On April 4, 2015, 28-year-old Ashley Pegram, who was the mother of three small children, went missing after making plans to spend the evening with a man she’d met on a dating app, specifically on one called “Meet Me.” Pegram had been devastated after losing her boyfriend in a car accident a few months earlier, and was lonely and looking for someone to talk to online. She’d begun corresponding with a man named Edward Bonilla a few weeks earlier. The two were using the messaging app, Kik. Bonilla’s username was “E-Money Bon.”
On the night of April 3, they arranged to meet in person for the first time. They were planning to go to a bonfire that Bonilla’s brother was having. Pegram sent Bonilla her address where she was living with her parents in Summerville, South Carolina, and he entered it into his phone’s GPS, after stopping to pick up some beer she had requested. He picked her up in a 2005 blue Hyundai Sonata. The young woman was wearing a black shirt, jeans, and black flip flops with sparkles.
Here’s a timeline of the events as the police uncovered them. Pegram and Bonilla got to the bonfire around 9:30 p.m. that night. She’d had a few drinks before they left around 9:45 p.m. and needed to use the restroom, so Bonilla pulled into a Sunoco gas station a little after midnight. She was seen on store video surveillance entering and exiting the store.
When Pegram didn’t return from her date by the next morning, her family grew concerned. She had been sharing a cell phone with her mother so they looked at the recent messages so they could see who she’d been conversing with.
Online Messages Revealed
Pegram’s sister noticed “E-Money Bon” had sent Pegram a message through Kik at 3:29 a.m. that read, “Hello. You still awake? Just making sure you made it home. Sorry I left at the gas station but you were too drunk to handle.” Pegram’s family members were concerned at the thought of the young mother walking alone in the early hours of the morning with no cell phone or way to get a hold of anyone.
Her sister, Brandy Chance, sent several messages to “E-Money Bon” to ask if he knew where Pegram was, and she tried calling him, too, with no response. Finally, after trying to call from a different phone, “E-Money Bon,” or Edward Bonilla, answered.
He told Chance that Pegram had been so heavily intoxicated that she had become belligerent, so he asked her to get out of his car around midnight in front of a mobile home park, but he didn’t know what had happened to her after that.
Pegram’s family reported her missing with the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, and gave them screenshots of her correspondence with Bonilla.
Detective Andy Martin reached out to 30-year-old Edward Bonilla to inquire about his night out with Ashley Pegram. Bonilla came to the interview in the blue Hyundai Sonata, which belonged to his mother. Accompanying him were his mother and a woman he was seeing at the time. He explained they’d gone to the bonfire, what happened afterwards, and why he’d left her alone in front of the mobile home park a few hours later when he’d let her out to use the restroom. He even showed the detective a shoeprint on the front quarter panel of the Hyundai where he said Pegram had kicked it after getting out.
A search of the area where Bonilla said he last saw Pegram was thoroughly searched and turned up no results.
A Cover-Up Story Emerges
During the initial interview with Edward Bonilla, the man had told Detective Martin he was temporarily unemployed due to an ankle injury. But about a week later, the suspect’s brother’s girlfriend contacted the police department and said that Bonilla was actually employed. He worked alongside his brother at a place called Cauble Flooring in Charleston. The detective confirmed that with the owner of Cauble Flooring. As part of his job, Bonilla had access to a Chevy GMC van and a Ford Ecoline van.
When the owner pulled up security footage from April 3 and 4, they could see that Bonilla’s brother took the Chevy GMC at the end of their shift, while Bonilla took the Ford Ecoline. On April 4, someone could be seen driving Ford Ecoline back to the lot around 11 p.m. There was also a car that had followed the driver to take him back home after dropping off the van. Bonilla had texted his boss in the early morning hours of April 4 to say he was sick and wouldn’t be able to make it work.
Because Bonilla had told the police that he was unemployed, and his boss was able to verify he’d been working for Cauble Flooring for eight months, the police arrested Bonilla and charged him with obstruction of justice. They knew he had likely done something to Ashley Pegram, but needed more time to explore the evidence and continue searching for the young woman.
A search of the Ford Ecoline turned up what appeared to be multiple blood stains inside the car, and that blood matched Pegram’s DNA. Investigators discovered Bonilla’s mother had rented a silver Chevy Cruze on the morning of April 4. That appeared to be the car that was picking up Bonilla after he returned the van at Cauble Flooring. Edward Bonilla was charged with the murder of Ashley Pegram on May 6, 2015.
