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Laura Schroeder was shocked to hear the news of her fellow classmate.
Schroeder’s classmate, Gail Coontz, has been charged with two counts of murder after she allegedly killed her two kids on Thursday morning. Coontz proceeded to hold a counselor hostage at the University of Louisville’s Health Services counseling center.
“I talked to her on the first day of school and she seemed very overwhelmed with work, school and her children,” said Schroeder, a non-traditional student. “But [she] didn’t seem like the type of person to do something like this.”
Schroeder, who assisted as a note taker for the Disability Resource Center, was assigned to take notes for Coontz in their anthropology class.
Cathy Patus, director of DRC, declined to comment on the situation and said that she was not permitted to release information about Coontz and her use of the DRC facilities.
“I would tell her when I sent her notes that I hoped she had a good weekend and she would never respond,” said Schroeder.
Other classmates said Coontz, a 37-year-old non-traditional student, was a kind person.
“I never spoke to her, but I often noticed she had a smile on her face,” said Ryan Lee Sledge, a fellow classmate of Coontz.
Sledge said he often saw her working on her laptop in class. He said he was surprised to hear of the outcome and that it was “uncharacteristic” of her.
Schroeder, Sledge and Coontz were all in Jonathan Haws’ Anthropology 203 class. Haws, along with others who taught Coontz, was unavailable for comment by press time.
At 8:32 a.m. on Thursday, university police received a call from the Health Services counseling center regarding a woman armed with a gun.
University police responded with officers on the scene at 8:39 a.m. and discovered that a victim was being held hostage, according to Cindy Hess, director of communication and marketing at U of L. The officer called for backup and Coontz was disarmed at 9:14 a.m.
Coontz was taken to University Hospital and counselors notified university police to send someone down to Coontz’s home of 4709 Settle Blvd. in Okolona to check on her children, according to Metro Police and Hess.
Both children, Greg, 14, and Nikki, 10, were found dead in their home from gunshot wounds.
Vincent Brown, director of counseling services at the center, declined to comment on Coontz or her affiliations with the center and its counselors.
According to Hess, upon hearing of the hostage situation, U of L students and staff were alerted by the university to avoid the counseling center. UofL Alert, U of L’s alert system in instances of emergency, was sent out to students at 9:04 a.m. regarding the hostage situation.
Hess said the notifications included e-mails, posting on the university’s web page and text messaging.
“It is used only for emergency situations where we feel like the campus community is in danger,” said Hess.
Rudy Spencer, Student Government Association’s services vice president, said he received a text message warning him of the incident on campus as he was about to come to school.
“I’m happy that our services were able to identify that there was an issue and that [the Department of Public Safety] was able to be so responsive,” said Spencer, a junior political science major.
However, the alert notification system seemed off to some students, who may have received word from the university at 9:14 a.m., which is 10 minutes after the original statement by Hess.
Spencer thinks the alert system is effective, but lacks cohesion with the student body.
“Notifications should go out a maximum of 30 minutes after something happens,” he said. “The issue that we have with it is there are still only 6,000 students that have text messaging.”
U of L Provost Shirley Willihnganz said that one issue the university stresses is the importance of activating the text messaging alert system, which is currently sent to 6,883 students and faculty.
“That is something we are pushing very hard for,” said Willihnganz, who added that not enough students have signed up for the system in order to ensure its effectiveness.
