<p>A 22-year-old Kennesaw State University student found dead in her off-campus apartment was the victim of a murder-suicide, and police said the apparent culprit had a history of violent behavior.</p><p>Lauren Cooper, a junior majoring in marketing, was found dead in her third-floor apartment next to the body of Kendrick Ledet, a former U.S. Marine who was convicted in 1995 of raping a 12-year-old Japanese girl.</p><p>Kennesaw Police Department spokesman Mike Brock said Cooper's parents went to their daughter's apartment in a gated community Sunday evening, worried because they hadn't heard from her in several days. Her father had to kick in the door.</p><p>When police arrived at the apartment, they found Cooper and Ledet, a 31-year-old from Smyrna who had once worked with Cooper, Brock said.</p><p>There was evidence Cooper was sexually assaulted before she was strangled and hit in the head, said Brian Frist, a Cobb County medical examiner.</p><p>"We are tremendously saddened by the news," Nancy S. King, Kennesaw State's vice president for student success and enrollment services, said in a statement.</p><p>Josh Hale, 21, a commercial builder, lives across the hall.</p><p>"It was just a surprise. You wouldn't expect something like this to happen here," he said. Cooper's parents called 911 from his apartment, he said.</p><p>Hale said he did not know Cooper but had passed her in the hallway and described her as quiet. He said he had never seen her with a man.</p><p>Ledet and two other Marines were convicted in the September 1995 rape of an Okinawa school girl, a crime that sparked mass protests against the U.S. military.</p><p>Prosecutors said the three forced the girl into a car, bound and beat her and abandoned her on a deserted road.</p><p>Outraged Okinawans, who long have been unhappy over the large military presence on their southern Japanese island, pressured the U.S. to move some of its facilities to ease the burden on the residents.</p>
