[music playing]
NARRATOR: Before heading out at 6:30 AM,
Tammy checks in on her 13-year-old daughter,
Nicole Lovell.
TAMMY WEEKS-DOWDY: When I went to her room,
I noticed that her nightstand was up against her door.
So I kind of pushed it.
The whole room was cold, and her window was open.
Nicole wasn't there.
I was scared.
I didn't know where she was.
Nothing's ever happened like this before, ever.
I noticed the only thing that was missing
was her cell phone and her blanket.
Her favorite blanket was the Minion blanket.
She'd take that everywhere with her.
I knew something was wrong.
NARRATOR: Tammy soon notices something else alarming.
TAMMY WEEKS-DOWDY: I went to see if she
had took any of her liver medicine,
and she hadn't took any.
And that was really bad.
She would get sick quick without her medicine.
And then it would get fatal.
PATRICK JENSEN: So during the investigation,
law enforcement was going through Nicole's
digital footprint, going through her social media.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: What was being found
indicated that Nicole was pretty much
a typical 13-year-old girl.
She hung out with her friends and went to the mall.
She wanted a boyfriend.
But also, she had her insecurities.
She was perhaps a little bit depressed.
She was down on herself.
One of her friends had stated that Nicole
was supposed to have, essentially,
a secret date that night.
TRAVIS WITT: That was very concerning
and certainly increased the likelihood
that there was foul play involved in her disappearance.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: One of the things Nicole's friends
confided on is that she did have relationships with older boys
on some of the numerous social applications
that she was using, including somebody that she was
referring to as a boyfriend.
TRAVIS WITT: He was interacting with Nicole online.
Other than that, her friends didn't have
a lot of information about him.
PATRICK JENSEN: It was learned that Nicole's
last communication was with an individual who had
the username of Dr. Tombstone.
They learn that Dr. Tombstone belonged to someone by the name
of David Eisenhauer.
David Eisenhauer, we learned, was an 18-year-old freshman
at Virginia Tech.
Law enforcement tracked down David Eisenhauer.
TRAVIS WITT: At the beginning of the interview,
I told him while we were there that Nicole Lovell was missing,
and we felt like he could help us with the investigation.
OK.
NARRATOR: David claims that at the time,
he didn't know Nicole was only 13.
NARRATOR: He also says that he arranged to pick Nicole up
at her place and meet her for the first time
on the night she disappeared.
PATRICK JENSEN: And then he said, at that point,
I immediately drove back to campus,
and I went to talk to a friend.
David describes himself as immediately walking away.
And yet, he went to meet this girl, and she's disappeared.
It can't be that simple.
TRAVIS WITT: At that point in the interview
is where we challenged him.
TRAVIS WITT: At first, David's reaction is to deny
having any more knowledge.
MARY PETTITT: He was adamant when
he left Nicole's apartment, that was
the last that he knew about it.
And then he made a very unusual comment.
TRAVIS WITT: David says that we should
be out looking for a body instead of talking to him.
At that point, David became a suspect.
It was determined that David would be detained
pending further investigation.
Early in the interview, he said
that after he walked away from Nicole,
that he'd gone to see a friend.
TRAVIS WITT: I asked him who this friend was,
and that's when he identified Natalie Keepers, who was
another Virginia Tech student.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: When we located Natalie,
she willingly went with us to the police department.
She was cooperative.
She actually gave us permission to look at her phone.
She admits knowing David Eisenhauer
and actually spoke very highly of him.
PATRICK JENSEN: Now, throughout this time,
information from Natalie and David's phone
is being downloaded.
Law enforcement is going through it.
They find text messages between David and Natalie.
In particular, there were text messages between David
and Natalie talking about cleaning up blood, talking
about the smell of blood.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: They're talking about trying
to cover up a crime scene.
PATRICK JENSEN: She is confronted
with their text messages.
And Natalie caves.
According to Natalie, David had killed Nicole.
