Chilling details behind the murder of a 13-year-old in Virginia have begun to emerge, and the story behind how two college students allegedly planned the murder is horrifying.
But it appears that neither of the two alleged killers will face the ultimate justice — there has, so far, been zero talk of the death penalty.
The two Virginia Tech students carefully planned the kidnapping and killing of Nicole Lovell, buying cleaning supplies and a shovel at separate Wal-Mart stores, and then hiding her body in the trunk of a Lexus, 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 Lovell, a seventh-grader who used social media as an escape from bullying at school after surviving a liver transplant and other health scares that left her with a disfiguring scar.
Pettit did not suggest a possible motive in court, or describe the killing itself, but said messages on the girl’s phone led police to the college freshmen. She said they decided together that Eisenhauer would cut the girl’s throat.
Keepers spoke in court as well, telling the judge that she began cutting her own body after being bullied in school, and has been on Prozac and in therapy since then. Her lawyers argued that her mental health will unravel behind bars.
But the prosecutor urged the judge to keep her jailed. While Keepers is adamant that she was not present at the killing, she “is in the same position as the person who carried out the murder,” Pettitt said.
Judge Robert Viar Jr. denied bail.
Eisenhauer initially denied his involvement when police found his messages on Nicole’s phone, but eventually admitted driving to the girl’s home and watching her climb out of her window, Pettitt said.
Eisenhauer told authorities he greeted the girl with a side hug, and then brought her to Keepers, 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, 19, is charged with being an accessory to kidnap and murder before and after these crimes, and accused of helping her fellow engineering major dispose of the body at a remote spot in North Carolina, two hours south of campus.
Nicole was being remembered Thursday at a private funeral.
By all accounts, she was a lovely but awkward girl, clinging to childhood ways while also telling 8-year-old friends she planned to sneak out to meet her 18-year-old “boyfriend,” a man named David whose picture she displayed on her phone.
Police said she probably carried her “Minions” blanket with her when she vanished.
Like others her age, Nicole was tech-savvy, posting on Facebook and chatting using the Kik messenger app. But she also had to take daily medicine to keep her transplanted liver from failing, and survived other harrowing health problems that left her with a tracheotomy scar in her neck.
In this 2015 photo provided by Tammy Weeks, her daughter, Nicole Lovell, flashes a peace sign in Blacksburg, Va. The 13-year-old girl was found dead just across the state line in Surry County, N.C., and two Virginia Tech students are charged in the case. (Tammy Weeks via AP)
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Just look at his photo looks pretty confident that nothing can touch him….
Retired Correction Officer sez–The ‘Recipients’ in the Joint will reach out and Touch Him!! He’ll Lose that Attitude.
It can’t happen fast enough.
Those two need to be dead period. Now
I agree Danny.
Probably practicing to join Isis ……………….
What can a person say….1 lovely child gone forever and 2 whose promising lives destroyed before ever getting an opportunity to fly, not to mention the lost hopes of all the parents. It’s just a complete break down of humanity. I still can’t fanthom why the two would have done this to anyone, much less to a 13 year old child. It makes no sense whatsoever. Godspeed.
That is growing new generation in our country when government took religion from their life and start teaching all not moral things. Our system supports criminals and destroys victims. Even candidates for president can be criminals in todays world. And this is accepted by our political system. They award bad behavior and punish good one .Very often we see it in schools.
How my heart aches for this child. Such an easy mark for such despicable predators. Keepers’ mental health might unravel in prison? Cry me a river. She should have thought about that before involving herself in a murder.
I agree with you. This was 2 predators who killed an innocent child that had already in her young life gone through much more than she should have, not 2 defective humans who had nothing to offer other than being mad dogs. I don’t know how young people today can be this vicious. If you want to talk about lives wasted all I see is a 13 yo child with more life experience than most and what she might have accomplished. We need to be begging God to come back to schools because this way is not working.
Amen I agree prayer gets taken out of schools and now murders are happeining.Wonder what will be next?
Don’t blame the country….blame the hearts of the people who live in it. It’s called SIN….and “the wages of sin is death, but the GIFT OF GOD is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23
Amen to that. We need to be more agressive in telling others about Christ.
Amen…..
Natalie Keepers is just as guilty as Eisenhauer when she went to that Walmart to buy the materials to “clean up” the horrific scene of the murder of this child. I hope to God the prosecutors ask for the death penalty of both of these misfits to society. Keepers and Eisenhauer both are guilty of first degree murder. They plotted and planned it before it was done. That is First Degree Murder and they deserve the ultimate punishment. No mercy, no bail for either of them.
what a pathetic, disgusting country this has turned into.
I suggest that 1.5 Billion Muslims at prayer 5 times a day are radiating the insane hate and vile messages they hear from their imams. The dark side of the power of prayer may be infecting the world.
I am so sorry for your wrong understanding of the prayer, There is no dark side of a prayer, I mean all prayers for all religions. May be you need to understand what a prayer is.
You are correct.
Just let them loose in the general population. Then let the other inmates know that they set up and killed a 13 year old girl. There will be no need for a trial of you know what I mean.
I will always give credit where it is due. Convicts have standards. Even they will not tolerate the likes of these two. Many also have daughters and sisters. Turns these dirtbags loose in general population or have some guard “accidentally” leave their cell door in protective isolation unlocked.
