On this day, Sept. 28, in 2000, Gallaudet University student Joseph Mesa Jr. choked and killed 19-year-old Eric Plunkett in a freshman dorm at the liberal arts college for the hearing impaired. Four months later Mesa fatally stabbed Benjamin Varner, 19, in the same D.C. dormitory.

The killings shocked the close-knit community of 2,000 students at Gallaudet, which was established by Congress in 1864.