After male Virginia Tech student was charged in the death of 13-year-old Nicole Lovell, community pushes to help young women understand predators

When Jane Lillian Vance heard that 13-year-old Nicole Lovell was missing, she couldn’t believe it was happening again.

Vance worked as an instructional assistant in Lovell’s class at Blacksburg middle school, near Virginia Tech University, during her sixth grade year and the two had bonded over a love of animals. Vance described Lovell as “sunny”, but she knew all too well what kind of darkness such a bright girl can attract.

Vance co-founded Help Save the Next Girl, a national non-profit which seeks to “to sensitize young women and girls to predatory danger”, when Morgan Harrington, one of her students at Virginia Tech, went missing in 2009 and her body was discovered in a field over three months later.

On Saturday, three days after Lovell went missing, her body was found in North Carolina.

Vance said that Lovell reminded her of Harrington long before tragedy struck.

Lovell, who had suffered from a series of serious health problems for most of her life and had undergone a liver transplant, went missing from her home last week, apparently blocking her bedroom door with a dresser and slipping out the window – without her life-saving liver medication.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A 2015 photo of Nicole Lovell, provided by Tammy Weeks, her mother. Photograph: Tammy Weeks/AP

There have been indications that Lovell knew David Eisenhauer, a Virginia Tech student who has been charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder, through the internet.

Prosecutors announced Tuesday that Lovell died from stab wounds. Mary Pettit, the commonwealth attorney for Montgomery County, Virginia, also said that Natalie Keepers, who had been previously been charged with accessory after the fact in the commission of a felony and improper disposal of a body, was “charged today with being an accessory before the fact in the first-degree murder of Nicole Lovell”.

Pettit also said that in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, her office would release no “additional factual information outside of the courtroom”.

Vance doesn’t know anything more than anyone else about what actually happened to Lovell, but she downplays stories that Lovell had been bullied at school, saying that Lovell was “well-loved – her friends loved her, her teachers adore her”.

For Vance, when the media focuses on issues such as bullying, it takes the focus away from what she sees as the real problem: sexual predators.

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“There is only one source of her murder and that is her predator,” she said. “When you wonder about the bullying in the school or whether the parents were attentive enough or whether cyberspace is going to be clean, you dilute the real attention to the fact that there are sexual predators. Nicole’s naivety is conjectural – she’s not here to defend herself. The fact is what we need to look at is sexual predators, perverse sexual violence and why that happens.”

The medical examiner has finished the examination of Lovell’s body, though officials say results may not be released for weeks, but so far there has been no indication that the murder was sexually motivated.

Still, Vance said that it is important to help girls and young women understand predators.

“I don’t know the accused in the case but I want to know, as educators – I don’t care if it is in college or church or middle school – how we can begin to ID the early warning signs of that coldness” that could allow someone to kill a 13-year-old.

“Our town, we’ve suffered too much,” she said. “But this is a very positive community. We have suffered a grievous grievous grievous loss and we will never be the same. We will bury Nicole but that will be the beginning of how to build her legacy.”

“There are a few moments or decisions in a lifetime that completely redefine the rest of your life, having children, having wonderful parents, having great teachers. For me another one has always been having bright students – not just intelligent, not just beautiful, but compassionate students,” Vance said.

Help Save the Next Girl will hold a vigil on campus next week to honor Lovell, Hartigan and to raise awareness of predators.