911 Call Details Chilling Moments After Friend Found Ohio State Student Dead in Murder-Suicide
An emotional 911 call captures the moments after Heather Campbell‘s friend and neighbor arrived at her home in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday morning to find the 22-year-old college student slain by her boyfriend in an apparent murder-suicide.
“I just walked into my best friend’s apartment and her and her boyfriend are laying on the kitchen floor dead and bleeding,” the neighbor told the dispatcher, according to The Lantern, Ohio State University’s student newspaper. “I refuse to go back in there.”
Although PEOPLE was not immediately able to obtain a copy of the call, a Columbus Police Department spokesperson previously said that a woman who knew both Campbell and her 25-year-old boyfriend, Kyle Lafferty, contacted authorities after discovering the pair dead.
“I refuse to go back in there,” the woman reportedly said during the call, adding:
“I literally walked in their front door and they’re right there. Because she lives in my apartment building and she hasn’t answered my phone calls since yesterday. So I went in there and the door was unlocked and they were right there on the floor.”
“I don’t know what to do,” the friend said in the call while sobbing, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Authorities arrived at the Columbus apartment on Olentangy River Road around 2:33 a.m Sunday to find Lafferty and the 22-year-old Campbell both dead with gunshot wounds. Investigators believe Lafferty shot Campbell before turning the gun on himself.
The police spokesperson told PEOPLE that the killings were not random and likely stemmed from a domestic incident.
“He was a current boyfriend or potentially going to be an ex-boyfriend,” the spokesperson said.
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Campbell’s grandmother told the Dispatch that they had just rented the apartment together after dating for about eight months.
“She seemed like she adored him and he seemed to adore her,” the grandmother said, according to the paper. “He’d been here and met most of the family. Everyone liked him a lot. He had a really good job. They seemed to be making plans for the future.”
Police have so far released few details about the deaths, but another 911 call, from Saturday night, suggests Lafferty and Campbell got into an intense dispute the day before their bodies were found.
“What happened was I heard extreme arguing and I heard loud banging and it was terrifying,” a woman who reportedly lived above Campbell told 911 in a call early on Saturday, according to The Lantern.
The woman said that she and her boyfriend went downstairs to find out what the commotion was about, believing they were possibly witnesses to domestic violence.
It was terrifying. I said, ‘That sounds like domestic violence. We need to go downstairs,’ ” she said, according to the Dispatch.
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“Literally just as I was passing the door, I was listening outside to decide whether I should call the police and I heard three loud gunshots right after another,” the woman said.
Police responded to the apartment building soon after her call and repeatedly knocked on the couple’s door with no answer, according to the Dispatch. Officers checked to see if anyone else had reported gunshots and no one had, according to local TV station WBNS.
They reportedly left at 3:04 a.m. About 24 hours later, Campbell and Lafferty were discovered dead.
“I want answers to everything,” Campbell’s father told the station. (PEOPLE could not immediately reach her family.)
“I want every stone unturned,” he said. “I want to know how long my daughter could have lived with that fatal shot.”
Campbell, of Strongsville, Ohio, was a psychology major at Ohio State, school officials told PEOPLE.
“We are heartbroken to learn about this tragedy,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends during this incredibly difficult time.”
