Ole Miss student Ally Kostial, 21, found dead near lake was shot eight times, 22-year-old male suspect in custody
A 22-year-old man was taken into custody on July 22 in connection with the murder of University of Mississippi sorority sister who was found dead after being shot eight times.
The body of Alexandria “Ally” Kostial, 21, was found on the morning of July 20 near Sardis Lake, around 20 miles from the Ole Miss campus in Oxford, per local news station WLBT.
22-year-old Brandon Theesfeld had been arrested in connection with Kostial's murder and has been booked into the Lafayette County Detention Center, the sheriff's office confirmed to Fox News on July 23.
Theesfeld was reportedly a student in the School of Business Administration, and has been suspended from the university.
Kostial was seen stopping at the door of an Oxford Square bar in surveillance footage from the night of July 19, although she didn't go inside.
According to her roommates, Kostial returned home around midnight. However, she left the house again at some point.
It is yet to be established how the student ended up in Buford's Ridge, a remote area with a fishing camp.
The Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department said one of their deputies was on routine patrol at the Ridge, where locals and college students often go to on weekends to ride their ATVs in the lake bottom when the water is low.
However, last weekend, the water level was quite high, thereby considerably cutting down traffic in the area.
This is when the patrolling deputy found Kostial's body with eight gunshot wounds.
A joint investigation into the incident is being led by the Oxford Police Department, with assistance from the University of Mississippi Police Department, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Her devastated father Keith revealed on social media that police informed him that his daughter's death was a homicide, per the New York Post.
“We were visited by the Sunset Hills MO Police who communicated to us that our beautiful dear Alexandria (Ally) Kostial was the victim of a homicide,” Kostial wrote Sunday in a Facebook post. “As of now, it is believed the crime happened in Lafayette County, MS.”
According to him, his daughter was getting a bachelor’s degree in marketing and was expected to graduate next year.
He added that she was on campus this summer taking extra courses and teaching fitness classes.
Meanwhile, her sorority sisters at the University of Mississippi's Alpha Phi chapter mourned her death on social media.
“She was the brightest light and always had a smile on her face. She truly was a ray of sunshine. My heart and condolences go out to the Kostial family,” sorority sister Kassidy Desnoyer wrote on Facebook.
Theesfeld has not yet appeared in court and is scheduled for an appearance at some point on Tuesday.