Virginia Tech Shooting Victim Had Strong Ties To Region

The last thing Heidi Lynn Childs wrote on her Facebook page was a bible passage, from Colossians.

“To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

Childs, 18, and her boyfriend, David Lee Metzler, 19, were found shot to death in the Jefferson National Forest, 15 miles from Virginia Tech where they were both sophomores. She grew up in Abingdon.

“This takes our breath away,” said Greg Alderman, associate pastor of Abingdon Bible Church, where the family attended services for more than a
decade. “Heidi was a wonderful young lady: fun loving, quick to laugh, a great friend and very loyal. Some people go to church, some people read the Bible.

Others have the Bible in them. It’s the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. Heidi was a young lady who walked the walk.”

The teenagers were found Thursday morning by a man out walking his dog in the gravel parking lot of a campground and wildlife viewing area popular
among Virginia Tech students. Metzler’s body was inside his 1992 blue Toyota Camry. Childs was found outside of the car. Autopsies are being performed, but Montgomery County Sheriff Lt. Brian Wright said they believe both were shot late Wednesday or early Thursday. He said it appears to be a random crime, and they have no suspects.

Childs, home-schooled in Abingdon, moved to Forest, Va., with her family about four years ago. Her father, Sgt. Donald Childs, has been a helicopter pilot with the Virginia State Police for 20 years, Alderman said. She had seven siblings, and fell somewhere in the middle. 

She met Metzler at Heritage Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. Both were active in Campus Crusade for Christ at Virginia Tech.

Heritage senior pastor Jerry Kroll said Childs played guitar in the praise band and traveled overseas with youth mission trips to build churches and minister to orphans. She had a big heart, he said, especially for children.

“Our whole church is in agony right now,” Kroll said. “By God’s grace we’ll make it through. We are in deep sorrow, but thankful because the Bible says, ‘to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.’ That certainly brings us hope.”

Childs was a biochemistry major and her boyfriend was studying industrial and systems engineering.

Alderman said they received word of Childs’ death Thursday evening just before the formal announcement was made. He hurried to call members of his close-knit Abingdon congregation that he knew were special friends of the Childs family. Alderman’s son, who has known Childs since nursery school, broke the news to her young friends scattered across the county.

“Those were hard conversations,” Alderman said. “But they needed to hear from a person, so they wouldn’t be blindsided by it on the news. There’s no easy way. Words fail you, the English language is very insufficient at a time like this.”

They’ve created a prayer chain to send cards and condolences to the family, and are looking into arrangements to travel to Lynchburg for the funeral. They might even charter a bus.

Kroll said the young couple will have back-to-back services Monday afternoon at the Heritage Baptist Church, 219 Breezewood Drive, in Lynchburg. There will be a 1 p.m. service for Metzler, followed by a 3 p.m. service for Childs. They are being buried in the same cemetery in Forest, and will have a united procession following Childs’ funeral.

“They were very Godly young people and will be missed dearly,” Kroll said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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