High school football player charged with murdering pregnant cheerleader: 'I took action ... I took her life'

An Indiana high school football player who was formally charged with murder in the death of a pregnant classmate allegedly told police he had been plotting to kill her for about a week.

Police arrested Aaron Trejo, a 16-year-old football player at Mishawaka High School, on Sunday after the body of Breana Rouhselang, a 17-year-old cheerleader at the same school, was discovered in a dumpster behind a restaurant near both of their homes, according to court filings.

Rouhselang's mother told police that her daughter, who was about six months pregnant, left the house to talk with the father of her unborn child around 11 p.m. on Saturday night.

When Rouhselang's mother woke up around 1 a.m. on Sunday and noticed her daughter had not yet returned home, she went to Trejo's home, where the suspect told her he hadn't seen Rouhselang that night as the two had planned.

After attempting to get in touch with some of their daughter's friends, Rouhselang's parents said they "got the feeling that something wasn't right" and called police at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday to report the girl missing.

Investigators then went to speak with Trejo, where they discovered blood-stained glasses and a cap in an alley behind his home. After following more blood stains, authorities found Rouhselang's body in a dumpster with a black garbage bag covering her head and part of her torso, court documents show.

Trejo and his parents were then brought in for questioning by officials with County Metro Homicide, where the teen allegedly admitted that he and Rouhselang fought over the baby that night.

Trejo claimed Rouhselang had "waited too long" to tell him about the pregnancy to abort the child and then admitted to stabbing her in the heart with a knife because he thought it would kill her "quickly."

"I took action ... I took her life," Trejo allegedly said.

He then told police he threw the slain teen's phone and the murder weapon into a nearby river after dumping her body.

An autopsy determined that Rouhselang died from multiple stab wounds and that a scarf had been tied tightly enough around her neck that strangulation was occurring before she died, the Associated Press reports.

Mishawaka schools Superintendent Dean Speicher said that Rouhselang and Trejo had attended school together since elementary grades, but that he didn’t know any details about any relationship between them.

"They’ve known each other long before they came together — she as a manager and he as a football player — at Mishawaka High School," he said.

Speicher added that he didn’t know of any prior violent incidents between the two.

"To our knowledge, there were no signs, everything appeared to be very normal."

Trejo is now facing charges of murder and feticide in the pregnant teen's killing.