Student Shoots, Kills 3 Professors -- Slayings At San Diego State

SAN DIEGO - The engineering student accused of killing three professors to death hid a gun in the room in advance and methodically shot the three down while allowing students in the room to escape, police said today.

After nine years at San Diego State University, engineering student Frederick Martin Davidson submitted his master's thesis and was called upon to defend it before a faculty committee.

Just after the meeting began yesterday afternoon, Davidson opened fire on his faculty adviser and two other professors, shooting more than 20 rounds and even stopping once to reload, police and witnesses said.

Davidson, 36, put down the gun and surrendered to campus police who rushed to the scene after hearing the gunshots, authorities said. He was booked for investigation of murder and was being held at the San Diego County Jail.

At a briefing today, police Lt. Jim Collins said Davidson had gone to the third-floor room in the mechanical-engineering building earlier in the day to hide the Taurus 9mm semiautomatic and five 15-round spare magazines in a first-aid kit on the wall. At least 23 spent shell casings were found, Collins said.

Davidson killed his faculty adviser, Chen Liang, where he sat, then shot a gravely wounded colleague as he tried to flee out the door, according to a police reconstruction of the shooting. He let three students in the room escape, but he chased a third professor to an adjoining office and shot him as he tried to hide behind a desk, Collins said.

"He was upset that his thesis had been turned down previously and thought the professors were out to get him," Collins said.

Officers found a note from Davidson, Collins said. But he refused to describe the contents or say if it was a suicide note.

Besides Liang, 32, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, the dead were D. Preston Lowrey III, 44, associate professor of mechanical engineering; and Constantinos Lyrintzis, 36, associate professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics.

A motive in the shooting was not clear. While he had the unspecified problem with his thesis, Davidson had co-written several journal articles with Liang and appeared to have a promising future. McDonnell Douglas was funding the research.

"He did sometimes think Dr. Liang was using him as slave labor, not giving him as much credit as he deserved," said Davidson's landlord, Howard Brashers, a retired English professor. Davidson was a loner who kept his space tidy, said Brashers.

Davidson, an Army veteran, enrolled at the school in 1987, got a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering in 1991, then spent the next three years in further study without declaring a major. He entered the master's-degree program in mechanical engineering in 1994.

He wrote his thesis on shape memory alloy, a metal that can be twisted and will hold its shape until heated, Brashers said.

Albert Nguyen, a mechanical-engineering student, said he was in a computer lab on the same floor when he heard shouting and looked outside just as Davidson was being approached by campus police.

"I heard the guy saying, `Drop the gun,' the security guy, I guess. I took a peek, and the second guard said, `Get out,' " said Nguyen.