Qualla: 2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On the morning of January 16, 2002, Dean Anthony Sutin was working in his office at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia. Professor Thomas Blackwell was in his. Angela Dales, a first-year student and a single mother who had fought hard to enroll, was in the building. None of them would survive the next half hour. A 43-year-old former student named Peter Odighizuwa walked into the school with a handgun and opened fire. He killed Dean Sutin, Professor Blackwell, and Angela Dales, and wounded three other students before he was subdued in the parking lot. It is, as of this writing, one of only a handful of mass shootings in American history to take place at a law school - a small, fierce wound on a small, fierce school.

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: Anthony Sutin, Thomas Blackwell, Angela Dales

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 sch...

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: The Shooting

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 wer...

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: The Trial and the Sentence

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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, ...

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: What Was Built In Their Names

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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. Fa...

2002 Appalachian School of Law shooting: A School That Did Not Close

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

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 ...