The cause of death for Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry and Devin Chandler was released in response to a request from The Associated Press on Thursday. LaKeshia Johnson, Central Regional Director of the medical examiner’s office, also said in an email that the manner of death was a homicide. The students were shot late Sunday night as they were returning to campus after traveling to Washington, D.C., where they saw a show and had dinner together. Authorities said Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a UVA student and former member of the football team who was on the trip, began shooting at students on the chartered bus as it stopped in a parking garage on campus. Jones, 23, faces second-degree murder and other charges stemming from the shooting, which led to a manhunt and a 12-hour campus lockdown before Jones was arrested in suburban Richmond. Jones is being held without bond. A witness told police the gunman targeted specific victims, shooting one as he slept, a prosecutor said Wednesday during Jones’ first court appearance. Two other students were injured. Neither Jones nor his attorney addressed the charges in court. Officials said Thursday that an outside special counsel will help the state attorney general look into the shooting. Lavel Davis Jr. was a wide receiver for the University of Virginia.AP In a letter, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan and University Chancellor Whit Clement asked Attorney General Jason Miares to appoint an outside counsel to investigate UVA’s response to the shooting as well as pre-violence efforts to evaluate of the suspect’s potential threat. “After a tragedy of this nature, it is important for the affected institution to carefully consider what circumstances led to the incident and how the University responded at this time,” Clement said in a statement. Miyares accepted the university’s request for an outside review, saying he would seek a special counsel to assist his office. “A public report will be shared with students, families, the greater UVA community and government officials at the appropriate time,” Miyares spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said. Devin Chandler was shot while he slept, prosecutors say.AP UVA said Jones had been on the radar of the school’s threat assessment team since the fall. The university has also provided sometimes conflicting or incorrect statements about that group’s work during the week. Davis, Perry and Chandler will be honored Saturday at a memorial service on campus. A female student who was injured has been released from the hospital. Football player Mike Hollins, who was also injured, underwent surgery and is recovering in hospital. Hollins was “progressing positively” Thursday and hopefully will begin to take some steps, according to Joe Gipson, a family spokesman. In an interview with ESPN on Thursday, Hollins’ mother said her son at first thought he heard balloons popping on the bus before seeing Jones. Hollins then yelled at the bus driver to stop and ran off the bus with two other students. D’Sean Perry was in the midst of his junior season for the Cavaliers.University of Virginia Hollins quickly realized no other students had left the bus and ran back to help, Brenda Hollins said. Her son encountered Jones pointing a gun at him on the first step of the bus, causing Hollins to turn and run. “All she remembers is that she tried to turn around, but she saw him raise the gun,” Brenda Hollins said. “And he felt his back heat up… And he pulled his shirt as he ran and saw the bullet sticking out of his stomach.” After taking over the lead of the criminal investigation from campus police, Virginia State Police provided the most detailed account yet of what happened. In a news release, the agency said Jones traveled with other students and a professor to Washington for a play at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. The group had dinner together before a professor and 22 students returned to Charlottesville, state police said. As the bus pulled into the campus parking garage and students were getting up to leave, Jones “produced a handgun and began firing,” the release said. As he exited the bus, he fired additional shots, fled on foot and eventually fled the area in a Dodge Durango, according to state police. The press release said investigators were still “putting together Jones’ movements since he left the scene and was arrested” in the Richmond area and could not comment on a motive. A handgun was found in “close proximity” to the bus and no firearms were found inside, state police said. A search warrant executed at Jones’ residence in Charlottesville led to the recovery of a rifle and a handgun, according to the news release. The university said earlier this week that Jones came to the attention of the university’s threat assessment team this fall as part of a “potential hazing issue.” UVA declined to elaborate on the potential hazing incident. During the threat assessment, university officials began investigating a report that Jones had a gun and ended up discovering that Jones had previously been tried and convicted of a concealed weapons violation in 2021, which he had not reported, according to a statement. The school initially said it “escalated his case for disciplinary action” on October 27. But a spokesman, Brian Coy, revised the timeline Tuesday night. He said that likely due to either human or technical error, the report had not been transmitted to the University’s Justice Committee, a student-run body, until Tuesday night after the shooting.
