Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Hearing set in college murder
Kennett High grad Gregorio Orrostieta charged in death of his girlfriend, Unionville High graduate Karlie Hall
A preliminary hearing for the Kennett Square teenager who is accused of beating his girlfriend and strangling her to death in her Millersville University dormitory room is scheduled to be held Tuesday in Lancaster.
Charges of first-degree murder have been filed by Lancaster authorities against Gregorio Orrostieta, a graduate of Kennett High School, in the February death of Millersville student Karlie Hall, a graduate of Unionville High School and a freshman at the university.
An attorney representing the 19-year-old Orrostieta declined to comment on whether the court hearing to determine if the defendant should be held for trial in Common Pleas Court would go forward, or whether his client would agree to waive the proceeding.
“We are holding our comments to ourselves at the moment,” said attorney Robert Brown III of West Chester. “We are still preparing for the hearing.”
Magisterial District Judge Joshua Keller of Millersville has moved the scheduled proceeding from his court in the borough just southwest of the county seat to the Lancaster County Court-
house because of the media attention the case garnered at the time of Hall’s death, and for security purposes. Her killing marked the first homicide in the university’s history, and sparked a campus vigil in her honor.
Authorities said at the time of the homicide that an autopsy showed signs that Hall had suffered multiple injuries from a beating and had been strangled. Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman says Orrostieta didn’t mention anything about strangulation when he told police he shoved Hall and hit her with the back of his hand during an argument in her dorm room.
Stedman says the victim suffered “a number of injuries on a number of parts of her body.” He said Hall fought for her life.
According to reports, the two had been dating for about 11 months. Orrostieta, who was not a student at the school, had argued with her at a party earlier. He was covered in blood and performing CPR when campus police arrived, according to an arrest affidavit.
“I knew that the relationship wasn’t that great,” Hall’s friend, Trisha Faust, 19, of Emmaus, said after her death. “It was on again, off again.”
Hall and her twin sister, Kristin, graduated from Unionville High School last June, the same school as their mother and older sister, and went to Millersville together, Principal Paula Massanari said.
“This has certainly hit our school community very hard,” Massanari said. “We are devastated by the loss.”
Hall was a member of the Unionville rugby club, gay-straight alliance and volunteered at a local animal shelter, Massanari said. She was described in a college recommendation letter as a “hard-working” student, who was working a part-time job to help offset the cost of college.
“One of the lasting memories I have of her is how good of a sister she was to her twin sister, Kristen,” said Massanari. “There is nothing one wouldn’t do for the other,” she said. “They were just really good friends.”
Orrostieta also graduated in 2014, and was given an award by the school for having taken part in the Reaching Out to the Community (ROC) program, which provides mentors for student at the Mary D. Lang Kindergarten Center in the Kennett Consolidated School District.