I found your ‘Spooky Miami' story interesting, since I was a freshman in Reid Hall and was watching TV with Roger Sayles (not Sales), my resident assistant (RA), in the rec room on the ground floor shortly before he died.
I lived on the second floor and returned shortly before the shooting. You are correct in the fact that there was an argument between Herb Lucas and Jimmy Walker who lived down the hall. At that point, Roger was not even around. There was a shot. Herb Lucas shot Jimmy, the bullet passed through Jimmy Walker's neck, lodging between the window and the screen. Roger Sayles at that moment came up from watching TV and entered the second floor corridor. Lucas ran past our dorm room, we had slammed the door at that point. Another two shots and Roger died instantly.
Roger Sayles died instantly on the spot in the middle of the hall, not near a dorm room door where there could be a handprint. No one saw the actual shooting of Roger. He was honored as an RA who died in the line of duty.
My guess is, when he turned the corner to enter the hall he probably put his hand up to slow down Lucas who was running from the first shooting. Roger could not have heard the first shot, as he was not up there yet. Herb Lucas was at that point desperate and would have shot anyone in his way. Roger was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The police borrowed my extension cord to take pictures of the crime scene. The next day, the two fathers of the boys, Mr. Lucas and Mr. Sayles, met in the hall and Mr. Lucas apologized to Mr. Sayles for his son's actions.
I know there is supposed to be a bloody handprint in the archives, but if there is, I do not believe it is Roger's. That was Mother's Day weekend. I lived in that room for the rest of the semester, there were no ghosts or bloody handprints. That shooting was on a Friday night. As a freshman, I had six 8 a.m. classes.
Saturday, on the way to class, there were police with weapons at the intersection of various campus paths. Shortly after 8 a.m., one of the women in the class who knew the woman that Lucas was upset about, came running in and said that they found Lucas in Ogden Hall in a phone booth where he had shot himself.
Herbert Lucas lingered for a number of days before he died. The only survivor in this tragedy was Jimmy Walker, who Herb Lucas attempted to kill, but he missed so many classes that he dropped out of school. That is the real story of what happened in Reid Hall.
I left the dorm for that night and stayed with my parents who had come down for the weekend. I guess you could not blame me. A Catholic Chapel in the Sesquicentennial Chapel was later dedicated to Roger Sayles.
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