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A jury has convicted a former University of Arizona graduate student of murdering professor Thomas Meixner on campus in October 2022, the Associated Press reports.
A Pima County Superior Court jury deliberated less than three hours Tuesday before finding Murad Dervish guilty of six felony counts, including first-degree murder for shooting Meixner to death. Meixner chaired the university’s hydrology and atmospheric sciences department.
Leo Masursky, an attorney defending Dervish, argued in court that Dervish was having a psychotic episode, that the murder wasn’t premeditated and that his client was insane—arguments that, had they succeeded, could've sent Dervish to a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison, according to the AP. Prosecutor Mark Hotchkiss countered that Dervish bought the pistol he used a month before the killing.
Two 2023 reports, from a University of Arizona faculty committee and a safety and security firm that the university itself commissioned, faulted multiple university units for failing to heed numerous signs that Dervish, who had been barred from campus before the murder, remained dangerous.
The university-commissioned firm’s report said Dervish “harassed and targeted” at least five members of Meixner’s department before the murder. It said the university doesn’t “centrally coordinate training, awareness or reporting of safety and security concerns.” It also said that the University of Arizona Police Department didn’t run a background check on Dervish and failed to arrest him a week before the shooting, when he entered the UAPD station to run his new vehicle’s license plate number.
The faculty report said that, the month before the shooting, the UAPD wrote in a criminal report on Dervish’s alleged threats that “there is no indication at this time that Dervish intends to return to campus.” That was despite earlier reports to UAPD of Dervish being on campus, the faculty report said. (The police chief at the time of the shooting, Paula Balafas, resigned.)
Members of Meixner’s department reported that they took their own precautions, such as buying a bullet-proof vest and temporarily changing residences, before the murder, according to the faculty report. It said Meixner’s dying words were “I knew you were going to do this!”
