Manhunt continues for CMU student suspected of murdering parents

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. (WJBK) - A student is accused of shooting and killing his parents in a dorm and believed to be at large. 

That suspect, James Eric Davis Jr. is on the run, the search is underway and his classmates are trying to make sense of what happened. 

Officers from a number of police departments are still hard at work while the college was on the eve of spring break starting and tragedy for an Illinois family. 

A college town is on edge as the search for a killer stretched into Friday night. James Davis Jr. is a 19-year-old student who killed his parents, Diva and James Davis Sr., inside his dorm. James Davis, Sr., 48, was a part-time police officer in Illinois, his mother, 47, a flight attendant. 

"People on the third floor heard the shots go off," said Katie Suhy, CMU student. 

The shooting forced the university to go into lockdown, students sheltered in class and in dorms for hours. 

Christina Holtz did not get the green light to pick up her daughter until late Friday night.

"Thank God that she's here and she's safe," Holz said. "We're blessed."

Police searched for Davis in every building at Central Michigan, then took the manhunt off-campus.

"There has been canines, they searched our driveway," Suhy said. "Like an hour ago people came to our door, cops knocking, asking if we had seen him."

As investigators search for a killer, students are searching for a motive.

"We were all just like confused as to why he did what he did," said Shelby Thompson, a CMU student. "People were saying like they were just playing basketball with him a couple of days earlier or even last night or they were hanging with him last night and it didn't seem like anything was wrong with him."

But police say they received a call about Davis Thursday night that led to him being taken to the hospital for a "drug-related" incident.