[Updated (2/11/2015, 10:42 a.m.) with a statement from the police.]

Three Muslim college students were shot and killed in an apartment near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday night, reports the Raleigh News & Observer.

Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Ms. Abu-Salha’s sister, Razan Abu-Salha, 19, were students at area colleges. Mr. Barakat was a doctoral student at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Dentistry, and Razan Abu-Salha was a student at North Carolina State University, while her sister was slated to begin studying dentistry at Chapel Hill in the fall, UNC-Chapel Hill said in a statement.

The police have charged a Chapel Hill man, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, with three counts of first-degree murder. They released a statement on Wednesday morning saying that the shooting appeared to have been “motivated by an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking.”

The local Muslim community has been shaken by the triple homicide, and many nationally have taken to social media to speculate that the shooting was religiously motivated. A Facebook page has been set up to commemorate the lives of the three victims.