I agree 100%. No solitary confinement for either one of these mentally deranged narcissistic whatever they are. I don’t want to insult our great animal kingdom by calling animals, just whatever they are..
Put them inside with the population while waiting for their day in court.
These two Rabid Animals need to be put down, there are no cures or sympathy for this level of insanity and degradation. That the death penalty is off the table says even more about the offal society at large.
she must have been pregnant.
Death for both of those evil basturds
One thing for sure it a terrible thing to lose a child.but she with Jesus in God. An one day if her family knows Jesus they will be with her again an all the born again children of God for all enternal .Jesus is coming back can’t u see the snigh of the end.Amen
First thought was “how could anyone do such a horrendous act,” but upon contemplation, I recall a brilliant young man in Chicago, in the 1940s named William Heirans (sp?) who kidnapped, killed and butchered a 6 year old girl, for the “thrill of it.” He thought he had committed a perfect crime, but was caught, tried and incarcerated. He escaped the chair, and perhaps the life sentence was worse. So my take on things now is, it’s no different, things are just much more widely and quickly publicized.
Thank you for being a voice of reason here. Also, the population has increased & with the massive increase, the percentages of mentally ill & consciousless people have also increased.
Let me have these 2 punk a** holes, I promise you they will get what’s coming to them, and it wouldn’t be pretty,or short!!!!
HEY USA CITIZENS !!!!! ME BE THINKING , WE THE PEOPLE HAD BETTER FOLLOW OR BECOME FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!! JOIN IN WITH FRANKLIN GRAHAM DECISION AMERICAN TOUR!!!!! TURN US BACK TO YOU O LORD & WE BE RESTORED!!!!! BE ALERT AMERICANS OR ANYONE IN USA THAT SATAN IS A ROARING LION DEVOURING ALL WHO DO NOT FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST????? ME BE SEE EISENHAUER QUOTED SCRIPTURE ABOUT TRUTH WILL SET him FREE?????? BE NOT TRUE FOR him, LIES FROM him & NATALIE BE FOOLING SOME ,BUT NOT BELIEVERS OF JESUS CHRIST ( HOLY SPIRIT BE SHOW TRUTH) OUR EYES BE OPEN not SHUT??????
What’s with Virginia Tech?? Something in the water??
anyone voting for these to cuban guys just don’t no cubans. they have very short temepers and left cuba without a fight.
We should all pray for the family of this child. I only hope the animals that killed her get the death sentence. With the world getting worse, I would hate to think down the road these two get released back into the world to do the same thing. God help our loved ones. There doesn’t seem to be any justice. These two should be accountable for their own actions.
I can’t believe how awful those girls have acted. I believe that they deserve the death penalty. Just wait until they get to prison, once they get there it’s all over for them. Protected custody isn’t all that good.
The accused should face the death penalty. The best way to deal with brutal murderers is to make sure their journey ends at the hands of a prison executioner. If that isn’t possible, these two should get to spend the rest of their lives in solitary confinement.
I’m thankful my kids are grown now the world is to evil to raise children in. May the parents of the young girl find the courage to go throw what they will now have to endur. A Life without their baby. God Bless You & Yours.
I am so sorry to hear this. It makes my stomach turn. We NEED to watch our children a little closer when on the computer and educate them about creeps like this. I am heartbroken that this happened to such a Beautiful young lady lady. My prayers are with her and her family. Damm those creeps to the deepest part of hell. They will have to answer to the lord above
It is happening in the schools, it is happening in the colleges, it is happening in the White House. Wake up America! Citizens unite! If we do not soon clean house, starting at the top, there will no longer be a USA ! We are going to need a strong Christian leader at the top or there will soon be no more room at the bottom. God help us.
They deserve the death penalty for this premeditated murder of a child.
this is why people should not let kids young have cell phones or face book or computers .i ‘am 56 when i was growing up we didn’t have these and we knew that we better ck in with are parents and be home before the st light came on.these kids not all but most have no respect for anyone that because they stop the belt whippings.i thanked my mom on her death bed for making me mine and taking paddling out of school ever since the gov step with cps people are afraid to make their kids mine.AND I KNOW WHO EVERY IS READING THIS IS SAYING NOT MY CHILD..you are lying to yourself.i’am so sorry for this little girl and all the kids that are killing or being kill by each other .this is a sad life know .i would never change the years i was born and raised for all the things that these kids have now days.if you had a fight with someone ,one would say i quit and that would be it now all these kids want to kill each other.the world now is hell now my pray’s go out to this little girls faamily and all the family’s that have losted their kills to murder
The death penalty is warranted for these monsters.
I have noticed that TV shows are mostly Shooting ,killing , drinking. fornications, stealing, and lying. If the media shows it , the
people without morals will copy it. A lot of people are so ruined with drugs, alcohol, and evil movies , that they have lost their ability to think. They only do what they see. If they saw a show and it set them to thinking of killing , their destroyed brain tells them to “go for it”. They ban prayer, and other moral things in schools- what can we expect?. Better to shut down schools and have all done by home schooling. Praying and Bibles are STILL allowed in homes. With out GOD they have no one to answer to.