Auriel Lowe spent the last weeks of her life exactly where she had always hoped to be—working her first shifts in nurse anesthesiology at Duke University Hospital.
Her new job was a milestone her family says she celebrated with pride and relief. At 34, after years of training and sacrifice, she had finally stepped into her dream career.
Two months after meeting a man through a dating app, she was dead.
Newly released 911 calls paint a chilling timeline of the morning of Sept. 10, when Durham police say 31-year-old Christopher Whitley strangled Lowe in her apartment, then spent hours inside the home with her body before calling friends—some of whom he FaceTimed to show what he had done.
“This man murdered his girlfriend,” the first caller sobbed to dispatchers, struggling to speak through shock. “He switched to FaceTime … and she’s laying on the floor.”
Another friend told 911 that Whitley insisted he had “committed a crime against his girlfriend” and sent photos when the friend initially thought he was joking.
By the time heavily armed officers and a SWAT team arrived to respond to what was reported as a “barricaded subject,” Whitley had been inside the apartment with a gun for nearly nine hours, authorities said. His family eventually convinced him to surrender. Police entered and found Lowe dead in her bedroom.
Investigators say she was strangled around 5:30 a.m.
A promising life cut short
Lowe’s family describes her as a driven, compassionate caregiver who had worked for years to earn a spot in one of Duke’s most competitive hospital programs. The day she got the job, relatives recalled, she cried from joy.
“She was finally where she wanted to be,” one family member said. “All that hard work had paid off.”
Those close to her say Lowe had only recently met Whitley on a dating app—an increasingly common entry point to relationships but one that her family now believes is dangerously unregulated.
They point to Whitley’s past: in 2019, he pleaded guilty in El Paso County, Texas, to assaulting and injuring a family member. He received a suspended sentence, probation, and community service. Her relatives question how someone with that history could so easily present himself as a viable match.
“Dating apps do no background checks,” a family member told local media. “People meet strangers every day without knowing who they really are.”
A case that underscores a national crisis
Domestic violence advocates say Lowe’s killing highlights two systemic failures: the continued underestimation of intimate partner violence risk factors, and the absence of meaningful accountability for high-risk offenders.
Experts note that strangulation in particular is a critical red flag in domestic violence research—survivors who have been strangled by a partner face a dramatically heightened risk of being killed in the future.
But in Lowe’s case, there was no “future warning.” She never had the chance to report concerns or seek help. A violent history simply met an unsuspecting victim.
The cruelty of the aftermath—Whitley allegedly broadcasting what he had done to friends—has shocked even seasoned investigators.
A plea for change
As Whitley remains jailed without bond on a first-degree murder charge, the people who loved Lowe are left calling not only for justice but for reform.
Her killing raises difficult questions: Should dating platforms be required to screen for violent criminal histories? Should there be national standards for reporting repeat domestic violence offenders? And why are victims still left to navigate these risks alone?
For now, the only certainty is that a promising life was taken in the place she should have been safest—her home—in the very week she began living her dream.
Auriel Lowe built a future rooted in healing. She deserved far better than the brutality that ended her life.
