The Virginia Bus Shooting, and What Followed

On Nov. 13, 2022, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. opened fire on a University of Virginia charter bus as it was parking near the Culbreth garage, according to the university’s communications account. University officials and police told CBS News that Jones had joined about two dozen others on a class trip to Washington, D.C., to see a play.

The shooting killed Virginia football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry. It wounded Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan. Hollins’s mother told CBS News that he could not yet speak but wrote his teammates’ names while trying to ask about them.

Virginia then stopped the football schedule. The university canceled its Nov. 19 home game against Coastal Carolina and later the Nov. 26 game against Virginia Tech. The Atlantic Coast Conference announced the Virginia-Virginia Tech cancellation in the wake of the shooting; Virginia canceled the Coastal Carolina game and held a memorial at John Paul Jones Arena.

Authorities initially charged Jones with three counts of second-degree murder, along with weapon-related and additional wounding counts. In 2024, he pleaded guilty in Albemarle County Circuit Court to murder and related charges. The university later described his responsibility for the shootings as not in question because of the guilty plea.

In November 2025, an Albemarle County judge sentenced Jones to five life terms plus 23 years. University of Virginia Communications reported that the judge imposed the maximum sentence in part because the victims were defenseless or sleeping and Hollins was shot while running away. Prosecutor Richard Farley said, “This was not a freak, psychotic episode. This was a criminal episode.”

A separate civil resolution involved the university. Virginia Magazine reported that the university agreed in mediation to pay $9 million in settlements to the victims’ families and survivors.