While police investigating the murder of University of Mississippi student Ally Kostial are keeping key details of the investigation under wraps, the Lafayette County coroner made a cryptic statement addressing law enforcement’s silence.
Kostial, 21, was found dead on July 20 about 30 miles from the Ole Miss campus in Oxford. A police officer on a routine patrol near a lake in Harmontown reportedly found Kostial’s body with numerous gunshot wounds. Kostial’s roommates reportedly told police that she came home at about midnight Friday, but appeared to have left again without her roommates hearing her leave.
Just two days after her body was found, Kostial’s Ole Miss classmate Brandon Theesfeld, 22, was arrested at a gas station in Memphis, Tennessee. He reportedly had blood on his clothes and a weapon in his truck when police apprehended him. Theesfeld was booked on suspicion of murder and has not yet appeared for a bail hearing.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Theesfeld’s case is expected to go to a grand jury in August, and a member of his defense team said he is expected to plead not guilty.
A recent Clarion-Ledger report, citing Kostial’s friends, described Theesfeld as Kostial’s “on-again, off-again boyfriend.”
Numerous sources with stated connections to the suspect and/or the victim, all speaking on the condition of anonymity, told CrimeOnline that Kostial and Theesfeld had been involved romantically. By all indications it was not an exclusive relationship, at least for Theesfeld.
Lafayette County Coroner Rocky Kennedy addressed the lack of publicly released information about the murder investigation in an interview with the Clarion Ledger.
“It’s not a story for everybody to see until it goes to court and goes to trial, ” Kennedy told the news outlet.
“Some of the sensitive details in this case… (are) instrumental to make sure this person who committed this crime is tried and convicted and serve an applicable sentence or punishment and held responsible for what they did.”
Kennedy had earlier told the Commercial Appeal that Kostial’s body had been sent to a state crime lab in Pearl, Mississippi, for an autopsy. Multiple news outlets, including NBC 5 Dallas-Forth Worth, have reported that Kostial was shot eight times in the stomach.
Police have not yet commented on a possible motive for the murder.
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