MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. – The woman convicted in connection with the death of a Blacksburg girl in 2016 won’t see her appeal move forward in the Virginia Supreme Court.
The court denied Natalie Keepers’ petition for appeal on Wednesday.
In September 2018, a jury found Keepers guilty of being an accessory before the fact in the first-degree murder of Nicole Lovell.
Former Virginia Tech student David Eisenhauer was found guilty of abducting, murdering and hiding the body of Lovell and is currently serving a 50-year sentence.
[Nicole Lovell: A timeline of the years since her disappearance]
Eisenhauer convinced the 13-year-old to climb out of her bedroom window before he took her to a wooded area and stabbed her to death in January of 2016, according to court documents.
Lovell’s family shared the following statement with 10 News on Wednesday:
“We want to thank everyone for their support over the last four years, all the prayers are greatly appreciated. Since the day our Nicole went missing all the way through the trials till now has been an emotional roller coaster. Today Nicole shined a light down on us with this final appeal being denied. We love you Nicole and you will always be in our hearts and on our minds. We will never forget.”
Keepers still has the chance to ask the court to reconsider the denial, according to Montgomery County Commonwealth’s Attorney Mary Pettitt.
In April, Keepers and her legal team attempted an appeal on the grounds that her original trial was unfair. However, the Virginia Court of Appeals didn’t agree with Keepers and her legal team and it affirmed the conviction by the trial court.