Gang Lu

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Gang Lu (born in Beijing) (1963 - November 1, 1991 ) (surname Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng) was a Chinese physics student enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Iowa. On Friday, November 1, 1991, using a .38 caliber revolver and also carrying a .22 caliber handgun, he shot five people to death, seriously wounded another, and then committed suicide in what is called the Gang Lu Massacre.

The people he killed were Christoph K. Goertz (his advisor), Linhua Shan (a fellow PhD student from China), Dwight R. Nicholson (department chair), Robert Alan Smith (associate professor and Lu's co-advisor), and T. Anne Cleary (Vice President for Academic Affairs). A student employee, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, was shot in her spine; this permanently paralyzed her arms and legs.

Months before, Gang Lu wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions. The university has these letters. According to university officials, four of the letters are in English and were intended to be sent to news organizations. One is in Chinese.

The real reasons for the tragedy are still unknown today because Lu's letters have not been released to the public. According to the university, Lu said in the letters that he was angry and jealous that his doctoral dissertation had not received a prestigious academic award. Linhua Shan had received the award.

Writer Jo Ann Beard later wrote an acclaimed personal essay based in part on the killings. The essay, called "The Fourth State of Matter," was originally published in The New Yorker, appeared in the 1997 edition of Best American Essays, and was later published in her collection of personal essays, The Boys of My Youth. Beard worked as an editor for a physics journal at the university and was a colleague of the victims, working closely with several of them.

Based on Gang Lu's story, director Chen Shi-zheng made a feature film, "Dark Matter," starring Liu Ye and Meryl Streep. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.^[1]

Notes

Books

• Chen, Edwin (1995). Deadly Scholarship: The True Story of Lu Gang and Mass Murder in America's Heartland. Carol Publishing Corporation. ISBN 155972241X. 

Web

• Beard, Jo Ann (1997). The Fourth State of Matter. The Boys of My Youth. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
• Eckhardt, Megan L. (November 1, 2001). 10 years later, U. Iowa remembers fatal day. The Daily Iowan. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
• Efrati, Amir (November 1, 2002). Recalling a snowy, blustery November day. The Daily Iowan (dailyiowan.com). Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
• Grabbe, Crockett (November 2, 1999). A Tree of Legacies: The UI Murders 5 Years Later. crockett-grabbe@uiowa.edu. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
• Marriott, Michel (November 3, 1991). Gunman in Iowa Wrote of Plans In Five Letters. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
• Marriott, Michel (November 4, 1991). Iowa Gunman Was Torn by Academic Challenge. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
• Overbye, Dennis (March 27, 2007). A Tale of Power and Intrigue in the Lab, Based on Real Life. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
• Allen, Mary (June 30, 2007). What's wrong with 'Dark Matter': 'Gang Lu was not a hero'. Iowa City Press-Citizen. Retrieved on 2007-06-30.