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Alexandria “Ally” Kostial was attending the University of Mississippi when her life was cut tragically short on July 20, 2019.
Ally was a native of St. Louis, Missouri & always set her eyes on one day attending the University of Mississippi & as her high school years came to an end, her dream was coming to a reality. She headed off to college where she studied business & marketing with the hope of working in the fashion industry after graduation. Ally saw herself one day marrying a nice, handsome, Southern boy who was athletic, hard working & had a love of the outdoors. She envisioned a home surrounded by a picket fence with children playing in the yard.
Ally was known for having a love of home decor & would often rearrange & redecorate her room just for fun. Her friends became accustomed to the sight of Ally pushing furniture around her room. Those that knew her shared the opinion that Ally was a kind, sweet, too-good-for-this-world type of girl that you wanted to protect from the rest of the world.
Ally’s friends described her as a ray of sunshine that meant so much to so many people. She was a generous person who always put in extra effort to bring positivity to others. She loved sunsets, the colors pink & turquoise, beach themes & the movie, Legally Blond. When Ally didn’t have a prom date, her best friend asked her to be her date & they had a blast, dancing the night away. Ally was also exceptionally close with her mom, Cindy & the last day they saw each other, Cindy was on campus, visiting her daughter, they were out shopping together when Ally requested that her mom cook her a delicious, home-cooked meal just the way she liked it.
Despite being only 21-years-old, Ally had taken part in several overseas community outreach programs & became involved in extracurricular activities during her time at the university; she taught fitness classes including yoga & pilates & was a member of the golf club. Part of her draw to the University of Mississippi were the gorgeous flowers around campus as Ally had a deep love of flowers.
In the fall of 2016, during her freshman year at Ole Miss, Ally met a boy from Fort Worth, Texas named Brandon Thessfeld at a local bar. He seemed to check all of Ally’s boxes as the perfect suitor; he was a fellow student at Ole Miss & a handsome, Southern boy. The two dated on & off for two years since Brandon was truly only looking for something casual & fun, believing that they were too young for a serious relationship. In 2019, Brandon was 22 while Ally was 21.
When Ally first told her mom about Brandon, she was exceptionally excited. She explained that he was from Texas & that she planned to invite him to a sorority dance. Overall, Ally’s parents knew little to nothing about Brandon & despite the fact that Ally told her mom about everything that was happening in her life, she was very quiet about her life in regards to Brandon.
Ally told her friends just how cute he was & that she was starting to have a crush on him. As time went on, she became more & more head over heels for Brandon & invited him to most of the parties that her sorority hosted. When Ally’s best friend from home, Maddy, came to visit, she was looking forward to finally meeting this boy that her friend often spoke of. However, when Maddy got into town, things didn’t go as planned & Maddy never had the chance to meet Brandon since he chose not to come around. She could clearly see how this had hurt her friend, but otherwise, Ally seemed to be thriving at college.
It was pretty clear to Ally’s friends that the relationship was one-sided; she would be flooding him with texts day & night while he rarely responded. To some, it appeared that she was all but stalking him. Even Ally’s closest friends at college had never even met Brandon which they found very concerning & strange. From what they could tell, he didn’t seem like a very nice person especially after Ally described him as crazy aggressive. Oftentimes, she would come to her friends for a shoulder to cry on after he had done yet another thing to upset her. Her friends viewed Brandon as manipulative & saw the relationship as odd & mostly carried out over texts. Sometimes Ally would show her friends his texts & they were able to clearly see just how unkind he was to their friend.
According to Brandon’s neighbor at the dorms, he was quick to brag about how rich his father was & how if need be, he could help him get away with anything. He also said that Brandon was very demeaning toward women & often made crude, vulgar remarks when speaking of females & described him as misogynistic & arrogant. Brandon viewed the relationship with Ally as casual & sexual; they weren’t boyfriend & girlfriend, they didn’t go on dates, he never picked her up & took her out for dinner. He often told Ally that he wasn’t good enough for her & that’s why they couldn’t be together.
