Columbia man gets 50 years in Va. killing

Former Virginia Tech student says he’s sorry for fatal stabbing of girl, 13

CHRISTIANSBURG, VA. – A former Virginia Tech student from Columbia convicted of fatally stabbing a 13-year-old girl said he was sorry Tuesday before he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

David Eisenhauer was an 18-year-old freshman studying engineering when he developed a relationship with Nicole Lovell, a seventh-grader in Blacksburg.

Prosecutor Mary Pettitt said Eisenhauer and Lovell communicated online for months before meeting at least once in person. Pettitt said they met again in January 2016, when Eisenhauer lured Lovell out of her family’s apartment with the promise of a “secret date,” then killed her because he was afraid she would expose their relationship.

Before the sentence was handed down by Judge Robert Turk, Eisenhauer, a Wilde Lake High School graduate, apologized.

“I am sorry for the pain my actions have caused for Nicole Lovell and her family,” he said.

Prosecutors asked for a life sentence, while Eisenhauer’s lawyers asked for something within sentencing guidelines that call for a prison term of between about 24 years and nearly 40 years.

Natalie Keepers, a friend of Eisenhauer’s whom prosecutors have identified as his accomplice, is scheduled to stand trial in September on charges of being an accessory before the fact and concealing a body. Prosecutors have said that Keepers, a Laurel resident and graduate of Hammond High School, told police Eisenhauer told her he feared Lovell could be pregnant. Keepers said Eisenhauer told her he might have had sex with Lovell at a party, but couldn’t remember because he blacked out and later woke up in a ditch.

Eisenhauer pleaded no contest to firstdegree murder, abduction and concealing a body.

Lovell’s body was found just over the state line in North Carolina. A medical examiner testified that she had 14 stab wounds, including a lethal wound to her neck.

Before Eisenhauer’s sentence was imposed, Lovell’s parents described how their daughter’s killing has affected them.

Her father, David Lovell, said he’s been diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder since his daughter’s death.

“There is nothing that will happen in this courtroom that will fix it,” he said.

Lovell’s mother, Tami Weeks-Dowdy, said she sees a grief counselor and still has trouble sleeping. She said she celebrated what would have been her daughter’s 16th birthday last month at her gravesite.

Eisenhauer’s lawyers called two teachers and a former classmate of his from Yakima, Wash., where he lived before moving with his family to Columbia. Both teachers from the Riverside Christian School said he was a smart and kind student, but appeared to have trouble following social cues.