Profiles of students

Nicole Berns
Jenna Broderick
Samantha Brunell
Dan Ciamprone
Patrick Korellis
Monique Caspillan and Lhee Santos
Desiree Smith
Kevin Sundstrom
Jillian Thomas
Lindsay Ullmann
Chris Werve

Profiles of victims

Gayle Dubowski
Catalina Garcia
Julianna Gehant
Ryanne Mace
Daniel Parmenter

'Maybe some of them thought I didn't care'

By Vincent Pierri | Daily Herald Staff

Months after the shootings at Cole Hall, Dan Ciamprone says he's doing pretty well.

He doesn't dwell on the experience. He's not traumatized. He's not seeing a therapist. He says he's pretty much the same person that he was before it happened. His life hasn't fundamentally changed.

And for that, he's sensed some mild disapproval from some of the other students who were in the lecture hall when a 27-year-old man went on a shooting rampage.

"I didn't show as much emotion, but felt just as bad. I felt like deep down they were criticizing me for not showing that much emotion. Because of my personality, I didn't show it as much."

And it's not like Ciamprone wasn't in the thick of it. The 19-year-old journalism major from LaGrange was sitting toward the back of the room when the black-clad gunman came in and started firing rounds.

By the second shot, Ciamprone dove to the ground and crawled behind the seats. He stayed as low as he could. Peeking through spaces between the seats, Ciamprone said he watched the gunman shoot to the left and then the center.

For a brief moment, the gunfire stopped. The intruder was reloading. Sensing this might be his only chance for escape, Ciamprone bolted out of the building and ran a few hundred feet to Neptune Hall, a dorm.

"In the days after, a lot of people would ask me about it," he said. "They would be like, 'Aren't you messed up? Why not?' They were surprised by how calm I was. I think maybe some of them thought I didn't care about what happened. But I did and just as much as they did."

Ciamprone wants to be a sports writer and is hoping to work for the Northern Star, the student newspaper. He had no doubts about returning to campus this fall and has settled back into the routine of campus life.

"I think I handled the whole thing better that most people did. I think that shocks some people," he said.


	Catalina Garcia stood out among her peers. She had the potential to be a great teacher, even a great leader. That's how her former high school teachers described her after learning she died in the shooting rampage. The shootings at Northern Illinois University hit especially hard at Dundee-Crown High School with the news that one of the victims was Ryanne Mace, a 2006 graduate, well-known for her love of music. After spending more than a decade in the Army, Julianna Gehant had set her sights on a new career: Teaching. In a Christmas card, the 32-year-old woman from Mendota, had written of plans to teach second graders. Dan Parmenter was seen by his Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers as a gentle giant. At nearly 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, the Westchester native was built to excel on the football and rugby fields. Sweet and quiet is how friends and former instructors at Glenbard North High School remembered Gayle Dubowski. But put her in a choir robe and on some risers, that's where she found her voice.