Brandon was raised in a loving home, his parents were Christian & his father worked as an anesthesiologist. He loved the outdoors, hunting, fishing & playing soccer. He’d never been in a fight before & he had no history of violence.
In mid-April, Ally took a pregnancy test that came back as inconclusive & texted Brandon a photo of a barely visible pale blue streak. With the photo, she wrote: …Like it’s a very faint blue line… but idk I guess I can wait & see if I get my period. She later wrote: I’m not saying what I am gonna do bc idk what’s happenin.. But even if you don’t want to be involved like I am really pretty & sweet & I know I will meet a real man one day..
Brandon mostly ignored Ally’s texts but on April 14, messages that were later found on Ally’s Apple Watch made it clear that Brandon was not on board with the idea of being a father. At 10:15 pm, he wrote: It’s so early you just take a pill not keeping it at all I do not want a kid at all. At 10:17 pm, he wrote: I am serious, no kid at all it will ruin my life I will not help at all. Not to be mean but this is how I feel and I am not changing my mind.
For the most part, he ignored Ally’s texts & phone calls which made it clear that he did not want to see her anymore. He would also tell Ally that he would come over so they could discuss the situation, but then he wouldn’t show up.
Many of Ally’s messages were very long, revealing & troubling & remained one-sided. On Monday, April 15, 2019, she sent him messages about her self-destructive behavior: I LIVED it up this weekend & was drunk 24/7. I had a bottle of tequila, two bottles of champagne, seven beers, a glass of wine. I did that so my body might decide HAHHA no not today… At 2:37 am she texted: I thought about it if you want to talk to me in person that would be better.. About nine hours later, Brandon responded: I can talk tomorrow. I’m busy today. I’m still going to have the decision of the pill.
Looking back, those that know Ally can see that she was likely desperate & exaggerating the amount of alcohol she consumed to encourage him to come to her rescue, which Brandon clearly had no interest in.
Ally begged Brandon to meet her & he finally relented, but then he never showed up. This stonewalling went on for three months & at this point, summer was in full swing & Brandon had actually blocked Ally’s number. In the summer of 2019, as she was preparing to enter senior year, Ally decided to remain at the university to take summer courses rather than return home to St. Louis.
On July 12, 2019, after Ally continued to text Brandon & send him a photo of two more ambiguous home pregnancy tests, he finally responded: I have had enough. Get an appointment and take care of this. What Ally didn’t know was on that same day, Brandon had taken a road trip back to his home in Fort Worth, Texas, 570 miles away from campus. Less than 48 hours later, he posted a photo of a gun to Snapchat with the chilling caption, “finally taking my baby back to Oxford.”
By the time Brandon had driven back from Texas to Mississippi, he’d left a disturbing digital footprint where he made deeply disturbing web searches on how to get away with crimes, how to tie people up & how to lure someone away. He also did a search on Ted Bundy.
On Thursday, July 19, 2019, shortly before 2 am, Ally texted Brandon a photo of her stomach. The following day, he responded & asked if she was going to be home because he could visit her. Two hours later, she texted him another photo with the message: Like it isn’t like I’m not that small anymore & I can pretend that I’m fat rn.. but idk its getting hard. After several more texts from Ally, Brandon responded & asked her to let him know when she was back from going out & if her house was private at the time.
On the evening of Friday, July 19, 2019, Cindy spoke with her daughter on the phone & had no way of knowing that this was the last time she would ever hear Ally’s voice. Earlier that week, Cindy & her husband Keith had been in Oxford, Mississippi to visit Ally & they were having so much fun together that Ally wanted them to spend one more day. They went out shopping, decorated her campus apartment, all the while, Cindy cooking Ally’s favorite home-cooked meals.
