A young man has been charged with killing Caroline Heinz, a college freshman found stabbed to death in her own car near her Pennsylvania campus, in a case that has shaken her university community.
Heinz had just been starting her freshman year at Penn West California University, near Pittsburgh, when she was killed at the very beginning of her college life.
Police said she was reported missing after she failed to return to her dorm. Early Thursday morning, officers found her body in the back of her car, which had noticeable blood spatter.
Prosecutors have charged Royce Moser with the killing, alleging that he stabbed his girlfriend to death.
According to the case, Moser then turned to his own mother, asking her to help him cover up what he had done.
His mother, in an anguished account, did not shield her son from the weight of the crime. My son took a life, she said, expressing her sorrow over what had happened.
Heinz's college soccer team paid tribute to her, describing their immense pain and sorrow at her loss, as the campus community mourns a student whose life was cut short just as her college years were beginning.