Friend: This couldn’t be Cait’s idea

It took barely a day for friends to blame Caitlyn O'Rourke's stunning arrest on her boyfriend.

The SUNY-New Paltz college senior was busted Wednesday along with beau Jared Eng in connection with the Jan. 31 slaying of his 65-year-old mom inside their Tribeca apartment.

“She would never do anything bad like this on her own, or plan it,” a close 20-year-old female friend said Thursday to the Daily News. “This is definitely not Cait and she was probably dragged into it because she's been with Jared so long and would do anything for him. “That's her first boyfriend.” O'Rourke, who arrived in New Paltz as a freshman in the fall of 2016, was recently accepted into a bachelor of fine arts program to study photography as she headed into the second half of her senior year.

But things turned a bit weird after O'Rourke contacted two classmates on Jan. 31, asking for $20 to visit her ailing grandmother. One of the women sent the money along via Venmo.

That same day, the 22-year-old Eng and his other girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, 18, were caught by security video loading his mother's corpse into the back of a vehicle belonging to the dead woman, authorities charge.

By Feb. 1, O'Rourke had joined Eng and Lopez at the Jersey home on a wooded lot off a two-lane road. By Wednesday, all were accused in what police sources called a failed coverup of Paula Chin's death.

Friends noticed something was amiss even before the 21-year-old returned to campus. “During the weekend I asked her how her grandma was, and she said ‘good' and that she was just with her family,” said a second friend. “I don't even know if that was true.”

The three students shared a Tuesday morning bite to eat at a campus café. O'Rourke appeared totally rattled when they met up again around noon.

“She definitely seemed scared, anxious, pretty shaken,” said the first friend. “She told me that (Jared's) mom had been gone since last week."

The suspect's weeping mother reached out to the first friend on Wednesday with word that Eng's mother was found dead and the police were investigating.

“So we went to see if (Cait) was in her room,” said the first friend. “And she wasn't.”