Suspect admits killing La. student

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LAFAYETTE, La., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A Louisiana man admitted Friday he killed a 21-year-old college student in May and another young woman in 1999.

Brandon Scott Lavergne entered guilty pleas in Lafayette Parish to the murders of Mickey Shunick and Lisa Pate during what had been scheduled as an evidentiary hearing, The Daily Advertiser of Lafayette, La., reported. As part of his plea agreement, he showed investigators last week where Shunick was buried.

In return for the guilty plea, Lavergne will be spared the death penalty.

Shunick, a student at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, disappeared May 19. In court papers, Lavergne said he saw her riding her bicycle, deliberately hit her with his truck, got her into the vehicle and then attacked her.

Shunick fought back hard, Lavergne said. Even when he thought she was dead and he was ready to bury her in a canefield, she grabbed his knife and stabbed him before he shot her in the head.

Nancy Rowe, the student's mother, said she "went down swinging."

"Maybe he'll wake up screaming every night, seeing her little hand with a knife plunging into him," Rowe said.

Lavergne had been a suspect in Pate's killing. But a grand jury convened almost 10 years after her body was found failed to indict him.