A University of Washington student was fatally stabbed in the laundry room of an off-campus student residential building, and authorities were hunting the attacker, Seattle police said on Monday.

Campus police responded to a report of a stabbing around 10 p.m. Sunday at Nordheim Court, a student housing complex less than a mile from the university, and found the 19-year-old student dead, the Seattle Police Department said in a news release.

At 10:40 p.m. Sunday, the university issued an alert asking students at the housing complex to stay inside with their windows and doors locked. The order was lifted at 1 a.m.

The Seattle police said in a news release that they were searching for a man suspected in the killing. They were working alongside the University of Washington Police Department, said Brian Pritchard, a spokesman for the city department.

The victim, Mr. Pritchard said, was a transgender woman, though he did not say whether the police believed that played any role in the crime, or whether a hate crime investigation was underway.

In a statement on Monday, the University of Washington president, Robert J. Jones, described the killing as a “devastating act of violence.”

“There are no words that can express the profound loss of a student,” Mr. Jones said. “While investigators have not yet identified a suspect or a motive, I want to recognize that when violence affects a member of our L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, it can cause additional distress.”

The King County Medical Examiner’s Office said that the identity of the student killed wasn’t available on Tuesday morning.