Juan Ramón Ortiz Ortiz was a native of Bayamón, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A magna cum laude graduate of the Universidad Politécnica en San Juan, he was a graduate student in civil engineering at Virginia Tech.

He was in a hydrology class in Norris Hall when he was killed.

His father, Juan Ramón Ortiz, told the Puerto Rico AP, that his son had attended Tech since August and expected to receive his master's degree in civil engineering with a concentration in water resources in December.

The youngest of three children, Ortiz was planning to start a family with his wife, Liselle, by the end of the year, his father said. The younger Ortiz had been a drummer in the family band, Los Hermanos Ortiz.

His father told the AP, "I was hoping that he would have been hidden, that he would have [only] been wounded. You always have hope. He was an extraordinary son, what every parent would have wanted."

William Knocke, head of Virginia Tech's department of civil and environmental engineering, said, "Juan was a very motivated student. He worked as a graduate teaching assistant and was always very diligent.

"I know that he and his wife had to work hard to improve their English before they came here. And I know that Dr. Loganathan (professor G.V. Loganathan, also killed in the massacre) felt he was a fine (graduate teaching assistant) and found him very dedicated."

-- Juan Antonio Lizama and Lisa Crutchfield