Complaint: Beau said he killed NY college freshman

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Friends of a college freshman who police say was beaten to death in her dorm room by her boyfriend rallied others Monday to wear purple to raise domestic violence awareness, and her family mourned the loss of a “bright, beautiful young woman” one month after sending her off to school.

Alexandra Kogut’s body was found early Saturday at the State University of New York College at Brockport, near Rochester. Campus police discovered the 18-year-old Kogut’s body after her mother called them concerned because she couldn’t reach her, Monroe County sheriff’s spokesman John Helfer said.

Kogut’s boyfriend, 21-year-old Clayton Whittemore, was arrested at a Thruway rest stop near Syracuse, 100 miles east, about an hour later. He told state troopers he intentionally killed Kogut, according to a criminal complaint. No motive was given.

The cause of death was ruled blunt force trauma, Helfer said, but he declined to say whether a weapon was used.

Whittemore pleaded not guilty over the weekend to a murder charge and is being held without bail in Monroe County Jail. Telephone messages left at his family’s New Hartford home and at his public defender’s office weren’t immediately returned Monday.

Kogut’s family released a photo of her along with a statement asking for privacy.

“Alexandra Kogut was a bright, beautiful young woman who was thrilled to be beginning her college education,” the family said. “Her lovely and sweet demeanor was truly infectious and she will forever be missed.”

A Facebook page set up in Kogut’s honor had hundreds of messages of condolence Monday, and several friends and a former teacher urged supporters to wear purple.

Kogut and Whittemore lived in New Hartford, in central New York about 150 miles east of Brockport, and attended the same high school.

Kogut’s childhood friend Mary Kate Heaton said the two appeared “perfectly content” in the relationship, which began last year.

“I know she loved him a lot,” Heaton said by phone Monday.

Heaton and Kogut, along with their mothers, had taken a trip to New York City just before heading off to college, Heaton said. Kogut gave no hint of trouble as the group shopped and saw “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway, she said.

“She was texting him throughout the whole trip,” said Heaton, who goes to Stonehill College in Massachusetts.

Kogut was majoring in communication, university President John Halstead said. A memorial service was scheduled for Monday night on campus, he said.

“These are trying times for our campus but I know we will pull together and support each other as we move through the coming days,” Halstead said in a statement.

A day before the slaying, the union representing SUNY police issued a student safety alert after what they said was months of escalating security concerns on campus ignored by SUNY.

SUNY said it sees the Brockport slaying as an isolated tragedy, unrelated to the union’s concerns about broader campus safety.

“I don’t think any of the union’s concerns would have any impact or are even remotely related,” SUNY spokesman David Doyle said.

SUNY Brockport spokesman John Follaco said Monday the school was “not aware” of any problems involving Kogut. He said its priority is making sure the students are OK and it hasn’t launched a formal investigation but is “constantly reevaluating” its policies.

For more than six months, the union has pressed for better training, weapons and equipment and a higher state of alert before and during a string of three violent attacks on and around state campuses in Buffalo and Albany.

Doyle, the SUNY spokesman, said SUNY had been investigating and discussing the concerns and a major meeting with union members is in the works but has been delayed after the system’s top administrator left the job.

SUNY Brockport dormitories are locked at all times, and residents swipe identification cards to gain access, Follaco said. Guests must be signed in, and all procedures were followed in Whittemore’s case, he said.

Whittemore enrolled last fall at Utica College, near where he and his girlfriend grew up, and was an accounting major, college spokesman Kelly Adams said. College policy prevented him from discussing whether Whittemore had ever been in trouble on campus.

Whittemore had been arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication in Brevard County, Fla., in January 2011, the Utica Observer-Dispatch reported.

A standout high school hockey player, he had been named Section III’s Division II East Player of the Year and the state Division II Player of the Year in his final season, the newspaper said.

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Associated Press writer Michael Gormley contributed to this report from Albany.