Nicole Madison Lovell, David E. Eisenhauer, and Natalie Marie Keepers
Suspects on right: David E. Eisenhauer, 18, and Natalie Marie Keepers, 19, face charges in connection to the death of 13-year-old Nicole Madison Lovell (pictured left).
Two engineering majors at Virginia Tech university carefully planned the kidnapping and killing of a 13-year-old girl, buying cleaning supplies and a shovel at separate Wal-Mart stores, and then hiding her body in the trunk of a Lexus, a prosecutor alleged on Thursday.

Montgomery County Commonwealth's Attorney Mary Pettitt described how authorities believe David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers plotted the stabbing death of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell, and argued that Keepers 'is in the same position as the person who carried out the murder.'

Pettitt did not suggest a possible motive, or describe the killing itself, but police sources have told CNN that Eisenhauer plotted to kill Lovell because she was 'planning to expose' their sexual relationship.

The police sources claim Eisenhauer had sexual contact with Lovell before she disappeared from her home on January 27, after meeting her on an anonymous messaging app called 'Kik'.

If true, 18-year-old Eisenhauer would have been breaking sexual consent laws in the state.

In Virginia, if a person who is 18 years or older is found guilty of having sex with a 13- or 14-year-old minor, they can be sent to jail for two to 10 years, as well as face an up to $100,000 fine.

Eisenhauer first denied his involvement after messages on Nicole's phone led police to him. Later, he admitted driving to her home and watching her climb out of her window the day she vanished. He said he greeted her with a side hug and then brought her to Keepers, Pettitt said.

Eisenhauer, an 18-year-old freshman and distance runner at Virginia Tech, is jailed without bond on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder.

Keepers, 19, was denied bail Thursday on charges that she aided Eisenhauer before and after the crime, and helped hide the body in North Carolina, two hours south of campus.

She broke down in tears on the stand as prosecutors told the judge of how Keepers admitted to helping Eisenhauer plot the murder. 'I was excited to be part of something secretive and special,' Keepers reportedly told FBI investigators, according to Pettitt.

Both of Lovell's parents were in court on Thursday as they heard prosecutors detail for the first time the timeline of their daughter's murder.

Prosecutors said Eisenhauer and Keepers started planning the murder in early January, meeting once to hash out the details at a fast-food restaurant before later driving past the girl's home.

The plan was allegedly for Eisenhauer to lure Lovell out of her home with the promise of a date, before taking her to a remote location to slit her throat.

The murder itself allegedly occurred on Craig Creek Road in Blacksburg, but prosecutors did not detail exactly what happened and Keepers maintains that she was not present for the actual murder. Preliminary autopsy results show that Lovell was stabbed to death.

After the murder, the two hid Lovell's body in the back of Eisenhauer's Lexus. They drove to seperate Wal-mart's to pick up supplies to dispose of a the body, including a shovel at one location and cleaning supplies at another.

They settled on a spot off the road in Surrey County, Maryland to dump the body.

Three days after Lovell disappeared, authorities received a warrant to search Eisenhauer's dorm room and while looking through the apartment Keepers sent him a text reading 'POLICE'.

After seeing the text, police started questioning Keepers and she reportedly admitted to helping dispose of the body and told them where to find it. She also gave them directions for where to find a suitcase in her dorm room where she had apparently hidden Lovell's blanket.

Eisenhauer and Keepers attended high schools just five miles apart in Maryland.

The nature of their relationship was not previously known, but Keepers' parents shed more light on how close they were on Thursday, in their failed attempt to get their daughter freed on bond.

Keepers' mother Sara, an X-ray technician, said she knew her daughter was friends with Eisenhauer but that nothing struck her about their relationship.

Her father Tim says that when she had to undergo an appendectomy in the fall, he knows that Eisenhauer drove her to the hospital. Her parents added that she has never been in trouble and that they are a very religious family., 'We are pretty close, very strong Christian family,' Mr Keepers said. Both father and daughter started crying when he described how she planned to study aerospace engineering, the same field in which he works.

