The suspect arrested in the February 16 shooting deaths of his suitemate and another person at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs appeared in court last Friday, CBS News reported.
UCCS student Nicholas Jordan, 25, of Detroit, was arrested on February 19 and charged with the murder of his roommate, 24-year-old Samuel Knopp, and Pueblo, Colorado resident Celie Rain Montgomery, a 26-year-old woman who was not a student at UCCS.
Knopp and Montgomery were found dead inside Knopp’s bedroom in the dorm suite he and another student shared with Jordan in the Crestone House residence on campus. The third student in the suite was the one who called 911 and reported hearing gunshots.
According to court records, Jordan’s suitemates had complained about Jordan leaving out his trash and smoking pot in the dorm suite.
Knopp and the other resident of the suite had also reported Jordan to campus authorities for smoking in the suite and creating an unsafe living environment.
Prosecutors allege that Knopp and Jordan got into a heated argument in January over a bag of trash in the suite that Jordan refused to take out. At the time, Jordan allegedly threatened to kill Knopp if he asked him again to take out the trash.
An arrest warrant was issued for Jordan on the night of the murders. He was arrested on Monday, February 19 after Colorado Springs Police located his vehicle. Jordan was arraigned the following day and held on a $5 million bond.
Samuel Knopp was from Parker, Colorado. He was a senior at UCCS studying music.
According to NBC News, when Knopp’s mother first heard about the shootings on campus, she posted on Facebook that it hit “way too close to home” and made her sick. At the time, she was unaware that her son was one of the victims.
