LARAMIE, Wyo., July 18 — The bodies of three college students were discovered by the police early Sunday morning in a modest rental house a few blocks from the University of Wyoming, sparking a convulsion of conflicted emotion and grief in this small town.

No homicide like this — with multiple victims and multiple weapons — has occurred here in at least a quarter-century, and probably longer, the police said.

Reactions to the crime have been complex, partly because so many questions remain. The police say that the people involved all knew one another and that this was not a random event that should cause fear. But that has left ample room for speculation about how the people came to be in the house that night and what happened there.

“There is no threat to the community,” Cmdr. Dale Stalder of the Laramie Police Department said in an interview. As of late Tuesday, Commander Stalder said, investigators had not decided whether to classify the crime a triple homicide or a double-murder-suicide.