As the University of California, Santa Barbara holds a day of mourning and reflection Tuesday for the six victims killed in a murderous rampage last week, one of the parents of the students killed recounts how he found out about his daughter’s death.
Bob Weiss, whose 19-year-old daughter, Veronika, was killed outside the Alpha Phi sorority house near the university’s campus, said that he and his wife raced to the university when they didn’t receive a phone call from their daughter, who would frequently check in with the close-knit family.
While waiting from word from officials, he tracked Veronika’s cell phone online, and realized that it was still on.
“We got on her iPhone and located it in the middle of the crime scene,” Weiss told CNN.
While the phone – represented as a dot – was moving across the screen, no one was answering. “We actually were looking at her phone while they were moving her body … probably to take her to the morgue,” he recalled.
Police say Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, along with students Katherine Breann Cooper and Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez, were all killed by Elliot Rodger, 22, during a shooting spree near the university’s campus on Friday night. Rodger also stabbed to death his roommates—Cheng Yuan Hong, George Chen and Weihan Wang. He later killed himself.
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Write to Francesca Trianni at francesca.trianni@time.com