Oberlin College professor and a woman found fatally shot in a home, son arrested
The professor was identified as Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Pipo Nguyen-Duy.
A professor at Ohio's Oberlin College and Conservatory and a woman were found fatally shot in an off-campus home and police said they have arrested the professor's 31-year-old son in connection with the double homicide.
Pipo Nguyen-Duy, a 64-year-old professor at the private liberal arts college and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 56-year-old woman were found dead on Wednesday morning, according to a statement from the Oberlin Police Department.
In an update on Thursday, police identified the female victim as Tran Thi Phong, the stepmother of the suspect.
"The male victim was discovered on the first floor of the residence and the female victim was discovered on the second floor. Both victims suffered from multiple gunshot wounds," police said in the statement.
About 90 minutes before the victims' bodies were discovered, officers were called to the Oberlin College campus to assist firefighters working on extinguishing a vehicle fire in a parking lot, authorities said.
Officers located the vehicle's registered owner "to check his welfare" around 10:19 a.m. local time and took him into custody without incident.
Police have not disclosed why they initially arrested the man they identified as 31-year-old Daniel Jones from Ashland, Oregon. According to an Oberlin Police Department report reviewed by WEWS-TV, Jones is Nguyen-Duy's son and Phong's stepson.
Once Jones was in custody, officers went to a home near the campus to "check the welfare of the suspect's family," at which time they discovered the victims, authorities said.
Jones is facing multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence.
A motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar released a statement on Wednesday addressed to students and colleagues that identified Nguyen-Duy as one of the victims killed in the incident.
As police investigated the shooting on Wednesday, the college issued a shelter-in-place order at the request of police, according to Ambar.
Nguyen-Duy had been a professor of studio and photography at the school since 1998.
"Tragedies such as this one intrude upon our lives in jarring ways. I am simply overwhelmed with sadness, and I am deeply concerned about the impact of the devastating loss of Pipo to our community," Ambar said. "Pipo was beloved. During his years at Oberlin, he touched all of us through his passion for photography."
Ambar said Nguyen-Duy immigrated from Vietnam in 1975 as a political refugee and "became an internationally exhibited artist, earning many prominent awards -- including the Guggenheim Fellowship."
"Our community will be hurting for a very long time, and when the shock of this news subsides, we will all need to process our grief," Ambar said. "This processing will sometimes be together and sometimes alone, but we will need to take the time to do so."
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