On Christmas morning in 2005, a tragic and violent event unfolded in a home in Great Falls, Virginia, claiming the life of 20-year-old Christopher James Buro. Buro, a male, was one of three victims in a horrific shooting rampage carried out by 27-year-old Nathan William Cheatham. Christopher, who had been staying at the residence of his friend, Adam Price, was found deceased in a first-floor bedroom, having sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
The devastating incident began earlier that
day at another location, where Cheatham fatally shot his own mother in McLean. He then drove to the Great Falls home on Sycamore Springs Lane, where he continued his assault. Armed with a 9mm handgun, Cheatham forced his way into the house and methodically moved from room to room, firing over 50 rounds. In addition to Christopher Buro, the other victims of the shooting at the Great Falls home were 50-year-old Janina C. Price and her 19-year-old son, Adam Sebastian Price.
The motive for Cheatham's violent actions was never definitively established, although police reports and accounts from those who knew him pointed to a history of emotional problems, drug-related arrests, and minor assault convictions. Friends of the Price family indicated that Cheatham was an acquaintance of Adam Price, but he apparently did not know Christopher Buro. The senseless violence of that Christmas morning concluded when Nathan Cheatham turned the gun on himself, ending his own life in the master bedroom of the Price's home. The Fairfax County Police Department investigated the murder-suicide, but the precise reasons behind the tragic events remain a painful mystery. A lone survivor, a 20-year-old man, managed to escape the carnage by hiding in the basement and alerting the authorities.
In the wake of the tragedy, friends and family remembered Christopher Buro as a gregarious and charming young man with a magnetic personality. A graduate of Langley High School, he had recently started a new job and was described as someone who could easily connect with people from all walks of life. His untimely and violent death left a profound void in the lives of his loved ones and the community.
