Anthony Sutin had come to Grundy because he believed in the school's mission. Before becoming dean, he had served as acting Assistant Attorney General for legislative affairs under President Clinton, working on community policing initiatives. He chose a remote Appalachian law school over a Washington career because he thought small towns deserved good lawyers too. Thomas Blackwell taught legal writing - the unglamorous, foundational work of teaching first-year students to think and argue on paper. His colleagues called him one of the best in the field. Angela Dales had been a single mother who had worked her way through college and into law school, the kind of student whose admission letter changes a family tree. She had a young daughter. The three of them, on the morning of January 16, were each doing the work that had brought them to this hillside in southwestern Virginia. They were murdered in their workplace, in their classrooms, in the building they had each chosen with such intention.

Odighizuwa, who had failed out of the school, came to campus that morning and met first with Professor Dale Rubin. The exchange was strange - Odighizuwa reportedly told Rubin to pray for him - but Rubin survived. Odighizuwa then opened fire. Dean Sutin and Professor Blackwell were shot at point-blank range in their offices. Angela Dales was killed in a common area. Three other students were wounded. When the gunfire stopped, Odighizuwa exited the building, where he was confronted in the parking lot by other students. The accounts of what happened next vary in their details - two students retrieved firearms from their personal vehicles, others physically tackled him - but the result is undisputed: Odighizuwa was subdued by his fellow students and held until police arrived. The shooting lasted only minutes. It would shape the school, the town, and a national debate for decades.

Odighizuwa was initially found mentally incompetent to stand trial. He received psychiatric care, and in February 2004 was found competent and pleaded guilty to all charges to avoid the death penalty. The court sentenced him to six consecutive life terms plus twenty-eight years, with no possibility of parole. He is serving his sentence at Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility in nearby Wise County. His sons - born long before the shooting - went on to play in the NFL. Owa Odighizuwa was a third-round draft pick by the New York Giants in 2015. Osa Odighizuwa was a third-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in 2021. Their lives were shaped, before they were old enough to understand it, by what their father had done. They were, in the truest sense, also victims.

After the shooting, the school's students planted trees on the front lawn for Sutin, Blackwell, and Dales. The student services office and the scholarship program were renamed for Angela Dales. The county road outside campus - State Highway 624 - was also renamed in her honor. Faculty fellowships were created for Sutin and Blackwell. The Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity's chapter at the school was named for Sutin; the Phi Delta Phi chapter for Blackwell. The Legal Writing Institute, the national organization for the field Tom Blackwell taught, created the Thomas Blackwell Memorial Award, presented annually to a legal writing educator who, in the language of the award, demonstrates an ability to nurture students to excellence. Two decades later, recipients of the Blackwell Award stand on stages around the country and say his name. It is the work he was doing on the morning he was killed.

Most small institutions do not survive a mass shooting. The Appalachian School of Law did. It graduated its students that spring. It welcomed a new class that fall. It kept doing what it had been founded to do: training lawyers for rural America, for communities that have always had a shortage of good legal help. The school has had its struggles in the years since - accreditation challenges, low employment outcomes for graduates, the kinds of pressures that all small private law schools face. But the trees on the front lawn have grown. The Blackwell Award is presented every year. And in three offices, three people who came to Grundy because they believed in what this school could be - Anthony Sutin, Thomas Blackwell, Angela Dales - are remembered each January 16 by the colleagues, students, and family members who knew them. The mountains around the campus have not changed. The work continues. The names are still spoken.