Ill. teen Danielle Dennis-Towne's alleged killer was childhood friend

(CBS/WBBM/AP) KITTY HAWK, N.C. - Danielle Dennis-Towne of Steger, Ill., whose body was found by police in the trunk of a car in western Virginia, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, allegedly by Enrico Mascaro, who was a friend she'd had since childhood, police say.

Pictures: Teen's body found in N.C. man's car

Police in Clifton Forge, Va. arrested 19-year-old Mascaro last Friday after he returned to his parked 1996 Mustang. Police in Kitty Hawk, N.C. had put out a nationwide alert for Mascaro and Dennis-Towne after finding a crime scene.

The body was taken to the state medical examiner's office to determine the cause of death.

Dennis-Towne was killed by a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Virginia State Medical Examiner's office. Investigators from the office used dental records to identify Dennis-Towne's body, CBS affiliate WBBM reported.

Mascaro is now on his way to North Carolina to face murder charges, according to the station.

Family members say Dennis-Towne and the suspect were friends and that she had been visiting Mascaro. The 18-year-old woman had planned to attend Ripon College in Wisconsin in the fall.

"She had her whole life planned out, what she was going to do," Dennis-Towne's grandmother, Sandra Joyce, told WBBM. "She was following that path."

Mascaro was being held in the Alleghany County, Va., regional jail on a fugitive-from-justice charge, a jail official said early Monday. The man, of Nags Head, N.C., was expected to be arraigned Monday and extradited back to Kitty Hawk, N.C. to answer the murder charges.

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