On the morning of Jan. 1, 2000, sometime between 7 and 7:30 a.m., the phone in Lou Hencken’s office rang. Hencken, then the vice president for student affairs, thought he knew the news awaiting him.

For months leading up to the New Year, Eastern, as well as anyone who owned a computer, had been preparing itself for the threat of Y2K. When the phone rang that morning, Hencken said he immediately thought it would be bad news, something perhaps had gone wrong with the computers on campus, maybe the university had not prepared enough.

The New Year came and went and Y2K proved to be nothing more than a myth. However, the news awaiting Hencken on the other end of the line was far worse.

An Eastern student had been killed.

On the night of Dec. 31, 1999, Amy Blumberg, a junior family and consumer sciences major and member of Sigma Kappa sorority, was working in her uncle’s retail store in O’Fallon.

Amy’s friends were expecting her to close the store and meet with them at the regular time. But after several phone calls went unanswered, they became worried. Amy’s father went to the store, On Stage Dance Apparel, and found his daughter lying on the floor, the victim of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Blumberg’s family and friends, as well as those on Eastern’s campus, would spend the next seven years waiting and worrying.

Waiting for her killer to be brought to justice. Waiting for anything that could make some kind of sense of the seemingly senseless act.

After the better part of a decade, the Blumberg family can stop worrying.

The aftermath

Just days after Blumberg’s death, a memorial service was held in Collinsville, Blumberg’s hometown. As the service was about to begin, two buses full of Eastern faculty, staff and students arrived to pay their respects to a fallen Eastern student. The sentiment did not go unnoticed by Blumberg’s parents and family.

“I was amazed at how two bus-loads of students on Christmas Break, from all over the place would get together like that,” said Sue Blumberg, Amy’s mother.

Several of Amy’s sorority sisters and friends filed into the memorial service. They formed a large circle as “Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks played. The song was a “signature” of Amy’s, her mother said.

“That is a moment I will never forget,” she said. “(The support of Amy’s friends) has really been a source of strength over the years. It has really been such a source of comfort.”

Soon after the incident, police and investigators began trying to assemble some sort of idea what had happened. The Sigma Kappa house was searched and her sorority sisters questioned.

It was a time of fear and confusion on Eastern’s campus, Hencken said.

“In Shannon McNamara’s case, the suspect was captured within hours,” he said. “For Amy Blumberg it took years.”

That lack of closure is one that had never left Hencken.

“In my time at Eastern, as president, vice president and even director of student housing, when a student died, even in an auto accident, you want some sense of closure. This was the one incident where there was never any closure,” Hencken said.

Now there is.

Finally charged, ‘The tension was sickening’

In 2003, Robert Haida, St. Claire County state’s attorney, charged Edward Phillips, 41, with Blumberg’s murder. For three years the case unfolded, revealing twists and turns along the way, and finally, after a three-day deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict: guilty.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that cheers erupted from the crowd assembled in the courtroom while Phillips displayed no emotion. That jubilation was absent in Sue Blumberg, Amy’s mother, though. She used only one word to describe her feeling as the verdict was read.

“Relief,” she said. “(Leading up to the verdict) it was a very emotionally charged time. The tension was sickening.”

But in a room filled with Amy’s family and friends, the verdict came back as they all had hoped. Amy’s killer had been brought to justice.

“This was seven years coming,” Sue Blumberg said. “(I felt) total thankfulness and relief.”

For Hencken, the verdict means justice has been served for an Eastern student.

“I hope this brings closure for (the Blumberg family),” he said. “You never get over losing a son or daughter, you just try to deal with it the best you can.”

For the Blumberg family, it is a time they can finally put behind them.

“Really, there is no closure when you lose a child,” Sue Blumberg said. “There will always be a missing part of your family. There will always be a hole that will never be filled. But it has given us a sense of peace knowing that part of the trial is over.

“Now we can remember and celebrate the life of Amy without thinking about the trial. But (the verdict) does help.”

Of the 12,500 students on Eastern’s campus, most likely few remain who remember Amy Blumberg, but that doesn’t mean she has been forgotten, Hencken said.

The Blumberg family has established two scholarships in Amy’s name, the Amy Blumberg Memorial Scholarship, which is given to a graduating Sigma Kappa sorority member and another established for Charleston High School and Collinsville High School graduates attending Eastern.

And in the Memorial Courtyard in the Booth Library Quad, there is a bench with Amy’s name on it, memorializing her for all to see.

“There are good things that can come from bad,” Sue Blumberg said. “It doesn’t take away the hurt but you try to find the good. That is how we have survived it.”