Police have released what are most likely the final images of University of Mississippi student Ally Kostial before she was found dead near a lake 20 miles from campus.
The Oxford Police Department released surveillance video from July 19 that shows the 21-year-old outside Rooster's bar on campus, where she can be seen approaching the door before turning around and walking away while looking at her phone.
A Lafayette County Sheriff's Department deputy on patrol found her body the next morning in a wooded area about 20 miles from campus. She was found with eight gunshot wounds, sources close to the investigation told NBC affiliate WLBT.
Police arrested fellow University of Mississippi student Brandon Theesfeld, 22, on Monday morning at a Memphis gas station 80 miles away and charged him with murder.
Theesfeld, who has been suspended by the university, has had previous run-ins with the law. He was issued a citation for underage alcohol possession four years ago and charged in 2017 with public drunkenness and possessing a fake ID, police said.
Theesfeld and Kostial had previously met, as she posted photos in 2016 of them together on social media.
Kostial's close friends from her native St. Louis are among many who are mourning her loss.
"I just feel like I'm gonna wake up and everything's just gonna be back to normal," friend Maddy Norris told Blayne Alexander on TODAY Thursday. "It just doesn't seem real."
Her friends didn't want to discuss her relationship with Theesfeld, but said she had mentioned his name before.
"She always wanted to look for the good in people so I don't think she ever thought anything like this would ever happen to her,'' friend Lauren Mueller told Alexander.
Kostial's friends are planning a vigil for her this week at her high school in St. Louis as they remember a radiant young woman gone too soon.
"She lived her life to the fullest in every way possible,'' Norris said.