Loretta Young, Patrick Pryor: Columbus Couple Killed By Campus Killer Carlo Owens On Investigation Discovery

Loretta Young and Patrick Pryor, a Columbus, Ohio, couple, were murdered near the campus of Ohio State University in 1999. Their story will be aired on Investigation Discovery’s crime series Detective. The killer was Carlo Lamarr-Marquis Owens, and the episode chronicling his story is “Campus Killer.” The Ohio story will be dramatized and will provide commentary about the real events.

According to ID’s Detective, police were dispatched to the scene at an off-campus apartment complex on W Norwich Avenue. They found two victims with multiple gunshot wounds to the body. In apartment 130, Loretta Young, 21, was already dead. Her boyfriend, Patrick Pryor, 20, was transported to the local hospital, where he died from his injuries.

The double homicide baffled police as they tried to pinpoint who could have done it and why. The community was gripped with worry, and a public meeting had to be held to talk safety and assuage residents’ fears.

Meanwhile, police followed up on any leads they had that could help crack the case. In the beginning, there did not seem to be an apparent motive. There was no sign that anyone had tried to break into the apartment, and it didn’t appear that anything was missing. The double murders were eventually connected to a rash of burglaries and robberies that had occurred throughout the campus.

Witnesses kept describing the same man — a tall, thin black man. One witness told cops that a man showed up out of nowhere with a gun. Then he made the victim go into his own apartment, where he was robbed. Matt Robinson told The Lantern the following circumstances.

“He told me to shut the trunk and asked where I lived. I told him I was visiting and he said to take him there. He entered the unlocked back door with the gunman waving the pistol behind him.He took about $40 from me, then shoved me in the bathroom. I was pretty freaked.The gunman asked me for money,” he said. “I told him I spent it all, and he could take what he wanted then to get the f*** out.”

It came as a surprise when the killer was identified as Carlo Marquis Owens, a former prep school and Ohio State University student who had a positive future ahead of him. Four cigars tied him to the crimes, The Lantern continued.

Investigators believe that a series of disappointments led Carlo Lamarr-Marquis Owens to the crime. He came from a broken childhood background, which included a mother who struggled with alcohol addiction and abusive men. Carlo Owens’ mother also suffered from emotional problems and once tried to commit suicide. Court records also show that in 1998, she was arrested for trying to kill another person.

The Claremont Killer, the serial killer I arrested was featured on Investigation Discovery "Murder by Numbers." https://t.co/Qs44s1Dlmc pic.twitter.com/KAaRHwvZh2

— Steven David Lampley (@StevenLampley) April 7, 2017

But despite his background, Carlo Lamarr-Marquis Owens had made goals for himself. He attended college but fell on hard times when he had to quit the ROTC training program. When he resigned from the program, he lost his funding for college tuition. And when he wasn’t able to pay for his own education, he turned to a life of crime.

The Reserve Officer Training Corps program allows students to train for entry into the U.S. military. It would have most likely prepared Carlo Owens with what he needed to secure a normal future for himself.

For the deaths of Loretta Young and Patrick Pryor, prosecutors had eyed the death penalty for Carlo Owens, who had pleaded not guilty but later changed his plea in exchange for a life sentence.

Watch the case of the campus killer when it airs this Friday, May 5, at 10/9 p.m. Central on the Investigation Discovery channel. Recently, the Inquisitr covered the case of another double homicide case. Read about that one here.

[Featured Image by Ohio Department of Corrections]