The father of one of the children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting died by apparent suicide Monday morning at a community center building in Newtown, Connecticut, police said.

Jeremy Richman, 49, was found unresponsive at Edmond Town Hall around 7 a.m. Monday, a Newtown Police Department spokesman told HuffPost. An electrician doing work in the building discovered his body, police said.

Richman is the father of Avielle, a 6-year-old who was among the 20 children killed in the mass shooting. Richman, a neuro-pharmacologist, founded the Avielle Foundation, which has an office in Edmond Town Hall. The foundation focused on studying the neuroscience of violence and compassion.

The foundation released a statement Monday in which it called Richman a “champion.” According to its release:

Our hearts are shattered, and our heads are struggling to comprehend. Jeremy was a champion father, husband, neuroscientist and, for the past seven years, a crusader on a mission to help uncover the neurological underpinnings of violence through the Avielle Foundation, which he and his wife, Jennifer Hensel, founded after the death of their daughter, Avielle, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Connecticut’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told HuffPost it would not release any details related to Richman’s death until Tuesday afternoon.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Richman a “good friend” in a tweet mourning his death. The senator said he had met with Richman recently to talk about the Avielle Foundation’s work on “better research into the brain’s violence triggers.”