Photo: Radford City Police Department
They were best friends.
By Sarah Gangraw — Written on Jan 30, 2019
A Virginia college student was charged with second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of her roommate.
Luisa Cutting, 21, is accused of stabbing Alexa Cannon, 20, over 40 times with a butcher knife in the off-campus apartment they shared. The motive is unclear.
Just before 8 a.m. on Thursday, police responded to a 911 call about a domestic dispute involving a knife, ABC3340 reported. When they arrived, dispatchers found Cutting “covered in blood.” Cutting told the police to arrest her and put her hands behind her back.
“I killed her,” Cutting said.
Alexa Cannon, Instagram
Then, police discovered Cannon’s body. She suffered 30 to 40 stab wounds and was lying on the floor with a “butcher knife sticking out of her mouth,” according to warrants. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police took pills, grinders, and multiple smoking devices from Cutting's bedroom, a brown, chalk-like substance from the kitchen, Cannon's cell phone, and a serrated knife taken from the victim, a search warrant says.
Lt. Andy Wilburn with Radford City Police Department's Administrative Services Bureau said things like this are rare in Radford. This is the town's first homicide in three years.
"It’s really shocking to the Radford U community and our community because we don’t have events like this, we don’t have tragedies like this, we don’t have acts like this," he said.
The two women were described as best friends.
“I’m lost for words, to be honest,” Shelton Lewis, a Radford University student who knew Cutting and Cannon, told WBDJ7. “I really wanna know what was the motive behind it because they were best friends since freshmen year, and that was in 2016. Now it’s 2019 and this has happened.”
Cutting and Cannon often posted photos with each other laughing and smiling on social media, and some of the posts are chilling in hindsight.
"I met this girl two years ago online and somehow we ended up living across from each other for a year, this summer she was equivalent to my mom in Cancun," Cannon captioned a picture on Instagram in March. "And unimaginably she still puts up with me and now we’re living together next year. Love you more Lu and everyone pray that we don’t kill each other this year."
Cutting tweeted a disturbing message about death on Jan. 10.
"I know death is coming but I still can’t wrap my head around it," she wrote.
Radford University President Brian Hemphill sent a campus-wide email Thursday.
“Without question, this is a difficult day for our campus and our community," he wrote. “The days and months to come will also be difficult as we extend our deepest sympathies, as well as our thoughts and prayers, to the family and loved ones of our student."
Hemphill sent out another email on Friday.
"Alexa was pursuing a degree in psychology and was planning to graduate next May," he wrote." She was very involved on campus and was a proud member of several organizations. Like every Highlander, Alexa had a full life ahead of her, a life poised to make a great impact on those she would have encountered, the career she was pursuing and the communities in which she would have lived. Please join me in expressing the Radford family’s deepest sympathies and lasting condolences to the Cannon family and all of those impacted by Alexa’s passing and this inexcusable and heinous act."
Anybody with any information is asked to contact the Radford City Police Department at 540-731-3624, or email crimestoppers@radfordva.gov.
Sarah Gangraw writes about all things news, entertainment and crime. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.