Murdered Ole Miss student was pregnant with accused killer's child and was shot after she refused abortion demand
OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI: A Mississippi college student who was found dead after being shot eight times was pregnant with her accused killer's baby and had told him the news shortly before she was murdered, her friend has claimed.
The body of Ally Kostial, 21, a student at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), was found on the morning of July 20 near Sardis Lake, around 30 miles from the college campus in Oxford, we had previously reported.
She was last seen on surveillance footage leaving Funky's bar in Oxford shortly before midnight the previous day, with her roommates telling the police that they heard her return home around that time.
But at some point that same night, she left again, and her body ended up in Buford's Bridge, a remote area with a fishing camp. The police subsequently arrested Brandon Theesfeld, 22, her on-again, off-again boyfriend in this connection. Now, another student at Ole Miss has said that it was an open secret that Kostial was pregnant and that Theesfeld, who was dating someone else at the time, killed her after she told him about the baby and ruled out an abortion.
"Her sorority sisters knew she was pregnant and that she had told Brandon," she told the Daily Mail. "He was really upset about it, that it would ruin his life and his future. He was really mad that she wouldn't get an abortion."
A second student also backed the pregnancy claim and said she believed Kostial was killed the same day she told Theesfeld about the baby. "Her sorority sisters thought it was Brandon because he was in a rage earlier in the day when I guess she had told him," she said.
She also revealed that Kostial's relationship with Theesfeld was a "volatile" and " extremely toxic" one. "He was very controlling - you can't go here, you can't talk to this person, you were flirting with this guy," she said, adding that they often broke up and got back together.
"It was on and off. They'd break up and then they'd get back together. I don't want to say volatile but unstable," she said. "I don't think they were 'on' at the time of her death." She said Theesfeld "always looked frustrated" and made "everyone else feel uncomfortable," that he was known as "kind of a p***k."
Theesfeld was taken into custody on Monday, July 22, outside a gas station in South Memphis and allegedly had blood on his clothes at the time of his arrest. The police said they had found a weapon in his truck and while it is still unclear if it is the murder weapon, he has been charged in Kostial's death. He has also been suspended from his business administration course at the university.
He is currently at the Lafayette County Detention Center, with the case set to go before a grand jury at the end of August.
The pregnancy theory does provide a motive for the murder and does have some credence, considering it has been reported that Kostial was shot only in the torso and stomach area.
The Lafayette County Sheriff's Department has confirmed that they are aware of the claims that Kostial was pregnant with Theesfeld's child and that it was a part of their ongoing investigation into her murder.
So far, the Lafayette County Coroner has only performed an initial examination on the 21-year-old's body, with scheduled ballistic, trace, and comparative testing not complete. Kostial's funeral will be held on August 3 in Kirkwood, Missouri.