Ultimately, the judge denied bail.

In court on Thursday, Keepers and her parents complained about the conditions in jail - saying she was allergic to the type of mattress she was given and couldn't eat any of the prison food since she is also allergic to gluten.

They said jail officials were not giving her a high enough dosage of her presciption for Prozac, which she uses to treat depression.

Keepers says she has dealt with mental health issue since the eighth grade, and once used to cut herself. But she said she has learved 'how to love myself' through counseling at Virginia Tech.

If Eisenhauer or Keepers had a dark side, they kept it hidden. Those who knew them reacted to the allegations with a uniform sense of shock.

'When I saw her (mug shot) photo, I didn't know who it was. I thought that was the victim, because it didn't look anything like I knew her,' said Stan Arnold, Keepers' high school math teacher in Columbia, Maryland. 'She always came across as being bubbly and happy and excited about her future.'

Some of the most pointed comments came from a Facebook post attributed to Gaige Kern, a friend of Eisenhauer and a fellow distance runner at Virginia Tech.

'The David I knew had his faults, but this is beyond the scope of imagination,' said the note, which was addressed to Eisenhauer. 'Did something happen to you that would cause a complete change, or was this newly surfaced personality always there, lurking in the shadows, hiding amidst lies? And if it was, how did you hide it so well?'

The post also mentioned that Eisenhauer had a goal of working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which develops technology for the military. Kern told The Associated Press he wasn't ready to discuss the post or his friendship with Eisenhauer.

Eisenhauer and Keepers went to high schools five miles apart in Columbia, a planned community between Baltimore and Washington that's known for highly rated public schools and competitive athletics. It's not clear when they met.

Eisenhauer, however, spent much of his childhood in Washington state, where he attended a small Christian school. His father was transferred to Maryland after his sophomore year, and his parents bought their $620,000 home in Columbia in 2013, property records show.

He started running competitively in middle school at Riverside Christian School in Yakima, Washington, which has just 320 students in preschool through 12th grade. Excelling in the classroom and on the track, he had an apparently seamless transition to Wilde Lake High School, which has 1,200 students.

His coach at Wilde Lake, Whitty Bass, raved about him in the feature for WMAR-TV, which aired last March. 'These are the ones you take a deep breath when you realize what you've got and say, 'Don't mess this up,'' Bass said.

The coach was less effusive this week at an indoor track meet in Hyattsville, Maryland, declining to comment on Eisenhauer or the allegations.

Eisenhauer was redshirted for his freshman year in track at Virginia Tech, according to a sophomore teammate, Andrew Eason. In the WMAR feature, Eisenhauer said he hoped to redshirt so he could run in college for five years.

Keepers played junior varsity soccer at Hammond High School but wasn't a standout athlete like Eisenhauer. She joined the math team and Model United Nations, became a member of the National Honor Society and the National Science Honor Society, helped direct the musical 'Seussical' and taught science at a summer Bible camp.

In 2014, she interned at a NASA facility in Maryland, and planned to double-major in aerospace and ocean engineering and naval engineering.

'My field of study is due to my fascination in the foundations of aircrafts, boats, and submarines. After college, I plan to hopefully get a job with the government or an aerospace or ocean company,' she wrote in her LinkedIn profile.

At Virginia Tech, she joined a program for freshmen called the Hypatia Women in Engineering Learning Community. According to the school's website, participants live in the same dorm and are required to enroll in a semester-long seminar class where they talk about professional and personal development, academic success strategies and issues related to being women in male-dominated fields.

Those who knew her said she seemed like a normal teenager in every way.

'She was talkative, she had a lot of energy,' said Mindy Niland, a 21-year-old student at Howard Community College. She said they were close in middle school, and that Keepers had slept over at her house. 'We went shopping. She was really interested in guys. I don't remember her having any violent behavior.'