Shock, horror and disbelief are unworthy words to express an outpouring of grief and denial at a shaken University of Virginia community. The nature and circumstances of an untimely death of 22 year old lacrosse player Yeardley Love are such that none can fully come to terms with her sudden violent death.
No one could be less deserving of this fate than Yeardley Love who has been described as an ‘angel’ by her colleagues. Police officers had been called at 2:15 A.M. Monday morning to what the college roommate thought was an alcohol overdose. But Yeardley was laying face down in her bed with her head resting peacefully in a pillow.
When officers turned her over however, they found a pool of blood and a large bruise on the right side of her face. Yeardley’s eye was swollen shut and her chin was bruised and scraped. The wounds appeared to be caused by ‘blunt force trauma.’ “There was no question what we were dealing with,” said Charlottesville chief of police, Timothy Longo.
Someone tipped off the police to question George Huguely, a star University of Virginia lacrosse player, from the privileged suburbs of Chevy Chase, Md. George candidly confessed to his misdeed, yet his lawyer (Francis Lawrence) is now attempting to back- peddle and diminish the seriousness and culpability of Mr. Huguely.
The levels of rage in this young man are unknown, and perhaps it was the green monster jealousy that had peaked its wretched head, but he had kicked in the door of Ms. Love’s apartment (No. 222), then he shook her violently and slammed her head repeatedly and forcefully against the wall. In essence, George beat her to death, perhaps with his own fist.
But George had enough malice and forethought to steal her laptop computer and hide it. Perhaps it contained incriminating emails, maybe even death threats that could be a beeline to the gas chamber for this ‘successful sports star.’ Mr. Huguely was charged with first-degree murder and this implies planning and willful forethought to commit such felonious acts. IE he was planning this murder all along and then acted out on his plan.
Huguely is said to have had a violent temper too. Apparently, he had a bit of drinking problem as. But when under the influence of alcohol he could become unleashed. Ms. Love became the object of this tempestuous rage. We’ll have to see what’s contained in these emails? Death threats, I hear? Proof of his problem lies in a November 2008 arrest.
George was arrested then when under the influence of too much liquor. I believe he was at frat party on the campus of Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Va. He was arrested for public swearing, intoxication and resisting arrest. The officer, R. L. Moff, had to taser him to get him to calm down enough. He threatened to “kill everyone.”
Officer Moff told the New York Times, “He was the most rude, most hateful and most combative college kid I ever dealt with.” Sounds like a rude little brat to me. Since he came from a privileged background he thought of himself as enthroned and entitled, outside the norms of society that bind the rest of us to civility. Psychologists will have a field day with Mr. Huguely, where does he get off? Another hot-shot jock, just like O.J. Simpson, if you ask me!
The privileged frat-boy got off easy, a 60 day suspended sentence for this 2008 incident. It looks like felony charges should have been pressed by officer Moff for assault. Had he not been from a rich family, he’d probably be in jail right now. George has some deep-seeded mental problems that no one around him seemed to detect. He was a chameleon.
Yeardley Love was such a wonderful person, deeply admired by her fellow students. It does seem like she knew to distance herself from the ill-tempered Huguely, breaking up with him after a topsy-turvy year and a half romantic fling. But Love met the wrong guy. Yeardley collided with a walking time bomb that exploded in a homicidal frenzy, and took away all too soon her precious, tender life.
Several Facebook pages have been created in memory of Yeardley Love; one has more than 14,000 members already and another has more than 8,000 members. What doesn’t make any sense to me is why a young, talented, promising girl in the prime of her youth, a girl who didn’t yet have a chance to make her way in life, could be snuffed out in second by a narcissistic frat boy with an inflated sense of self-worth? A lacrosse superstar maybe? How about an idiot stowing himself away amongst the well-to-do?
Because this case addresses the issue of a killing of a privileged by a privileged it will play out in the press at an optimum level, full throttle. And Yeardley was loved by all, an angel full of hope and promise, snuffed out in a glance of a moment of rage by a misaligned sociopath who had sequestered himself within the conflicted social environment of a valueless trapping. Won’t go away! We are all to blame!
See More:
Prosecution Paints a Portrait of Abuse in the Trial of George Huguely V!
