Luisa Cutting, 21, was charged with second-degree murder on Thursday in Virginia
Luisa Ines Tudela Harris Cutting, 21, was charged with second-degree murder on Thursday in western Virginia in the death of her Radford University classmate Alexa Cannon, 20.
Police were called to the students' apartment complex at 7.45am on Thursday, with the dispatcher reporting that a female caller was screaming something about a knife.
When they arrived, officers were greeted by Cutting, who was covered and blood, and turned around placing her hands behind her back saying 'arrest me', according to an arrest warrant.
When asked why they should arrest her, the warrant states that Cutting replied: 'I killed her.'
Inside the apartment, officers found a grisly scene. Alexa lay on the floor suffering from up to 40 stab wounds.
A butcher knife was sticking out of her mouth, the search warrant said. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
Alexa (left) and Cutting (right) were both active on social media leaving an ample record of their close friendship - and a chilling hint at the dark turn it apparently took
Search warrants indicate that officers took the phone and knife. Cops also seized pills, smoking devices and grinders from Cutting's bedroom, and a brown chalk-like substance from the kitchen.
Friends of the young women said they were mystified by the murder, and could not imagine what the motive may have been.
'I'm lost for words, to be honest,' Shelton Lewis, a Radford University junior, told WDBJ-TV. He lives just a few doors down and said he knew both girls.
'I really wanna know what was the motive behind it because they were best friends since freshmen year, and that was in 2016. Now it's 2019 and this has happened,' he said. 'I thought that we were all gonna graduate next year.'
Both girls were extremely active on social media, leaving an ample record of their close friendship - and a chilling hint at the dark turn it apparently took.
'I met this girl two years ago online and somehow we ended up living across from each other for a year, this summer she was equivalent to my mom,' Alexa wrote of Cutting in an Instagram post last March.
Alexa (right) wrote this Instagram post in March, saying: 'now we're living together next year. Love you more Lu and everyone pray that we don't kill each other this year'
In June, Alexa wrote in another Instagram post: 'Exactly a month now we're gonna be living together.....pray for us please and thank you.'
In July, Alexa congratulated Cutting on becoming president of the Latino Student Alliance. 'I know you're going to be amazing with everything you do! Love you more!!' she wrote.
Meanwhile, Cutting appeared to be highly active on a Twitter account that was semi-anonymous, but included a her face picture.
The account retweeted many jokes about marijuana use and included occasional dark musings.
'I know death is coming but I still can't wrap my head around it,' Cutting wrote on January 10.
Two days later, she wrote: 'My roommate forgot to pay the gas bill and they won't come turn it on until Monday and now there's a snow storm on the way we'll thank god I'll be drunk all day.'
On January 20, four days before her murder, Alexa posted an uncharacteristically cryptic message on Facebook, an image that read: 'I stopped venting and started praying because I don't need sympathy, I need strength.'
The following day, Cutting wrote on Twitter: 'Dreams getting wilder and wilder.'
Cutting lived in Jeffersonton in Northern Virginia but also appears to have roots in Texas. Radford University has said that she is on interim suspension, but refused to say whether the suspension resulted from the murder charge or predated it.
University President Brian Hemphill sent a campus-wide email Thursday saying that 'this is a difficult day for our campus and our community,' according to the Roanoke Times.
'The days and months to come will also be difficult as we extend our deepest sympathies, as well as our thoughts and prayers, to the family and loved ones of our student,' Hemphill continued.
On Friday, Hemphill sent out another email, writing: 'Alexa ... was very involved on campus and was a proud member of several organizations.
'Like every Highlander, Alexa had a full life ahead of her, a life poised to make a great impact on those she would have encountered, the career she was pursuing and the communities in which she would have lived.'
The university has called in grief counselors who will be available to speak to anyone who needs them.
Cutting was due to be arraigned on Friday. It was unclear whether she had an attorney to speak on her behalf.
The case is Radford's first murder charge in eight years, the city prosecutor said.
"I met this girl two years ago online and somehow we ended up living across from each other for a year"-Alexa wrote of Cutting in an Instagram post last March.
Was Cutting stalking her when she moved in across from her? Was she looking for a victim when she found her online? If so, she is a cunning psychopath that should have been charged with premeditated 1st degree murder. Lizzy Bordon types always seem to wiggle out of more serious charges usually doled out to men for the same acts.
Read the Loraine Bobbitt story the other day...she drove off with one hand on the wheel, and her other hand clutching his severed penis, then chunked it out the window when she realized she was still holding it. Sleeping with one eye open, anyone?