HoCo Woman Sentenced To 40 Years In Virginia Teen's Murder

CHRISTIANSBURG, VA — A Laurel woman was sentenced to spend the next four decades in prison for her involvement in the death of a Virginia teen in 2016.

Natalie Keepers, 21, was convicted in September of being an accessory before the fact in the death of the 13-year-old girl. She was sentenced this week to serve 40 years in prison.

A Columbia man will serve 50 years in prison for the murder.

David Eisenhauer, 20, was found guilty of first-degree murder, abduction and concealing a body.

The sentences stem from the death of a girl who was reported missing in January 2016.

Nicole Madison Lovell, 13, disappeared from her family's apartment in Blacksburg, Virginia, on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Her remains were found Saturday, Jan. 30, over the state line in Surry County, N.C.

Officials suspected Lovell had an inappropriate relationship with Eisenhauer, who was 18 at the time and allegedly killed the girl to keep her from revealing the nature of their connection.

Eisenhauer and Keepers were both students at Virginia Tech when the crime took place.

During questioning in 2016, Keepers reportedly told a detective with the Blacksburg Police Department that Eisenhauer was a "sociopath" and she was a "sociopath in training."

She reportedly took police to Lovell's body, in an area with blood in the snow. She would later tell police that Eisenhauer and she stopped at a Walmart in Wytheville, Virginia, to buy cleaning supplies after the murder, and she helped clean the body with sanitizing wipes and bleach.

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Keepers to 40 years in prison for helping to conceal the body of the teen. While her attorney asked for the minimum sentence of 20 years for being an accessory, Virginia Tech student newspaper Collegiate Times reported prosecutors said Keepers was a danger to public safety; the judge sided with the jury and its recommendation of a 40-year sentence.

Once she is released, Keepers will be on probation for 10 years and is not allowed to have contact with the family of the victim.

Before she began studying at Virginia Tech, Keepers attended Hammond High School, interned at NASA and wanted to pursue a career in aerospace engineering, according to The Washington Post.

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Natalie Keepers reacts during the sentencing phase of her trial in Christiansburg, Va. A jury found Keepers, a former Virginia Tech student, guilty for her role in the death of a 13-year-old girl two years ago. Keepers was charged as an accessory in the 2016 fatal stabbing of Nicole Lovell. (Ethan Candelario/The Roanoke Times via AP, Pool)