It was 7 pm on Friday night & Cindy, now back home, spoke with Ally on the phone as she told her that she had just woken up from a nap. She told her mom that she was going out with some friends that night which didn’t worry Cindy since Ally was always out & about with friends.
Instead, Ally had been messaging Brandon, trying to persuade him to meet up with her when he finally agreed. As she got ready, she hoped that he would have a change of heart & they could eventually make it work. She took extra time getting ready & they planned to go to Sardis Lake, about twenty or thirty miles from campus.
On July 19 at 11:52 pm, a surveillance video captured Ally as she was leaving a bar in Oxford Square; she got into an Uber & went home alone. A camera near Brandon’s home recorded his car driving off at about 1 am. According to prosecutors, now in the early morning hours of July 20, 2019, at about 1:28 am, Brandon picked Ally up from her apartment & they drove to an abandoned fishing camp at Sardis Lake. The area weaved down a dirt road & was extremely dark & desolate.
According to Ally’s roommates, she never returned home. A grand jury report later indicated that someone in the area heard gunshots while walking their dog between 2:15-2:30 am.
Lafayette County deputy Jarrett Bundren was on a routine patrol of the area at 10:30 am on Saturday, July 20, 2019 when he made the horrific finding of a white female laying on the ground by a picnic table near the lake with multiple gunshots to her back. A can of White Claw Hard Seltzer sat on the picnic table. In Bundren’s career, he had never seen a victim shot that many times. She had been shot at least nine times, eleven shell casings were scattered across the ground. One of the shots was said to have been fired toward the lake. Her purse, school ID & driver’s license lay scattered around her.
Ballistics showed that Brandon would have been sitting across from Ally at the table where he may have fired one shot & then began to move around, circling her, firing as he moved..
Once Ally’s identification was confirmed, police immediately began contacting family & friends in regards to possible suspects. They heard the name “Brandon” come up time & time again. They also headed to Ally’s apartment & although her cellphone wasn’t there, they did find her Apple Watch which had synced her text messages from her phone. These messages showed that she had recently been in touch with Brandon as they discovered the lengthy conversations. Investigators also saw that the two were planning on meeting the very night that Ally lost her life in such a violent way.
On Sunday afternoon, investigators tracked Brandon down & asked him to come in so they could talk to him about Ally. He made up excuses as to why he couldn’t come in that day, but assured them that he would come to the station at 8:30 am on Monday morning.
Ally’s family & friends were in utter shock & when her parents learned of the devastating news, they couldn’t believe that their daughter was gone & to this day struggle to grasp that fact, feeling as if she’s still just away at school, in denial that she’ll never be coming home. Cindy describes the feeling as being stuck, unable to move forward, each day a challenge. Her friends feel sad & broken over the loss of Ally.
On Monday, July 22, 2019, 8:30 am came & went & there was no sign of Brandon Theesfeld at the police station. Investigators obtained an arrest affidavit under exigent circumstances, meaning it was urgent & there was no time to secure a warrant, & began to track his phone. They could see that he was driving away from Oxford, Mississippi & headed north toward Memphis, Tennessee on Interstate 55. Authorities released a BOLO (be on the lookout) for Brandon’s Ford F150 Platinum pickup truck with the very distinguishable vanity license plate: “TAK3IT.”
District Attorney Ben Creekmore felt that it appeared that Brandon was on the run, liking heading home to Texas which led investigators to get an affidavit of arrest for murder.
About two hours later, with the help of the Memphis Police Department’s Fugitive Task Force, Brandon was arrested at a gas station where they found him sitting inside his truck at one of the pumps. His clothes were bloodied & inside his truck, officers found a .40 caliber gun that matched the one used to murder Ally.
When Deputy Jarrett Bundren read Brandon his rights in Tennessee, he described him as very calm as he invoked his rights & requested his attorney. Brandon signed a waiver of extradition & was brought back to Lafayette County, Mississippi.
