Hays ? Prosecutors on Thursday charged a man with killing a Fort Hays State University student he had been dating.

Robert J. Land, 32, was charged with first-degree murder. Land could face a life sentence if convicted in the Nov. 29 death of Angela May Goddard, 21, Ellis County Atty. Thomas Drees said.

The Fort Hays State student was found dead near an oil-field tank battery a few miles southwest of Hays. Drees said she died of asphyxia or suffocation.

The slain woman’s mother, Jill Goddard, of Russell, has said her daughter and Land had been dating but that she was “trying to break up with him.”

Land was being held Thursday in the Ellis County Jail on $1 million bond.