A former Virginia Tech student will spend 45 years in prison for killing her friend-turned-lover, who admitted she was only "experimenting" with her sexuality after the two had an intimate date night filled with wine and whipped cream.
Jessica Michelle Ewing pleaded guilty in February to
killing 21-year-old biology major Samanata Shrestha in 2014.
Ewing said she didn’t mean to kill her friend and lover, but strangled her after the two had sex — and after Shrestha explained that she was only “toying” with her sexuality.
“I loved Sam. I couldn’t believe she would say that I was some experiment to her,” Ewing said in court Monday
according to the Roanoke Times. “It hit me where I was most hurt.”
Ewing was further upset that Shrestha showed up to the date, which included a whipped cream fight inside Shrestha's apartment, in a pair of sweatpants. Shrestha’s naked body was found in the back seat of her car three days after the February 2014 attack.
Ewing was sentenced Monday to 85 years in prison — 80 years for the murder and five years for concealing a body. After the 24-year-old serves 45 years, the rest of her prison term will be suspended, Judge Robert Turk Ewing ruled.
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Shrestha invited Ewing to her apartment Feb. 7, 2014, for dinner and wine, prosecutors said. The two had classes together and planned that night to cook dinner together and hang out.
Both Ewing and Shrestha's boyfriend said Shrestha was "experimenting" and "toying" with her sexuality at the time.
Ewing said she spent hours getting ready for the dinner date, and showed up wearing a dress, carrying a bottle of wine and a canister of whipped cream. She was disappointed when her host opened the door wearing sweatpants, she said in court.
The two tried to salvage the night despite Ewing's foul mood: Shrestha changed into a dress, and the two had a whipped cream fight to lighten the tension, Ewing said.
Then, they built a fort out of pillows and blankets and engaged in sexual activities, Ewing claimed.
As the two lay in the fort, Ewing went into a fit of "intense hatred," she said. She called Shrestha a “spoiled b---h” and made other unsavory comments, she testified.
That’s when Shrestha explained that she was “only experimenting” with her sexuality.
The argument turned physical, and Ewing put her friend into a chokehold, she testified. Shrestha also suffered blunt-force trauma to her head, arms and legs during the fight
Police started searching for Shrestha the following Sunday after her parents reported that they couldn’t get in touch with her Saturday.
Cops found her body naked and covered in a sleeping back in the backseat of her 2004 Mercedes Benz on Monday. She was lying next to a teddy bear and a Virginia Tech scarf,
the newspaper reported earlier this year.
Police arrested Ewing on the same day, after she told her friend from Bible study and then her parents about the killing, prosecutors said.
Cops found Ewing’s diary and cellphone in her parents' Maryland home
The day before the dinner party, Ewing texted another friend, “tomorrow night is worrisome.
“I can’t stop this idea, it slowly creeped its way to consume my black heart,” Ewing texted. “I want to … let someone else decide, but ive (sic) already etched it in history.”
When the friend asked what Ewing meant, she wrote back, “just nonsense.”
After the killing, Ewing journaled about the attack, at one point writing that she wanted to burn Shrestha’s body.
“What the hell is my future going to be? an eternity in prison? Death penalty — off on insanity, mental what the f--k have you done for that god d--n girl,” she wrote.