Beau Charged in NY Frosh's Dormitory Murder

The boyfriend of an upstate New York college freshman found beaten to death in her dorm room has been charged with her murder. Clayton Whittemore, 21, was nabbed at a gas station some 100 miles away from the College at Brockport where Alexandra Kogut's body was discovered, reports the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Police entered Kogut's dorm after they were contacted by her worried mom, who hadn't been able to reach her 18-year-old daughter on her cell phone. She suffered "extensive trauma" to her upper body, said school Police Chief Robert Kehoe.

Whittemore is a student at Utica College, and was visiting Kogut over the weekend. He has pleaded not guilty, but admitted causing her death to investigators, the Ithaca Journal reports. "It's tragic when anyone loses their life," Kehoe told WHAM-TV. "When a young lady who's a college student and apparently in a safe environment is brutally murdered as this young lady was, it's certainly a tragedy for her family and friends and the entire Brockport college community." (More Clayton Whittemore stories.)