Jamie Susan High, a sophomore in interior design, was pushed to the ground and fatally shot by MTSU student Walter Karell in the parking lot north of Massey Hall on October 30, 1983. After murdering High, Karell fired a shot at a witness before killing himself. High had been Karell’s girlfriend for a time when both were students at MTSU. In August, Karell had taken her hostage at her apartment in Murfreesboro and had held her for about five hours, threatening to kill himself if she did not take him back. According to a friend, she had talked him out of the August situation.