I re-focus on the stirring Yeardley Love case from less than two years prior (May 2, 2010). Memories flood back as I read news coverage, view photo galleries, and review black and white footage of Yeardley's apartment. Love's funeral photos are especially touching. Moreover, I recall receiving an angry email from someone saying I wasn't there and didn't know what I was talking about (in my writing). That hurt!
In fact, everything about this case hurts. Those who were on the scene and in the thick of the drama feel the hurt in a more direct way than I ever can. Take for example, Caitlin Whiteley, one of Yeardley's roommates, who was on the witness stand, I believe yesterday. She saw the whole thing play out and was the one who discovered Yeardley's body.
I gather my senses. The prosecution focused on a prior incident yesterday, that shows a pattern or a propensity of violence towards Yeardley Love on the part of George Huguely V. I'm referring to Mike Burns, a lacrosse player from the University of North Carolina, who testified he once saw George gripping Yeardley in a stranglehold (at a huge drinking party put on by Mr. Huguely). Burns had dated Love, only randomly, but was the object of George's mounting jealousy.
In fact, this may be the motive for what George did to Yeardley that chaotic night of May 2, 2010. I say chaotic, because the chaos only resided in George's fickle mind, since he was intoxicated and working on merely two or three mental cylinders. But how can the prosecution prove these things? What real hard physical evidence do they have in their possession? Did anyone see him leave Love's apartment that night?
Did any of George's friends see him douse himself with alcohol? And look how different he is in appearance now, so thin and well dressed. He doesn't look like the same person we see in pictures from then; shaggy long hair, pudgy and disheveled, constantly gripping a beer cup and sipping beer endlessly. Funny how being indicted for murder can put the flame of fear back into someone, and exact a metamorphosis in both their physical and mental demeanor.
Well, I'm still focusing, trying to put myself back into the time and place of that horrifying event. The shock and disbelief that people felt (at that time) was tremendous. It shook up the sports community and it touched a nerve in this wealthy and well-educated community, in the sense of a young punk jock who thought he was above the regular, everyday ethics and manners that bind us together and make us human beings.
This was my take on it, anyway. The sport of lacrosse has its own particular ethos that I'm not privy to in any form or fashion. But I sense some bridges were broken and some ethical codes were shattered into a million pieces (by what Huguely had done). Yet no one could seem to stop an inevitable sequence of events leading up to Yeardley's death. Something's telling me, this is what the prosecution is arguing.
There were precedents. The Daily News published George's entire email from April 30, 2010. He threatens with words. Did Yeardley show this email to any of her friends or family? Why did Yeardley meet with George at the Boylan Heights restaurant the Saturday before it happened? May is graduation time. Does the world end at graduation time? No it doesn't, but things can escalate or get out of hand (in the minds of young people) surrounding this event. Better drink more coffee and get a grip!
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