Frostburg Senior Arrested In Connection With Fellow Student's Murder
FROSTBURG, Md. (WJZ)-- A college town is in mourning after a Frostburg State University student is stabbed to death at an off-campus party.
Andrea Fujii has the investigation into her death and reaction from her grief-stricken classmates.
Stunned looks, disbelief and heartbreak for hundreds of students at FSU attending a vigil to mourn the murder of fellow student 19-year-old Kortneigh McCoy.
"I know violence and stuff happens a lot but you really don't expect it to be so close to you," said FSU junior Rachel Dwyer.
"It's just scary, especially when you know the person," Brittany Spencer, a senior. "It's just scary."
Around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, McCoy was found bleeding and lying on the ground in front of a house on Maple Street just across from the campus.
Investigators say McCoy had been inside the house with several others when an argument broke out. That's when they say 23-year-old Frostburg senior Shanee Liggins pulled out a knife and stabbed McCoy. Liggins is now under arrest and school officials are emphasizing the incident happened on off-campus property.
"This was not a random act and we still consider this to be a safe community," FSU President Jonathan Gibralter said.
Grief counselors are on hand at the school and at Simpson Hall where McCoy worked as a resident assistant, helping freshman adjust to life on campus.
She was a physics major, a member of two on-campus singing groups and friend to Devin James.
"It's a difficult time for all of us," James, president of the Unified Voices Under God's Dominion Gospel Choir, said.
This Frostburg tragedy comes on the heels of several others including the death of a football player who died in September after receiving injuries during practice, the December deaths of two students trapped in a fire and the April 2010 murder of basketball player Brandon Carroll, shot to death by a fellow student also at an off-campus house.
"It's really disturbing because I feel like every time someone does pass away at our school it's just getting closer and closer to people that I know," Ursula Santiago, a junior at FSU, said.
The suspect, Shanee Liggins, is now being held without bail facing first- and second-degree murder charges. Friends who graduated with McCoy from Poly-Western High School in Baltimore are planning a memorial in her honor at the school on Nov. 26.
Liggins was a business administration major originally from Waldorf, Md.
