Garissa , Kenya ( CNN ) Freshly laundered clothes still hang Friday in the dormitory at Garissa University College . Stuffed animals remain in one room . On the wall in another hangs a poster on proper preparation for Muslim prayer . These small reminders of college life at this Kenyan school belie the horror of what happened here : the slaughter of at least 147 people , many of them students who lived in this building . On Friday afternoon , more than 36 hours after the attack , investigators and Kenya Red Cross crews were finishing up the task of removing the bodies of dead students . The corpses of four Al-Shabaab attackers -- dressed head to toe in black and still clutching their AK-47s -- remained where they fell , their bodies shattered in a torrent of bullets . Kenya terrorist attack : 6 things you need to know . Investigators marked the locations of students ' bodies with numbered tags before Red Cross workers came in to send them off to morgues . They would call out to each other with the locations of the dead , reducing once promising lives , for the time being at least , to numbers . 221 . 214 . 216 . 217 . Sometimes , the cell phones of the dead would ring , taking the workers aback . Beyond the bodies , evidence of what had happened at the dormitory was everywhere . Shattered glass and shell casings littered the floor . Walls and ceilings were marred by bullet holes . In some places , the blood was as thick as mud . The problems plaguing Kenya 's security efforts . According to students and authorities , militants burst onto the campus around 5 a.m. Thursday . The gunmen , from the Al-Shabaab terror group , first stormed a Christian prayer service , killing some students , taking others hostage . They rampaged across the campus , shooting non-Muslims , sparing Muslims , a witness said . One student , Hellen Titus , told CNN she hid inside a wardrobe for nearly an hour before the gunmen came for her . Come out , they told her , you wo n't be shot . `` They were lying , '' she said . The gunmen herded her and maybe three dozen other students into a community room where they 'd usually hang out and watch television . They were told to lie down , lectured about how the Quran forbids killing women . And then the men , Titus said , were shot in the head . One of the gunmen egged on the others . `` Shoot them ! Shoot them ! '' he would say , according to Titus . More lecturing : the land , the gunmen said , did n't belong to nonbelievers . We , the gunmen said , have just two missions : to kill , and be killed . And then they started shooting the women . `` Anyone who is breathing , shoot them , '' Titus said the gunman in charge said . `` We just lay there hopelessly , because we know automatically we 're going to be killed , '' Titus said . It was then she saw the blood of a fellow student coursing toward her on the floor . She smeared it onto her face and body to make it appear she , too , was dead . `` In the time of shooting , they skipped me , '' she said . She survived with only a hand wound . Many of the other students were shot in the back of the head , a medic told CNN . Others had been beheaded , according to people who had viewed bodies at the morgue in Chiromo . Even longtime relief workers such as Reuben Nyaora with the International Rescue Committee said they were shocked at what they saw . `` I have seen many things , '' Nyaora told Agence France-Presse , `` but nothing like that . '' Opinion : A weakened Al-Shabaab lashes out . CNN 's Michael Pearson wrote from Atlanta . CNN 's David McKenzie and Lillian Leposo reported from Kenya . CNN 's Dominique van Heerden and Soni Methu contributed to this report .
Shell casings , glass and blood stains litter dorm at Garissa University College . At least 147 died in Thursday attack at the Muslims college .