Lynch, 19, who is now a sophomore at UVA, previously attended Hampton University. At an audition during a campus fashion show earlier in the semester, she first got to know student-athlete Christopher Jones.

They both became too busy to participate, and neither took part. On the Sunday trip to Washington, D.C., about 2.5 hours away from the UVA campus in Charlottesville, the two got back in touch.

After the performance, Lynch made sure to find out how Jones was doing.  He wasn’t enrolled in this class but took another of the professor’s classes and had been invited to sit in.

Lynch told The Daily Beast that she thought the play may have been too profound for him, so she made an effort to strike up a convo on the bus after.

“I thought it might have been a little deep for him, so I went out of my way to speak to him on the bus afterward,” Lynch revealed to the outlet.

Authorities said Jones drew a firearm and gunned down three UVA student-athletes as the bus returned to campus about 30 minutes later. Lynch and her classmate were located at the front of the bus, near their professor who had planned the field trip.

“We were just talking, and all of sudden, we heard loud popping noises,” Lynch expressed. “We thought it was like, chips or balloons; we didn’t know what it was. I had never even heard gunshots before; I was so confused… And then, all of a sudden, this huge cloud of smoke filled the bus.”

Lynch recalled that she thought a shooter had boarded the bus at first. However, the bus hadn’t stopped, so that wasn’t possible.

After hearing the fourth shot, she and her friend dropped to the ground. She had covered herself with her jacket and a blanket to try to hide from the danger.

She vividly recalls the gunfire, going off in the back of the bus and heading closer to them. It was truly a terrifying moment.

Lynch and her classmate both believed everybody on the bus had been struck. She made that assumption because she heard a number of gunshots.

Lynch claims that she could not hear the screams because the overwhelming volume caused her brain to “tune that out.”

“We were scared to get off because there were shots coming up the aisle of the bus,” she said. “[Then] Chris came up so slow, we thought he was going to shoot us, too. Then he got off the bus, [and] he shot the gun outside the bus.”

Lynch’s friend overheard Jones say, “F y’all,” right before he ran off.

Lavel Davis Jr., D’Sean Perry, and Devin Chandler are the three young men who were killed. They were all football players for the University of Virginia.

According to reports, Jones was a walk-on running back for the 2018 UVA football team. He did not get any game time. So far, police have not identified a reason for the murders.

Lynch sadly explained how she and a friend tried in vain to save Davis’ life as he lay bleeding in the aisle of the bus on Sunday. Davis, Perry, and Chandler were all students in Lynch’s African-American Theater class.

Lynch couldn’t get to Perry and Chandler due to them being in the back of the bus. To not move a gunshot victim was a lesson she’d learned early on. 

Realizing  Davis’s pulse was beginning to fade, they rushed to find help. They called 911 and then ran into the UVA theater building, where they hid in a restroom until the police arrived.

The school sent out an “active shooter” alert, but Jones would remain at large for another 12 hours. 

Blavity reported that around 11 a.m. on Monday, he was captured in Henrico County, Virginia, 77 miles away from the University of Virginia.

“It was so scary—we didn’t know if Chris was coming back to shoot us,” Lynch said. “We had to be quiet because we didn’t know if Chris was still around. No one knew his plan or what his intentions were.”

Once they were safe, Lynch recalled the unsettling aftereffects.

“We all just sat with each other, crying, hearing each other’s stories and what we saw,” she said.

Lynch said those boys did nothing to deserve such fate. She described them as compassionate and kind guys who were always telling jokes. 

She said the young men lit up the room and inspired her to come to the African-American Theater class.  She also shared her sadness saying they were all a close group who shared personal experiences with each other.

Despite having a rough upbringing, Jones turned out to be a top student at his high school. His father abandoned the family when he was five, and he and his mother had a strained relationship. In 2016 he moved in with his grandmother.

Jones was honored with the Dr. Porcher L. Taylor, Jr. Scholastic Award and a scholarship to the University of Virginia (UVA), in July 2018.

Lynch told CBS Philadelphia in a separate interview that Jones stood up, pushed Davis, and then drew his gun at him while saying that the guys were always picking on him.

Due to an internal investigation, it was discovered that in February 2021, Jones had been convicted of a misdemeanor concealed weapons violation but had failed to inform UVA administrators.

During a press conference on Monday, UVA Police Chief Timothy J. Longo said that administrative charges were pending through the university’s judiciary council.

According to UVA President Jim Ryan, the university has made counseling and support services available to all students, faculty and staff.

Lynch has found it difficult to wrap her head around the deaths of her friends, but she must now find a way to refocus on her studies.

“I have no words,” she told The Daily Beast.