New trial date set for ex-Virginia Tech student in killing

CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. – A judge has set a new trial date for a former Virginia Tech student charged as an accessory in the killing of a 13-year-old girl.

Natalie Keepers, of Laurel, Maryland, is charged as an accessory before the fact in the death of Nicole Lovell.

Prosecutors have said the seventh-grader climbed out her window to meet up with Keepers and David Eisenhauer. Both were engineering students at Virginia Tech when Lovell disappeared in January 2016.

Eisenhauer, of Columbia, Maryland, has been charged with first-degree murder and abduction for allegedly taking the girl to a wooded area and stabbing her to death.

Eisenhauer’s trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 5.

Keepers’ trial had been listed for the same day, but online court records show it has now been moved to Sept. 17.