TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University officials said the American woman killed in Wednesday’s mass tabbing in London was the wife of a prominent professor at the university.
Darlene Horton was in London with her husband, Richard Wagner.
Wagner taught in the summer session at the university’s London Study Program.
Horton and five other people were attacked by a knife-wielding 19-year-old man in Russell Square.
She died at the scene.
Police said Thursday that it wasn't terrorism — but in a city on edge after a summer of attacks elsewhere in Europe, both authorities and London residents initially responded as if it were. Police flooded the streets with extra officers and mobilized counterterror detectives before saying the shocking burst of violence appeared to have been "triggered by mental-health issues."
Police officers used a stun gun to subdue the 19-year-old suspect at the scene of the stabbings late Wednesday, among busy streets lined with hotels close to the British Museum.
James Pitts, director of FSU International Programs, said students already had left the program for the summer, and none were involved in the incident at Russell Square.
Pitts said that university administrators in London immediately offered assistance to Wagner. The couple had planned to return to Tallahassee Thursday, Pitts said.
"There are no words to express our heartache over this terrible tragedy," said FSU President John Thrasher. "We are shocked that such senseless violence has touched our own FSU family, and we will do all we can to assist Professor Wagner and his loved ones, as well as his friends and colleagues in the Psychology department, as they mourn."
Wagner holds the W. Russell and Eugenia Morcom Chair in Psychology.
Cox Media Group
