College wrestler accused of strangling teammate was nabbed in bloody shirt, said he ‘killed a man’
The college wrestler charged in the brutal strangling death of his teammate was wearing a bloodied T-shirt when he was nabbed by police — and later told investigators that he’d “killed a man.”
Charles “Zeke” Escalera, 21, was caught by cops 12 hours after 18-year-old Josiah Malachi Kilman was found unresponsive in a dorm room at Campbellsville University, a private Baptist college in Kentucky.
When Escalera was apprehended on a nearby farm, authorities noticed blood on the white sleeves of his shirt. He was seen wearing the same shirt in surveillance footage taken from the dorm where Kilman was murdered, Campbellsville Detective Jeremy Burton said during a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
After his arrest, Escalera told police he had fled to the farm “because he killed a man,” Fox News Digital reported.
The comments, made before Escalera requested an attorney, “described how he provided the strangulation that caused Mr. Kilman to become deceased,” Burton said.
Days before the ghastly murder, on Feb. 20, Escalera had been hospitalized after displaying “strange behavior” in the school’s cafeteria, his attorney Travis Brewley said.
He was released the same day, and Burton could not answer whether he had been released “against medical advice.”
Escalera, a champion wrestler who won the 106-pound state title with Union County in 2017, appeared via Zoom at the hearing but did not speak.
Brewley did not ask to lower Escalera’s $2 million bail.
Escalera and Kilman were both students on the wrestling team at Campbellsville University, a private Christian college about 85 miles south of Louisville, and lived in the same dorm building.
Burton said that, to his knowledge, the two did not have an “acrimonious relationship.”
He described Escalera as “kind of a secluded person” who “didn’t really hang out with the wrestling team [or] … in any dorm rooms.”
Kilman, a Montana native and theology student, was remembered by friends and family for his bright smile, Christian faith and athleticism, as he played both soccer and competed on the school’s wrestling team.
A GoFundMe set up by Kilman’s family to cover burial expenses had raised more than $74,000.
An autopsy determined Kilman had been strangled. Police have not shared a motive behind the killing.
Escalera was charged with murder and second-degree burglary for breaking into the farm’s barn while on the lam.
His next date in Circuit Court will be scheduled if and when a grand jury decides to indict him on murder charges.
