Friends and family are remembering the three Michigan State University students who were killed in a shooting Monday.
They have been identified as Arielle Anderson, a junior from Grosse Point, Michigan, Brian Fraser, a sophomore also from Grosse Pointe, and Alexandria Verner, a junior from Clawson, Michigan, according to the university’s police department.
Here are their stories:
Arielle Anderson
Her aunt Chandra Davis said her family is heartbroken and struggling to deal with Anderson’s passing.
“No parent should have to bury their children. It truly hurts y’all,” she said.
Anderson’s family remembers her smile and just how hard she worked, the family told the university student paper, The State News.
“As an Angel here on Earth, Arielle was sweet and loving with an infectious smile that was very contagious. We are absolutely devastated by this heinous act of violence upon her and many other innocent victims,” her family said in a statement.
Alexandria Verner
Verner was kind, positive and “everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be,” a family friend said. She was a junior at the university studying biology, according to The State News.
“Her kindness was on display every single second you were around her,” Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger told CNN. He is friends with the Verner family and has known Alexandria, or Alex, as he called her, since she was in kindergarten.
Verner was a fantastic three-sport athlete in volleyball, basketball and softball, as well as an excellent student who was active in many leadership groups at the school, Shellenbarger said.
Verner’s family is “being about as strong as a human being can be in the face of this tragedy,” he added.
Brian Fraser
Fraser served as the president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta, the fraternity said in a statement. He was a leader and a great friend to his brothers, the Greek community and the people he interacted with on campus, the fraternity said.
Fraser was studying business at the university, the student paper said. He graduated in 2021 from Grosse Pointe South High School, according to district superintendent Jon Dean.
“How is it possible that this happened in the first place, an act of senseless violence that has no place in our society and in particular no place in school?” Dean said. “But then, it touched our community not once, but twice.”