October (Web-only) 2002

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Campus killer: "Here's a lesson in spirituality"
Robert Stewart Flores Jr., walked into the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona, where his fellow students were taking a multiple-choice midterm exam.

He walked up to Cheryl M. McGaffic, a volunteer chaplain at the University Medical Center and ethics teacher who taught students about the relationship between health and spirituality.

"Cheryl, are you prepared to use your spiritual resources now?" Flores asked. "'Here's a lesson in spirituality. Make peace with your maker." Then he killed her.

"It didn't register at first, then I just heard the gunshot go off and I could see her fall to the ground," student Diana Lugo told The Arizona Daily Star. "He did it in a kind of calm, gross, happy way. It was kind of like a joke to him."

Then Flores approached assistant professor Barbara S. Monroe and asked, "Do you remember what was the last thing you said to me?" Monroe said she didn't. "Are you ready to meet your maker?," he asked. When she choked out, "Yes," he shot her in the chest.

Flores then released the 50 or so students in the room and shot himself.

The students who witnessed the killings found out later that another professor had been killed: Robin E. Rogers, a very active member of Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church who led singing and the congregation's nursing ministry.

Rogers had asked her fellow worshipers to pray for protection from Flores just two days before the murders.

Surely Flores was driven by more than just spirituality, but it seems to be a thread to the three murders. Yesterday, reports the Star, mourners at the three women's memorial services struggled for healing and answers.

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