But later, on February 2, the commonwealth’s attorney said they were adding an additional charge of accessory before the fact to the first degree murder of Nicole Lovell.
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After an extensive search, Nicole’s body was found three days later in a wooded area in North Carolina.
A worker directs traffic in the parking lot of a Blacksburg funeral home on Wednesday. Prosecutors argued that the circumstances surrounding the death of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell offer sufficient reason to keep the suspect behind bars.
Two Virginia Tech students have been charged in Nicole’s death.
Judge Robert Viars Jr. denied bail.
Pettitt didn’t give a possible motive or describe how the killing was carried out; instead she detailed only the pair’s plans.
Keepers took the stand on Thursday testifying about her mental problems, reports WDBJ.
– In their defense: “We understand the allegations are disturbing and serious”. Keepers’ attorneys, Kris Olin and John Robertson, followed.
“The one tie she has, has been severed”, the judge said. Fellow freshman David Eisenhauer, 18, faces abduction and murder charges in the case.
Two law enforcement officials have said Eisenhauer had sexual contact with Lovell and used their relationship to lure her out of her home.
After the murder, Keepers and Eisenhauer allegedly went to a Walmart in Wytheville to buy cleaning supplies with the girl’s body in the trunk of the vehicle, Pettitt said. Keepers told police where to find the girl’s body, Pettitt said.
A judge denied bond for Keepers at the hearing in Christiansburg, Virginia, a court official confirmed.
Friends and neighbors have described her as a lovely if awkward girl, clinging to childhood ways while exploring older behaviors.
A neighbor said she told 8-year-old friends before she vanished that she planned to sneak out to meet her 18-year-old “boyfriend”, a man named David whose picture she displayed on her phone. Authorities have not confirmed that this was Eisenhauer’s photo. Hours later, Nicole’s family called 911 after discovering that she had blocked her door and climbed out overnight. At the time, Keepers was only facing charges of improperly disposing a body and being an accessory after the fact.
The details came to light in a courtroom Thursday as prosecutor Mary Pettitt argued against granting bail to Keepers.
“Keepers told investigators she was “excited” to be part of something “secretive” and ‘special, ‘” Pettitt said in an email. He said the young man had “dropped everything” previous year to rush their daughter to a hospital for an emergency appendectomy.
Eisenhauer and Keepers went to high schools five miles apart in Columbia, Maryland. Both are engineering students at Virginia Tech.
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