin Ford confirmed Tuesday morning. Montgomery, who was from Pueblo, was not a student.
El Paso County Court Judge Shannon Gerhart set a $5 million, cash-only bail for Jordan during a brief court appearance Tuesday. Prosecutor Robert Willett said the high bail amount was necessary because Jordan has few ties to Colorado — he is originally from Detroit — and said Jordan could still pose a threat to public safety and campus safety should he be released from jail.
“There are indications he tried to flee the state” after the killings, Willett said in court. He added that Jordan had a gun in a vehicle but did not elaborate.
Jordan was represented by a public defender and appeared for the hearing handcuffed and in a jail uniform. He spoke only to share his name.
Colorado Springs police so far have offered few details about the shooting, and have not said what instigated the violence or detailed Montgomery’s relationship to the roommates.
Investigators obtained a warrant for Jordan’s arrest Friday evening and found him Monday morning — after a weekend-long search — in a vehicle in the 4900 block of Cliff Point Circle East in Colorado Springs, according to the police department.
Court documents that detail the evidence against Jordan have been sealed — that is, a judge ordered they be kept secret. Willett on Tuesday said he did not object to making those documents public, but Gerhart declined to unseal the records during the hearing. She said attorneys can take up the matter at Jordan’s next court appearance, set for Friday.
Police over the weekend stressed that the killings were an “isolated incident between parties that were known to one another and not a random attack against the school or other students at the university.”
Campus police responded to reports of shots fired at about 6 a.m., and the shooting sparked a lockdown on campus and led to classes and activities being canceled and the campus being closed through the weekend.
At 2 p.m. Monday, hours after Jordan’s arrest, hundreds of university students, staff and faculty, as well as city residents, embarked on a healing walk from the north end of campus to its center before hearing remarks from campus police chief Dewayne McCarver, student body president Axel Brown and Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet.
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