Confusion surrounds identity of college killer

A man who shot and killed his estranged girlfriend at the University of Washington in Seattle used at least three aliases and two passports, according to media reports in the US.

The killer of Rebecca Griego, 26, has been identified as British man Jonathan Rowan, 41, although the international police agency Interpol in Britain has been asked to provide verification, campus police said.

Rowan entered the United States legally with a green card in 1996, but whether the passports belonged to him was less clear, assistant police chief Wittmier said.

"This identity may have been stolen," he said.

Trying to escape from Rowan, Griego changed her mobile phone number, moved and early last month sought a restraining order, posting his picture around her office so co-workers could serve him with the papers if he showed up.

After shooting her dead on Monday at her office, Rowan turned the gun on himself.

People who did know him told the newspapers that he talked of having been a professional ice skater, of his family having owned an international hotel chain, of having been jailed in France for trying to smuggle champagne and of crossing the IRA and being threatened by the IRA with death if he returned to England.