David Eisenhauer arrest in Nicole Lovell death shocks Wilde Lake High School community

In early 2015, Wilde Lake High School student David Eisenhauer was earning praise for his notable talent on the track. The long-distance runner was named Howard County’s boys indoor track athlete of year and gave interviews outlining his athletic goals and talking about his training routine.

Less than a year later, the track star from Maryland is garnering media attention for a grimmer reason: He is the prime suspect in the death of a 13-year-old Virginia girl.

The path that led Mr. Eisenhauer to face kidnapping and first-degree murder charges remains unclear. The successful athlete moved to Blacksburg, Virginia, to attend Virginia Tech and was a freshman engineering major this year.

At some point during his time in the area, police said, Mr. Eisenhauer, 18, came into contact with Nicole Madison Lovell, 13, who went missing from her Blacksburg home Wednesday morning.

“Based on the evidence collected to date, investigators have determined that Eisenhauer and Nicole were acquainted prior to her disappearance,” the Blacksburg Police Department said in a statement. “Eisenhauer used this relationship to his advantage to abduct the 13-year-old and then kill her.”

Police said little about how Mr. Eisenhauer became the prime suspect and did not provide details about the circumstances of Nicole’s disappearance and death.

In addition to Mr. Eisenhauer, police arrested another Virginia Tech student, 19-year-old Natalie M. Keepers of Laurel, Maryland, in connection with the killing.

Officials said she helped Mr. Eisenhauer dispose of the body, which was found Saturday about 100 miles from Blacksburg in Surry County, North Carolina. Ms. Keepers is charged with one felony count of improper disposal of a dead body.

Mr. Eisenhauer and Ms. Keepers were arraigned Monday in Blacksburg, and both were held without bond.

After he was taken into custody, Mr. Eisenhauer told investigators, “I believe the truth can set me free,” according to court documents obtained from the Montgomery County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court.

Those who knew Mr. Eisenhauer from his high school track days remembered him as a driven student and were shocked by his arrest.

“We had no reason to think he would be unsuccessful in his goals, because he was very focused,” said James LeMon, principal at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, where Mr. Eisenhauer graduated.

According to a Baltimore Sun profile from April, Mr. Eisenhauer moved to Maryland from Yakima, Washington, where he competed against only a limited field of runners. His coaches in Maryland were skeptical that he would keep pace with his new team.

“I was skeptical when I asked him his background of running,” Wilde Lake High School track coach Whitty Bass told The Baltimore Sun. “He said his cross-country team in Yakima had consisted of himself, a neighbor and a girl. I thought, ’Well, that might not make it in Howard County.’ But he quickly dispelled any reservations I had.”

During an interview Mr. Eisenhauer gave to a Baltimore TV station in March, the track athlete talked of re-evaluating his athletic goals to stay motivated.

“I make my personal goals achievable or just out of reach of achievable. That way, I am always constantly striving to better myself,” Mr. Eisenhauer told WMAR-TV. “I just have this internal thing saying I want to be the best. There is no reason why I cannot be as good as other people.”

Ms. Keepers is also a freshman engineering major. Neither she nor Mr. Eisenhauer had criminal records.

It was unclear how the pair knew each other. Police did not elaborate on their relationship.

Police also kept under wraps Nicole’s cause of death.

At age 5, Nicole survived a liver transplant. She still required daily medication. Recently, she was troubled by bullying at her middle school, where she was teased about her weight and the scars left by the surgery, said her mother, Tammy Weeks.

“It got so bad I wouldn’t send her,” Ms. Weeks told The Washington Post.