Ex-boyfriend kills SHSU student, himself

A Sam Houston State University cheerleader was killed last night in an apparent murder-suicide as her roommates listened in, the Chronicle reports. It happened at the Huntsville apartment complex where Rachel Pendray, a 20-year-old from Houston, shared an apartment with three of her sorority sisters; the shooter was Jake Taylor, a guy Pendray had broken up with.

The story was that Pendray had tried to break up with Taylor, but he pursued her to the point that "it was an obsession-type thing," one of Pendray's roommates told university officials. At about 11 p.m. yesterday, Taylor showed up at the apartment and Pendray's roommates let him in; he and Pendray went into another room to talk, and a while later, the roommates heard four or five shots. They called police, who broke into the room and found both Pendray and Taylor dead. "There was no fighting, no loud noises," Huntsville police officer Gary Howze told KHOU. "Roomates said next thing they know there were four or five shots." SHSU spokesman Frank Krystyniak said Pendray was shot three or four times.

Mark Pendray, Rachel's dad, told the Chronicle this morning that his daughter was a straight-A student at Spring Woods High School, an athlete and an active church member. "All I can say is I'm very, very proud of my daughter,'' he said. "She was so full of life. She was just perfect and some fool had to come along and went and killed her.''