Michigan State University students Jonah Doerr, 18, and his girlfriend, Ella Marine, were on campus when a gunman opened fire Monday night, killing three people and wounding five. Doerr, 18, the son of Lori and Thomas Doerr, a retired Butler County Common Pleas Court president judge, said he is looking forward to return to class Monday. Submitted photo

Jonah Doerr is looking forward to returning to Michigan State University on Monday, Feb. 20, to finish his freshman year after he and some friends barricaded themselves in his dorm room for several “scary” hours during a campus shooting Feb. 13 that left three students dead and five others wounded.

Doerr, 18, the son of Lori and Thomas Doerr, a retired Butler County Common Pleas Court president judge, said he feels safe at the campus in East Lansing, Mich., despite the hours of terror in which rumors spread about multiple shooters and gunshots near his dormitory.

About three hours after the first shots were reported at 8:18 p.m., the shooter, Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, was found dead off campus from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Doerr said he, his girlfriend, Ella Marine, his roommate and another friend were in his dorm room doing homework when Marine received a text message from a friend saying there was a shooting on campus.

“At first, we really didn’t think anything about it,” said Doerr, who graduated from Butler Senior High School last year.

He said their initial belief that the shooting had taken place off-campus changed about 20 minutes later when the university sent an alert saying there was an active shooter on campus, telling everybody to stay where they were and to lock their doors.