NARRATOR: Over the next several hours,
Natalie reveals the chilling details of what she claims
happened to Nicole Lovell.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: Natalie was saying that Nicole wanted
to start a relationship, and David really
wanted nothing to do with her.
He was getting nervous that Nicole would somehow expose
him for having sex with her.
So David felt that he needed to get rid of her.
It also turns out that Natalie was a very
big part of the homicide.
PATRICK JENSEN: On the night that Nicole Lovell went
missing, Natalie said she and David
went to a fast food restaurant to finalize the plan.
They then drove to pick out a spot for David to kill Nicole.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: The plan was to take
her to a secluded location, to almost make it like a date.
NARRATOR: Natalie claims that while Nicole was killed
less than 10 miles from the Virginia Tech campus,
they hid her body nearly 100 miles away.
MAN: Nicole was located off the main road going
off the side of a mountain.
She was stabbed a number of times.
She was not buried.
They apparently had just tossed her from the edge.
NARRATOR: No murder weapon is found at the scene.
But with the recovery of Nicole's body,
David is now charged with first degree murder.
PATRICK JENSEN: Natalie Keepers is also
charged with concealing a body, as
well as being an accessory before the fact
to first degree murder.
NARRATOR: The two will be tried separately.
David will face a jury first.
The defense insists that the blame actually
lies with the other suspect in the case, David's
friend, Natalie Keepers.
They were going to try and show
that David did not kill Nicole.
It was Natalie that killed Nicole.
MARY PETTITT: They'd argue that the idea to commit a murder,
she thought it was exciting, that really
Natalie was kind of the mastermind behind all of this.
NARRATOR: It appears David even tried to scare Nicole
into keeping silent about his relationship with her
because she was underage.
PATRICK JENSEN: There were threatening text messages
to Nicole, saying, don't tell anybody about me
or else "they" will hurt you.
There were also text messages that
were found on the phone of David and found
on the phone of Natalie.
They are talking about hiding evidence in a number
of different places.
PATRICK JENSEN: This included the murder weapon,
which has never been found.
They got rid of the knife somewhere off
of Interstate I-81 in Virginia.
NARRATOR: By the fourth day of testimony,
the state's case against David seems insurmountable.
And then the defense had a twist we didn't anticipate.
PATRICK JENSEN: David changed his plea to "no contest."
A no contest plea really means that I'm not saying I did it,
but I'm not going to challenge any of the evidence.
I think he realized, ultimately, that he had no defense.
The evidence against him was overwhelming.
NARRATOR: By pleading no contest,
David likely avoided the life sentence he
risked if convicted by a jury.
He's ordered to serve 50 years behind bars, followed
by 20 years of probation.
2 and 1/2 years after the murder of Nicole Lovell, Natalie
Keeper's trial gets underway.
Prosecutors present the jury with their most
damning evidence--
the statements of Natalie herself.
In that interview, she said she got excited by being
involved in this.
It was never really clear if David and Natalie
had something romantic.
MICHAEL SCIMECA: But you could see that Natalie
was in awe of David.
We also were able to find evidence in her dorm room,
including Nicole's Minion blanket.
NARRATOR: But Natalie herself doesn't testify.
Witnesses for the defense attacked the credibility
of her so-called confession.
They include an expert on police interrogation.
MARY PETTITT: Their theory was you had a fairly young,
inexperienced defendant, and these experienced police
officers had caused her to falsely confess to things.
PATRICK JENSEN: But the hallmark of a false confession case
is that there is no corroboration.
Everything Natalie mentioned doing
was corroborated by some piece of evidence.
You never know what a jury is going to do.
In this case, the jury came back very
quickly, less than an hour and 15 minutes
after they had gone out.
They found Natalie Keepers guilty of being
an accessory before the fact to the murder of Nicole Lovell.
NARRATOR: Natalie is sentenced to 40 years in prison
and 10 years of probation for her role in the murder.