"This is the kind of event that I think shakes a campus to the core," said Abbey Thompson, a graduate student, told The (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer.

Police identified the body as Eve Carson, a senior from Athens, Ga., Thursday, the same day they located her car parked in a residential neighborhood not far from where her body was discovered Wednesday. She had reportedly been short several times.

Administrators had available a team of 30 counselors to help students talk through their sadness. Duke University offer a dozen more.

"I join the entire UNC community in mourning the tragic death of Eve Carson," North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said in a statement. "There are few other words that can express the sorrow of such a promising life ended so soon and so violently."