2 Va. Tech students found dead in Jefferson Nat. Forest

BLACKSBURG

Two Virginia Tech students were found slain Thursday at a Jefferson National Forest campground that is popular among students, authorities said.

The killings are hitting a campus still reeling from the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history in 2007 and the beheading of a student earlier this year. Classes for the fall semester began Monday.

The bodies of David Lee Metzler, 19, of Lynchburg and Heidi Lynn Childs, 18, of Forest were found by a passerby, Montgomery County Sheriff Lt. Brian Wright said. It appeared both had been shot, he said.

Wright said Metzler's body was inside a car in the parking area of the Caldwell Fields campground, and Childs' body was  outside the car. The campground is about 15 miles from Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg.

A suspect had not been identified, and autopsies were being conducted in Roanoke.

Metzler was majoring in industrial and systems engineering, and Childs was a biochemistry major. Both were sophomores.

In an e-mail to students and staff, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger again was counseling his campus community. Two years ago a student gunman killed 32 students and faculty members and himself. In January, a doctoral student beheaded a fellow graduate student in a campus cafe.

"Trauma like this is deeply painful to us all," Steger wrote. "Once again, this community is visited by senseless violence and tragedy upon aspiring young minds from our campus.

"I know that many of you likely have complex feelings about now. How can this happen in this area, at this time, to this community?"

Steger said the university would post information about memorial services on its Web site.