A former University of Maryland student is being held without bond pending a trial for murdering GW graduate student Daniel Krug in late May.
Stephen Burciaga, 21, was arrested June 12 after police found Krug’s computer and other items believed to be stolen from his K Street apartment at Burciaga’s College Park residence, said Captain Thomas McGuire of the Metropolitan Police Violent Crimes Branch.
The man who is suspected to have killed Krug, 21-year-old Edward Nelson, of Alexandria, has not yet been charged.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin found probable cause that Burciaga was involved in the murder and ordered him held without bond pending a trial, which has not been scheduled. An arraignment is tentatively set for Sept. 27 in the first-degree murder case, according to court documents.
At a pretrial hearing June 28, police said Burciaga was caught using one of Krug’s cards to withdraw $140 from an ATM in College Park shortly after the killing.
Burciaga waited in a van on the night of May 30 while Nelson went into Krug’s apartment in the Shoremeade, at 2517 K St., to rob him, police testified.
According to court documents, Burciaga told police in a videotaped statement last month, Nelson offered him half the proceeds of a series of random robberies in the D.C. area if he drove the getaway vehicle. Burciaga said the night of Krug’s murder, Nelson was armed with a gun, a metal pole and cord with which he planned to bind victims.
Krug was found bound and strangled, police said.
Burciaga said Nelson told him he would hit the residents with the metal pole and bind them while committing the robberies. Nelson called Burciaga while in the building and told him to wait; when he returned to the van, Nelson told Burciaga he had “killed the victims,” Burciaga testified.
He said Nelson gave him $50 in cash and one of several credit cards he allegedly took from Krug’s apartment.
McGuire said Nelson, who was arrested June 3 on suspicion of robbery by police in Ocean City, Md., is under investigation by multiple agencies, including MPD, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Alexandria Police Department and Ocean City police.
“We’re working through the charges to see who has the most pressing charge,” he said.
Police found Krug, 30, in his second-floor apartment after friends reported he failed to show up for a charity race and a wedding June 1, McGuire said.
He said Krug was identified through dental records, and police tracked Burciaga with credit card and cell phone records.
MPD officers and Prince George’s County police entered Burciaga’s apartment, at the 4500 block of Calvert Road, with a search warrant at 7:20 a.m. June 12, according to an MPD press release.
Krug was set to begin his second year in the master’s of business administration program. Also pursuing a degree in international affairs, Krug hoped to work in international disaster relief, said friends, who said he “always put other people ahead of himself.”
The Easton, Pa. native graduated from Cornell University with a degree in urban and regional planning in 1994. He worked in Lake Tahoe, Nev. and then Seattle before coming to GW last year to work on his master’s degree.
The University of Maryland reported Burciaga, from Port Deposit, Md., attended the school from fall 1999 through last December.
