Prosecutor: Va. Tech students plotted killing
BLACKSBURG, Va. — Two Virginia Tech students carefully planned the kidnapping and killing of a 13-year-old girl, arranging a pre-dawn rendezvous online after buying cleaning supplies and a shovel at separate Wal-Mart stores, a prosecutor alleged on Thursday.
Montgomery County Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt described how authorities believe David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers plotted the stabbing death of Nicole Lovell, a seventh-grader who used social media to escape from bullying after surviving a liver transplant and other health scares.
Pettitt did not suggest a possible motive in court, or describe the killing itself. But she said messages on the girl’s phone led police to the college freshmen, who had decided together that Eisenhauer would cut the girl’s throat.
Keepers, 19, spoke in court as well, telling the judge that she began cutting her own body and had considered suicide “a few times” after being bullied herself in school five years ago. She said she’s been in therapy and taking Prozac since then.
Her lawyers said her mental health could unravel behind bars, and she’s allergic to the gluten in jail food.
But the prosecutor urged the judge to keep her jailed. While Keepers is adamant that she was not present at the killing, Pettitt said, she “is in the same position as the person who carried out the murder.”
Judge Robert Viars denied bail.
Eisenhauer initially denied his involvement when police found his messages on Nicole’ s phone but eventually admitted that he drove to the girl’s home, watched her climb out of her window and greeted her with a “side hug” before they drove off to get Keepers, Pettitt said.
Once Nicole was dead, Keepers helped load her body into Eisenhauer’s Lexus, the prosecutor said.
It was Keepers who revealed the plot after officers tracked her down, but she tried to warn Eisenhauer first, sending him a one-word text message reading “Police,” Pettitt said.
The 18-year-old distance runner at Virginia Tech is jailed without bond on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder. The police report on his arrest Saturday says he told officers: “I believe the truth will set me free.”
Keepers is charged with being an accessory to kidnap and murder before and after these crimes and with helping her fellow engineering major dispose of the body at a remote spot in North Carolina.
Nicole’s parents, David Lovell and Tammy Weeks, attended the hearing but made no comments before leaving for her private funeral.
Friends and neighbors have described her as a lovely if awkward girl, clinging to childhood ways while exploring older behaviors.
Meanwhile, Keepers told the judge she’s not getting her full dosage of anti-anxiety medicine in jail.