Bonilla finally told investigators the location of Pegram’s body, and she was found in a shallow grave in some woods near Harleyville, South Carolina. While the police declined to give a lot of details at the time of the discovery, they did say her death was being considered a homicide.
Edward Bonilla’s Trial Begins
Bonilla’s trial began in August 2016. Digital forensic evidence played a large role in helping to discover the victim’s locations. An investigator with the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office presented the findings of an examination of Bonilla’s cell phone records. His phone showed that it pinged near Pegram’s residence at the time he picked her up for their date, and near Crowfield Plantation between 9:30 p.m. and midnight, where they attended the bonfire. On April 4, between 12:30 a.m. and 1:02 a.m., the phone pinged near Pegram’s residence. At 6:42 a.m., it pinged near Harleyville, South Carolina, specifically where her body was later found, and at 10:58 p.m., it pinged at Cauble Flooring. They examined the messages between Pegram and Bonilla on Meet Me and Kik.
Bonilla’s brother’s girlfriend testified that while Pegram had been drinking at the bonfire, she had not seemed overly intoxicated. Bonilla insisted she keep drinking from one particular bottle of beer as they were leaving.
Ashley’s Pegram’s Cause of Death
A forensic pathologist at MUSC who performed the autopsy on Pegram noted extensive decomposition with external injuries to the left side of her head and indentations around her neck. He said the neck fractures were consistent with strangulation, but he could not determine if they had occurred while the victim was still alive. Pegram had black electrical tape wrapped around her right wrist and more tape wrapped around her neck. When found, she had been unclothed from the waist down. She had muscle relaxers and alcohol in her system when she died, but he could not determine her blood alcohol level. The condition of her body made it too difficult to determine if sexual assault had occurred.
The State presented testimony from an expert in blood spatter analysis. He said multiple cast off patterns were found on the ceiling of the van, and near the rear wheel well. He stated those patterns were consistent with someone standing over a victim and taking multiple swings at her.
Bonilla took the stand in his own defense. Visibly nervous, he testified that Ashley Pegram had been drinking the night they went to the bonfire. When she got out to use the restroom a second time, after the stop at the gas station, he said he accidentally hit her with his mom’s car. She became angry and lashed out at him. When he tried to physically restrain her, she died in his arms. He said he panicked after that and left her body on the side of the road, returning later to move it with the van he had taken from work. He said before putting her in the van, he taped a plastic bag around her head because it was bleeding. He stuck to his story that he did not intentionally kill Pegram.
Prosecutors believed Bonilla had deliberately drugged Pegram so he could sexually assault her. He then beat her to death before hiding her body in Harleyville. They pointed out that Pegram’s injuries discovered during the autopsy were not consistent with Bonilla’s version of an accidental death. The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison.
Nicole Lovell
The Kik app also featured prominently in the murder of a young girl in Virginia in 2016.
Nicole Lovell left her home in Blacksburg, Virginia the middle of the night on January 27, 2016. She took her phone with her and a blanket featuring the animated characters the Minions. When her mom tried to enter her bedroom the next morning, Lovell had pushed a nightstand up against the door. Her mom, Tammy Weeks, tried to call her phone and no one answered. When she spoke to a local neighborhood mom, the woman said Lovell had told her daughters she was going on a date.
Nicole Lovell was vulnerable. She’d been experiencing bullying at school due to some physical scars she’d received after a life-saving liver transplant she’d had as an infant. While police began searching for Lovell, they found notes with usernames and passwords to her social media accounts in her bedroom. They learned she’d been using Kik regularly to correspond with other teens anonymously, even though her mom had forbidden her from using it. They could see that she’d been messaging someone with the username Dr_Tombstone. The IP address traced that named to a Virginia Tech freshman engineering student named David Eisenhauser. He was 18 years old and an honor student and track star.
The FBI and local police headed over to the campus to question Eisenhauser. His roommate told them the night Lovell went missing, Eisenhauser had put on boots, which was unusual because it wasn’t raining that hard. He returned at 2 a.m. Eisenhauser admitted he’d talked to Lovell outside her house that night, but said nothing further. They arrested him for abduction. When speaking with him, they were made aware of another student who may have been involved, 19-year-old Natalie Keepers. She was also an engineering student.
