A teacher at the University of West Georgia who has since been fired has been accused of fatally shooting an incoming student, school officials said.
Richard Sigman, 47, was arrested and charged with murder shortly after Anna Jones, 18, died after being gunned down on a parking deck in Carrollton, Georgia, Carrollton Police said.
Jones was due to attend the University of West Georgia this fall, school spokesman Colton Campbell told NBC News.
“On behalf of the university, we would like to express our deepest condolences to Anna’s family and many friends,” Brendan Kelly, president of the University of West Georgia, said in a statement. “We know this news is hard to digest and affects many members of our university community.”
According to the statement, the university is assisting the Carollton Police Department with the investigation.
Police said officers were initially called to Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton around 12:30 a.m. due to reports of a woman who had been shot.
Jones was pronounced dead at the medical center, and Sigman was arrested and charged with murder, three counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm while committing a crime, police said.
Sigman was placed in the Carroll County Jail, according to police. It is unknown at this time if he has a lawyer.
Callers told police the incident took place in Adamson Square in a courthouse parking lot after Sigman got into a verbal altercation with another man at Leopoldo’s, a popular pizzeria on the square.
Police said the other man told at least one guard that Sigman had threatened to shoot him. When security approached Sigman, they saw that he had a weapon and ordered him to leave.
Sigman left and began walking to the parking deck, where he began firing into a parked vehicle and hitting Jones, police said.
“Friends immediately took her to hospital where she was pronounced dead,” police said.
A webpage featuring the school’s faculty in the Richards College of Business’s Management Department last month was named “Rick Sigman” as a teacher. His profile has since been removed from the page.
Jones had recently graduated from Mount Zion High School, school principals said in a statement posted on social media.
“Anna loved this school and community and will be sorely missed by many,” the statement said, sharing a link to a GoFundMe page set up to help cover funeral expenses.
A GoFundMe began helping the family with funeral expenses, describing Jones as “a beautiful, sweet soul” and calling the incident “a devastating and senseless crime that has broken many hearts, a community mourned and a family mourned.”
Anyone with information about the case is asked to come forward, police said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.