Grief, bewilderment over slain students

This undated photo of Eve Carson, student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was released by the university Thursday, March 6, 2008. Police Thursday identified a young woman found shot dead in a Chapel Hill, N.C., residential neighborhood as Carson, 22, of Athens, Ga. Authorities had no suspects in her death. (AP Photo/Courtesy of UNC, Jim Stratford)

Heartbroken mourners searched soul and scripture Sunday to understand why someone would fatally shoot a popular University of North Carolina student body president and cut short a life with such promise.

For the hundreds gathered at Athens First United Methodist Church, Eve Carson should still be at school, studying political science and biology, teaching science to grade schoolers and planning her next trip abroad.

"We should not be here this afternoon," senior minister Bill Britt said, angry that the 22-year-old was not instead celebrating spring break or getting ready for the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament.

"It is too soon to be remembering the life of Eve Marie Carson," he told the mourners who gathered here in her hometown or came down from the university in Chapel Hill, N.C. Many wore Carolina blue ribbons in her honor.

Carson was found Wednesday morning lying on a street about a mile from campus. She had been shot several times, including once in the right temple. Police are searching for a man photographed using her ATM card.

Police are looking for this man, who was photographed using Eve Carson's ATM card. (Chapel Hill Police via AP)

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This undated photo provided by The Auburn Plainsman, the Auburn University student newspaper, shows Lauren Burk, a freshman at Auburn who was found shot Tuesday night, March 4, 2008, along a highway several miles north of the campus in Auburn, Ala. Burk died later at East Alabama Medical Center. Police were investigating the death but had made no arrests by Wednesday. (AP Photo/Courtesy The Auburn Plainsman)

In Marietta, the hometown of slain Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk, a rabbi asked hundreds of people gathered at her funeral to turn their anger into something positive and let the justice system handle her killer.

Rabbi Steven Lebow said Sunday at Temple Kol Emeth that mourners should give blood or donate to charity in her memory.

"It would be easy to give way to our emotions this afternoon because there is a spectrum of feelings broiling and unsettling our souls," Lebow said. "The right thing isn't vengeance. The right thing is justice."

Burk, 18, was found shot on the side of an off-campus road Tuesday night and her car was found burning in a campus parking lot. Her car was found that night burning in a campus parking lot. A man has been charged in her death.

The mother of Courtney Lockhart, the man accused of killing Burk, offered an apology to Burk's family in a television interview, saying her son was an Iraq war veteran who was changed after his service.

"First let me say I'm sorry to the Burk family for Courtney taking, taking their child. ... My heart goes out to her family," Catherine Williams said in the tearful interview with Columbus, Ga., television station WTVM.

But she also said her son did not confess anything to her.

Mourners embrace following the funeral of slain Auburn student Lauren Burk in Marietta, Ga., on Sunday. (Tami Chappell/AP)

(The Associated Press)

Suspect admits to Burk killing

A man charged with the murder of Marietta resident and Auburn University student, 18-year-old Lauren Burk has admitted to the killing, according to police and school officials.

Courtney Lockhart, charged with capital murder in the abduction and shooting death of Auburn University student Lauren Burk. (AP Photo/Auburn Police Department)

"According to arrest affidavits read Monday, March 10, 2008, in Lee County Circuit Court, suspect Courtney Larrell Lockhart confessed to police in the case of Auburn student Lauren Burk's death, which led to the capital murder charges filed against him on Saturday, March 8." a university statement said.

Alabama resident Lockhart, 23, described verbally and in writing how he abducted Burk from the school grounds. He then robbed her, drove her around, told her to take her clothes off and shot her with a handgun, according to court documents.

Phenix City police arrested Lockhart on Friday. Lockhart is also suspected in an armed robbery in a Columbus department store parking lot last Thursday.

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(With the Associated Press)