Three days after Lovell disappeared, investigators found her body in Surry County, North Carolina, just over the border from Virginia. She had been stabbed, and her throat cut. Police believed Eisenhauser had been messaging Lovell on Kik and panicked when he found out she was underage. He somehow convinced Keepers to go along with the plan, making her feel special by being included. They met at a Cookout beforehand and purchased supplies at a local Wal-Mart before going to meet Lovell at her house. Investigators found blood stains, a shovel, and cleaning supplies in Eisenhauser’s car. Keepers had Lovell’s blanket and a bag at her dorm.
Eisenhauser was convicted of all the charges against him in the death of Nicole Lovell. He received 60 years for first-degree murder, 10 years for abduction, and five years for concealing a dead body. Keepers tried to save herself by pleading guilty to concealment of a dead body before her trial started. Prosecutors pointed out a particularly damning text message she had sent to Eisenhauser after the murder, telling him to go get some sleep because “he deserved it.” She was found guilty of accessory before the fact and sentenced to 40 years in prison. She is required to be supervised by a probation officer for 10 years once she is released from prison, and, and will not be able to have any contact with Lovell’s family.
The Kik messaging app, owned by a Canadian company, is especially dangerous for teens users are anonymous, and they are not asked to sign up with their real name or phone number, just an e-mail address. It’s a haven for predators. Teens also make up a large portion of the user base of Kik, and this is the part of the population that is especially vulnerable to cyberbullies, sexual predators, and sextortionists. It has a dating app feature that mimics Tinder. There are no parental control tools available. It has a live-streaming feature that allows racy content to pass through. There are currently more than 300 million users, and 40 percent of those users are American teenagers.
Joseph Emmett Naulty
It was another American teenager that used the Kik messaging app to announce plans he had to murder his 63-year-old grandfather Joseph Emmett Naulty, on August 8, 2016. Fifteen-year-old Raistlin Arthur Martin messaged with another anonymous user, posting photos of the black gloves and hatchet he planned to use in the murder. When the user wanted to know why Martin wanted his grandfather dead, the teen replied, “he’s just kinda inconvenient.” He also posted he didn’t think he would serve much time for the crime because of his age.
Martin then committed the murder around midnight, while his father slept. His father awoke to screams and called 911. Martin met authorities at the door still holding the hatchet. The grandfather had moved in with Martin and his father from Alabama after the death of his wife a few months earlier. Martin was arrested and charged as a juvenile. Naulty suffered more than 15 chop wounds to his head and 16 sharp force injuries on his arms and hands.
His defense attorneys tried to blame the murder on Martin’s lack of parenting. After his parents divorced, he lived primarily with his father. After being bullied in elementary school, his father pulled him out to homeschool, but that consisted of a few workbooks here and there and a lot of time left for Martin to play online video games. He became isolated and possibly suffered from bipolar disorder.
In February of 2018, Raistlin Martin pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of his grandfather and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
Show Sources:
Ashley Pegram
The Greenville News
May 7, 2015
Man charged after blood found in car
https://www.newspapers.com/image/104794642
The Times and Democrat
May 12, 2015
Missing Summerville woman’s body found
https://www.newspapers.com/image/442799567
The Times and Democrat
August 13, 2016
Life term for man in slaying
https://www.newspapers.com/image/442767632
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/kik-app-murder-trial-cell-records-and-blood-spatter
https://abcnews4.com/archive/search-for-missing-woman-continues-in-dorchester-county
https://abcnews4.com/archive/deputies-seek-help-finding-summerville-woman-who-disappeared-after-date
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/meet-me-murder-trial-to-begin-today
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/kik-app-murder-trial-cell-records-and-blood-spatter
https://casetext.com/case/state-v-bonilla-50
May 7, 2015
Man charged after blood found in car
https://www.newspapers.com/image/104794642
The Times and Democrat
May 12, 2015
Missing Summerville woman’s body found
https://www.newspapers.com/image/442799567
The Times and Democrat
August 13, 2016
Life term for man in slaying
https://www.newspapers.com/image/442767632
Nicole Lovell
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/kik-app-murder-trial-cell-records-and-blood-spatter
https://abcnews4.com/archive/search-for-missing-woman-continues-in-dorchester-county
https://abcnews4.com/archive/deputies-seek-help-finding-summerville-woman-who-disappeared-after-date
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/meet-me-murder-trial-to-begin-today
https://abcnews4.com/news/crime-news/kik-app-murder-trial-cell-records-and-blood-spatter
https://casetext.com/case/state-v-bonilla-50
Joseph Emmett Naulty
https://people.com/crime/fayetteville-north-carolina-teen-grandfather-murder-hatchet-kik
https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/2016/12/03/teen-talked-about-grandfather-s/22376845007