While in custody, investigators retraced Brandon’s steps that weekend & learned from his friends that they had just hung out & did typical activities such as bowling. However, on Sunday, he came into his friend’s house carrying a gun which he unloaded. He brought in a six-pack of beer & he & his friends hung out for a while & the next morning, he was gone.
Brandon’s attorney spoke with his client & Brandon told him what had happened the night that Ally was murdered. He had been drinking all day, Ally had also been drinking that night; they listened to music & started talking. Brandon had cocaine which he did in his truck & then went back to the picnic table. He went back to his truck again, this time to grab the gun which he fired across the lake & in response, Ally said, “Oh, you’re crazy.”
They continued to talk & then he made the horrific decision to shoot Ally. Brandon denied that this part was planned & his attorney feels that it was a drug & alcohol-fueled snap decision. However, overwhelming evidence indicates there was a lot of planning on Brandon’s part. He had been aware of the area where he’d taken Ally that night since it was a place he’d visited freshman year & knew just how remote it was, likely assuming her body wouldn’t be discovered. When he was asked if he did what he did because of the possibility that Ally was pregnant, he told his attorney that wasn’t the case because he doubted that she was actually pregnant.
The autopsy revealed that Ally was not pregnant & her pregnancy scare had been a false alarm. However, according to a text message she sent Brandon in early July, Ally said that she was bleeding & believed something was wrong, so it’s possible she suffered a miscarriage.
Because it was such a calculated murder, Brandon faced a capital murder charge. In Mississippi, this means that another felony crime was involved & in this case, prosecutors say the crime was kidnapping because they believed that Brandon lured Ally to his truck under the guise of discussing their relationship. With a capital murder charge, Brandon was facing a possible death sentence.
On August 30, 2019, a grand jury indicted Brandon Theesfeld on a capital murder charge. He pleaded not guilty. Because of the COVID pandemic, the trial was delayed.
Evidence that was presented to a grand jury included a letter written by Brandon to his parents on the weekend of Ally’s murder which had been discovered in his apartment. He started the letter with: Dear Mom & Dad. I am not a good person. It is not your fault. He went on to say: I’ve always had terrible thoughts. Those thoughts have been fueled by cocaine & alcohol. I think this is the end for me. I’m either going to prison or going to die. It was unclear if the letter was intended to be a confession or suicide note.
On August 27, 2021, Brandon Theesfeld pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in order to avoid death. As he made his plea, he wore an orange jumpsuit while the courtroom was filled with Ally’s loved ones who wore pink in honor of her favorite color. It was the first time he’d shown any bit of emotion as he broke down in tears.
While addressing the court, Brandon apologized for his actions, “My actions have forever changed your lives and my family’s lives. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. There is no excuse for my actions.”
There is no parole for murder in Mississippi so he was sentenced to life in prison. Brandon Theesfeld is serving his life sentence at the Mississippi State Penitentiary known as Parchman.
It was clear that Ally had no way of knowing that Brandon was capable of doing what he did to her or she would have never gotten into his truck that night & trusted him as he drove them to an unknown, remote location. As they chatted at the picnic table near the lake, she would have never imagined that he planned to kill her which goes to show that love can blind us to certain things that other people can see that we can’t.
Kery Clay, Brandon’s mother asked their attorney, Tony Farese to share these words with “48 Hours”:
When I heard Brandon was being spoken to by the police, I still had no single thought it could be him.. now, after two years and knowing more of the details of their relationship I am heartbroken for every person this impacts and crushed that our son did not share with us any of the turmoil he was trying to manage.. I encourage every parent to regularly sit down with their children, teenagers, young adults, and discuss with them that there will never be anything too big, too complicated, too out of control that they cannot tell you about. We will always pray for the family & friends of Ally Kostial.
Ally’s mom Cindy indicates that the quietest moments are the most haunting & goes on to say, “She was my life. My everything.” In the meantime, Ally’s family & friends continue to honor her memory. Her love of sunsets will always remind them of her bright spirit. They try to live for her & bring her light into the world.
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