On April 16, 2007, Vionca Murray was on a plane back to Virginia Tech University when she saw on the news that there had been a shooting incident on her campus.
Later that day when Murray’s friend had picked her up from the airport, news reports had confirmed that a student gunman had shot and killed 32 people - including students and faculty members - before turning the gun on himself.
“I just remember going home that weekend because it was my sister’s birthday,” the Rosedale resident said by phone from Syracuse University, the school she decided to transfer to after the shooting massacre.
Murray, a former basketball standout at Francis Lewis High School, was finishing her first year at Virginia Tech when she decided that she wanted to come back to Queens to help celebrate her sister’s 16th birthday. She stayed in Queens that weekend so her flight back Monday morning April 16 meant that she missed her morning classes that day, which would have put her right next to Norris Hall where the shootings took place.
“God works in mysterious ways,” her father Kelvin Murray told The Queens Courier last year.
Although she did not know any of the students who were killed personally, Murray said the shooting shook her up so much that she did not want to continue at the school.
“It was a very difficult decision for me,” she said recently.
Murray transferred to Syracuse less than three months after the shooting incident, saying that she wanted to be closer to home than the 850 miles she had to travel roundtrip to Virginia Tech.
When she arrived at Syracuse, she was reunited on the basketball court with a number of players that she played against during her high school career.
“The basketball team is great; everyone really gets along,” said the sophomore who is majoring in finance.
That camaraderie and familiarity has had a positive effect on Murray’s game on the court too, as she put up 7.1 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, saving one of her best performances for the Big East Tournament where she scored 14 points against South Florida.
Although she still keeps in touch with a few of the friends she made at Virginia Tech, she believes the decision to transfer to Syracuse was the right one for her.
“I really like it up here,” she said.
VA TECH MASSACRE …ONE YEAR LATER
By Pete Davis
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