Former area student pleads guilty in death of former Ole Miss student

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A man accused of capital murder in the 2019 death of a woman he occasionally dated pleaded guilty Friday to a lesser charge that took the death penalty off the table.

Brandon Theesfeld, 24, of Fort Worth, who graduated from San Marcos Academy in 2016, entered the plea to first-degree murder before Lafayette County Circuit Judge Kelly Luther, multiple news outlets reported. Theesfeld

“We were facing the death penalty,” defense attorney Tony Farese said. “Based on the facts of this case, we were able to obtain the best result possible, which was reduction of a charge to first-degree murder.”