No-contest plea in stabbing of girl
Ex-Virginia Tech student from Columbia now faces sentence of life plus 15 years
CHRISTIANSBURG, VA. – A former Virginia Tech student entered a no-contest plea Friday to charges that he brutally stabbed a 13-year-old girl he met online, a move that abruptly ended his trial in the high-profile murder case.
David Eisenhauer, 20, entered his plea in Montgomery County Circuit Court to charges of first-degree murder, abduction and concealing a dead body in the death of Nicole Lovell, a seventh-grade student at Blacksburg Middle School he met in an anonymous chat room.
The unexpected plea came after the opening days of a trial in which prosecutors said the onetime engineering student had searched the internet for ways to dispose of a body, that blood was found in his car and that his DNA was under Nicole’s fingernails.
Nicole’s tearful mother had taken the witness stand, recounting the morning in January 2016 that she realized her daughter had disappeared after slipping out her bedroom window.
The prosecution told jurors in opening statements Tuesday that Eisenhauer killed Nicole and dumped her body across the border in North Carolina because he was worried about his relationship with an David Eisenhauer, right, next to his defense attorney Tony Anderson, during the hearing in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Christiansburg, Va., on Friday. underage girl.
A no-contest plea means Eisenhauer, while not admitting to the crimes, would no longer fight the prosecution’s case.
Judge Robert Turk told him he faced a sentence of as much as life plus 15 years for the convictions.
Prosecutors said in court Friday that, had the trial continued, they would have presented testimony of incriminating chat logs between Eisenhauer and an alleged accomplice, another former Virginia Tech student.
Nicole’s mother, Tammy Weeks, was shaking as she read remarks after the plea.
“I was blessed to be Nicole’s mother. To be her friend for 13 years. We fought every fight together but this last one,” Weeks said.
She said her daughter “will always rest in our hearts, and no amount of time will ever change that.”
Eisenhauer’s plea brings “some resolution and some justice” to Nicole’s death, which shocked the Blacksburg and Virginia Tech communities, Montgomery County, Va., Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt said at the news conference Friday.
“The justice system is just incapable of healing this loss for Nicole’s family, Nicole’s friends or the community,” Pettitt said.
“We all suffer with the loss of this little girl.”
Pettitt declined to answer questions and noted she still has another defendant to try in connection to the murder.
Natalie Keepers, who was Eisenhauer’s friend and classmate at Virginia Tech, is charged with accessory to murder before the fact and concealing a dead body and is scheduled to go on trial in September.
“Today there were no winners,” Blacksburg Police Chief Anthony Wilson said at the news conference.
“If we had won, we wouldn’t be in this room, and Nicole would be in Blacksburg Middle School where she belongs.”
The defense had tried to shift the blame of the murder to Keepers, saying she had admitted to police her involvement in the murder with the “sole exception” of being at the scene.
Defense attorney John Lichtenstein said Keepers’ involvement brought into question: “Who actually committed this murder?”
An attorney representing Keepers has declined to comment on the defense’s statements.