University records indicate the Evans Hall shooting was the first actual murder to take place on Mississippi State University’s campus.
According to the Office of Student Affairs, the March 24 shooting marked an exception in MSU’s history as a generally safe campus. 
Bill Kibler, vice president for student affairs at MSU, said MSU is considered exceptionally safe relative to other universities. He also said MSU publishes data on campus crime regularly.
“It’s actually a federal requirement that we publish our crime statistics, and we do that,” he said.
Amanda Carlock, library associate, said MSU is certainly not known for criminals or illegal activity.
“However, we have two notorious students that people ask about,” she said.
The first of these, Carlock said, is George Barnes, who later changed his name to George “Machine Gun” Kelly to evade law enforcement officers.
According to information on file in the university archives, his mother encouraged him to attend MSU and wrote a letter to the university that eventually led to his enrollment.
His records show he spent only part of his freshman year at MSU before dropping out because he accumulated an unprecedented number of demerits. 
The archives also contained reports that his wife Kathryn, who gave him the nickname “Machine Gun,” encouraged him to turn to a life of crime and helped him go down in history as an infamous Depression-era gangster.
The other notorious student on file at the archives is Morris Cohen, a native New Yorker who came to MSU to play football.
His records reveal that after a knee injury, he worked as a trainer for the football team until he graduated in 1934. 
The archived files indicate that he became a reporter for a Memphis newspaper before funneling American atomic blueprints from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the U.S.S.R. The files on Cohen also describe his recruitment of  an American scientist to leak the crucial documents.
According to the archives, his work led to the Soviets’ swift duplication of American atomic bombs, helping to spawn the nuclear arms race. 
The following is a brief summary of recorded crimes on the MSU campus as provided by the university archives:
March 19, 1988: At least $10,000 was stolen from an ATM on campus. The thief forced an employee of Deposit Guaranty National Bank to open the machine. The thief then grabbed the cash and fled.
November 16, 1989: After a high-speed chase through the university campus, police arrested a 24-year old man from Houston, Texas.  He was charged with grand theft auto, resisting arrest and possession of burglary tools. The man was part of an interstate auto and car parts theft ring.
September 17, 1993: A freshman student made a pipe bomb filled with gunpowder. It was found inside a clothes dryer in Sessums Hall. The student turned himself in.
October 8, 1997: Two Mississippi State students were arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to sell.
September 1, 1998: Mississippi State football players Kevin Cooper, Craig Moore, Lahitia Grant and Kenzaki Jones were arrested on assault charges. They had become involved in an altercation on the first day of classes at what was described as a “welcome-back party” sponsored by an unnamed student organization.
October 26, 1999: A lone student was attacked on the walkway connecting the MSU campus to University Commons. He was severely beaten and was sent to the hospital in critical condition.
Mike Ballard, coordinator of the Congressional and Political Research Center and University Archivist, said accurate records from years ago often can be difficult to track down.
“A lot of this stuff goes way back before the Internet,” he said.