A unity walk on the University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus Monday afternoon signaled the first step in the healing process for a community still reeling from the news that three people died on campus in the span of one week.

“Healing will take time. Rebuilding the trust and safety of our campus will take time, but we are in this together,” UCCS Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet told hundreds of people — mostly university students, staff and faculty — who gathered at the heart of campus in the El Pomar Plaza.

Man, woman found dead at UCCS campus identified

Earlier in the afternoon the crowd marched, mostly in solemn silence and carrying flowers and paper signs reading “UCCS Strong” and “Mountain Lion Strong,” from the Roaring Fork dining hall on campus to the plaza in what the university called a “healing walk” to honor the lives of three people, including two students, who died on campus last week.

Just before 6 a.m. on Friday, UCCS police received a shots-fired call from the Crestone House dormitory on campus. When they located the room the shots reportedly came from, they found a man and a woman dead inside of apparent gunshots, police said.

The official cause and manner of their respective deaths have not yet been released, but local law enforcement is investigating them as homicides.

The El Paso County Coroner’s Office over the weekend autopsied and identified the victims: Celie Rain Montgomery, 26, of Pueblo, and Samuel Knopp, 24, of Parker, according to a Sunday news release from police.

Colorado Springs police identify suspect arrested in connection to UCCS double homicide

Earlier on Monday, Colorado Springs police announced they arrested a suspect in connection with Friday’s double homicide, 25-year-old Nicholas Jordan of Detroit.

The deaths of Knopp and Montgomery added to what was already a tragic week for UCCS. On Feb. 12, Mia Brown, a senior in the nursing program, died suddenly of a medical emergency at the campus recreation center.

Students who participated in Monday’s walk said it was a chance for them to unite and support each other in their grief.

“It’s a sense of community on campus, for all of us to come together to walk in spite of this situation,” UCCS freshman Skylar Kloes said.

Friends and faculty remembered Knopp as a friendly and well-known face on campus.

A senior music student, Knopp was an “extraordinary guitarist and total virtuoso,” recalled Glen Whitehead, a music professor and chairman of the UCCS Music, Visual and Performing Arts department.

“He was such a bright, enthusiastic person and he could make friends with literally anyone,” said Andrew Alvey, a UCCS junior and a friend of Knopp’s.

UCCS student dies at campus gym after medical emergency

Students also remembered nursing student Brown as a vibrant and lively person.

“She really lit up the room. She always had a bubbly personality,” said Rhianna Broeker, a UCCS freshman who was in the same sorority, Pi Beta Phi, with Brown.

According to her memorialized LinkedIn profile, Montgomery, who was not a registered student at the university, was a freelance copywriter.

The Gazette’s attempts to reach family members and friends of Knopp’s and Montgomery’s, who identified themselves as such on social media sites like Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter), were unsuccessful Monday.

At the end of the march students laid flowers on the landmark mountain lion statue in the El Pomar Plaza and wrote messages of love and remembrance on paper signs.

UCCS Student Body President Axel Brown, UCCS Chief of Police Dewayne McCarver and Sobanet agreed the last week was the most tragic in the university’s history since it opened in 1965.

In 2015, the university also mourned the loss of UCCS police officer Garrett Swasey, who was killed in the line of duty when he responded to calls of an active shooter at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Nov. 27 of that year.

“As painful as this has been for all of us … this has been incredibly unifying, in my eyes,” McCarver told the crowd Monday. “We’re going through a tragedy together. We are going to face it together and we’re going to come out stronger together.”

The university will erect a formal memorial for its students Knopp and Mia Brown in the University Center on campus.