Two Virginia Tech students from Maryland have been charged in connection with the killing of a 13-year-old Virginia girl, the New York Times and Baltimore Sun report.
Nicole Madison Lovell went missing from Blacksburg, Va., on Jan. 27 (Blacksburg Police)
Natalie M Keepers, 19, of Laurel, was arrested on January 31 and charged with improper disposal of a body and accessory after the fact in the commission of a felony, according to police in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Virginia Tech is located. She’s a sophomore engineering student.
David Eisenhauer, 18, of Columbia, a freshman engineering student at the university, was arrested on February 1 and charged with abduction and first-degree murder. Prior to matriculating at Virginia Tech in the fall, he was a track star at Wilde Lake High School, according to a profile in the Sun, and is originally from Yakima, Washington.
The two suspects reportedly knew each other prior to the abduction and death of Nicole Madison Lovell, 13, whose remains were found just across the North Carolina border on January 30. Preliminary autopsy findings said she had been stabbed, but she was also away from home without medication she needed to sustain a liver transplant she had received.
According to a neighbor cited by the Times, Nicole had exchanged texts through an instant-messaging app known as “Kik” just before she disappeared. Those messages reportedly mentioned plans for an evening meeting with an 18-year-old boy, and they were exchanged just a few hours before she went missing on January 27.
Nicole also made a few postings in the Facebook group Teen Dating and Flirting, the Times reported. That was a group page that contained sexually charged messages, including some from adults who appeared to be preying on young people. Facebook officials disabled the group after this case broke.
“My first thought is that this kid was really too young to have been using Facebook,” the Times quoted Jenn Burleson Mackay, an associate professor at Virginia Tech who teaches social media use in the Department of Communication, as saying. “To be looking for boyfriends and dating advice on Facebook at age 13 just seems inappropriate.”
