Awful New Details About The Virginia Tech College Student Who Murdered A 13-Year-Old Girl To Hide His Illegal Relationship With Her
His accomplice said she was a "sociopath in training."
Blacksburg Police / Facebook A former Virginia Tech student was sentenced to 50 years in prison for stabbing a 13-year-old girl to death in 2016 to hide their illegal relationship.
David Eisenhauer apologized in court just before he was convicted of killing Nicole Lovell out of fear she would expose their illegal relationship and might possibly be pregnant, The New York Daily News reports.
"I am sorry for the pain my actions have caused for Nicole Lovell and her family," he said.
Eisenhauer, 21, pleaded no contest to first-degree murder, abduction and concealing a body in February but was found guilty Wednesday morning.
Prosecutors pushed for a life sentence but Judge Robert Turk dished out a 50-year sentence followed by 25 years of probation after that.
Eisenhauer, an incoming engineering freshman at Virginia Tech, met Lovell online. They met in person at least once before he took her life, said Prosecutor Mary Pettitt.
He then convinced the Blacksburg 7th-grader to climb out of her bedroom window to go on a "secret date" on Jan. 27. Her body was found three days later in North Carolina, about 80 miles from her Virginia hometown.
Lovell's cause of death was a fatal stab to the neck, though she suffered 14 stab wounds total, a medical examiner testified.
According to Collegiate Times, data on Eisenhauer's computer showed he had conducted searches about knock-out drugs and methods of body disposal on Jan. 24.
Eisenhauer's DNA was found underneath Lovell's fingernails and her blood was discovered in Eisenhauer's car.
His accomplice, Natalie Keepers, who was also a first-year engineering student at Virginia Tech, was charged with accessory before the fact and concealing a body and will appear in court in September.
Keepers, 20, told Det. Ryan Hite of the Blacksburg Police Department that she was a "sociopath in training" and was learning from the best, according to the Fredericksburg Patch.
Messages about the murder were sent between the two students via an app called Kik.
"As long as they don't find the body for a week, it will never be found," read one message reportedly sent from Eisenhauer's phone. "We definitely did overkill. Always do overkill when your life is on the line."
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, a neuropsychologist and a psychiatrist testified that both Eisenhauer and Keepers most likely suffer from mental disorders.
They concluded that Eisenhauer has autism spectrum disorder, which limits his ability to handle social situations or emotions.
Dr. David Scheiderer explained that Keeper might have borderline personality disorder and may have been the brains behind Lovell's murder.
“I think she was the mastermind. She was the driver of the process. She found somebody she could manipulate, and she did just that,” Scheiderer said.
Although the psychology professionals may have explained why Lovell was murdered, they cannot bring her back.
“None of that excuses anything that happened in this case,” Turk said. “It just explains why it may have happened.”
Lovell's parents described how the death of their daughter has impacted their lives. Her father, David Lovell, said he has since been diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and despite her killer's conviction, there is no cure for his loss.
"There is nothing that will happen in this courtroom that will fix it," he said. “You cannot put a Band-Aid on my daughter’s life.
Eisenhauer will be 71 when he is released.
Sarah Gangraw is a travel-addicted cat lady who lives on black coffee and cheese. She has a degree in Journalism and writes about all things news and crime. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter — she's occasionally funny.