But only hours after Eisenhauer’s arrest, another promising engineering major at Virginia Tech also was behind bars. Natalie Keepers is accused of helping to dispose of the girl’s body “on or about 1/27,” the same day Nicole disappeared.
Blacksburg police announced a news conference for 2 p.m. Tuesday. Nicole’s mother, Tammy Weeks, will speak then, she told an Associated Press reporter who knocked on the door of her Blacksburg apartment, several miles from campus.
Nicole bore emotional and physical wounds as a young teen, suffering from bullying at school and online over her weight and a tracheotomy scar, her mother said. She needed daily medication after a liver transplant, and also survived lymphoma and a drug-resistant bacterial infection.
Weeks shared two photos of her daughter: one at about 10, sticking out her tongue and wearing a shirt with an actor from the “Twilight” movies; the other in a Mountain Dew hat and Dr. Pepper shirt last summer.
“She loved Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper,” Weeks said sadly.
Eisenhauer, 18, is charged with kidnapping and murdering Nicole; Keepers, 19, is charged with improper disposal of a body and accessory after the fact in the commission of a felony. They said little at court appearances Monday, and their lawyers have declined to comment.
Blacksburg police said they have evidence showing Eisenhauer knew the girl before she disappeared Wednesday.
“Eisenhauer used this relationship to his advantage to abduct the 13-year-old and then kill her. Keepers helped Eisenhauer dispose of Nicole’s body,” a police statement said.
On campus, state police divers continued to search a pond, and wouldn’t say what they hoped to find.
The arrests of the two ambitious and focused students shocked people who knew them in Maryland, where they attended nearby high schools. Neither had prior criminal records, police said.
“We had no reason to think he would be unsuccessful in his goals because he was very focused,” said Principal James LeMon at Wilde Lake High School, where Eisenhauer graduated last year.
Eisenhauer, named Boys Indoor Track Performer of the Year by The Baltimore Sun last March, chose Virginia Tech to pursue engineering while competing with the Hokies’ top college runners, LeMon said.
Keepers interned at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, led science experiments at her church’s Bible school and hoped to build a future in aerospace or ocean engineering, her online resume said.
“It’s just very, very surprising,” said her principal, Marcia Leonard at Hammond High School.
Nicole was 5 years old when she survived all those health problems, Weeks told The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/201JsDS ).
“God got her through all that, and she fought through all that, and he took her life,” Weeks said.
Nicole didn’t like going to school because girls called her fat and talked about her transplant scars. “It got so bad I wouldn’t send her,” Weeks said, but the bullying continued on social media.
Eisenhauer lived in Ambler Johnston Hall, the same co-ed residence hall where the first two people were killed in the 2007 campus massacre that left 32 dead.
“From what we’ve heard, he really stayed in his room a lot,” said Abbey Workmeister, another freshman who lives in the same dormitory.
Logan Fry, a sophomore who lives on the same floor and also ran track in high school, said Nicole’s death and the arrest of her dorm neighbor was frightening.
“Like, it definitely could have been me,” she said.
