Why did yeardley love die

Medical experts and police paint a picture of a violent struggle between former University of Virginia lacrosse players Yeardley Love and George Huguely. In court, jurors heard the medical examiner go into great details, showing pictures of the autopsy he conducted on the Cockeysville native.

Love also suffered hemorrhaging of the neck, an indication that pressure may have cut off her circulation. Earlier, a police official took the stand and testified George Huguely had abrasions on his knuckles and bruises on his arms when police first arrested him. Her older daughter, Lexie, went to Charlottesville for a camp one summer, and the family drove down to drop her off. From that moment on, Yeardley's college plans were set. She'd spend hours smacking balls against the garage, and UVa coach Julie Myers knew of her by the time she was Even when she was 3 or 4 years old, she had so much positive energy.

Love's father, John, attended the University of Virginia before he entered the military. John Love died of cancer when Yeardley was in eighth grade, and it made the bonds with her mother and sister closer.

In the days after his death, the three of them slept in bed together. When Yeardley went to college, Sharon would travel to her games. The network of traveling parents became sort of a community, a support system.

What Love lacked in size and talent, she made up for with versatility. She played every position except goalie, and actually dressed up as that one April Fools' Day. In those daily conversations with her mother, Love talked about school and lacrosse but didn't mention much about her dating life.

There were signs of trouble, but no one picked up on them, and they certainly didn't think Huguely was capable of killing Yeardley.

But there were signs. Such as Huguely's out-of-control drinking , and the aggressive behavior that accompanied it. At the trial, a North Carolina men's lacrosse player testified that three months before Love's death, he heard Love crying and found Huguely's hands around her neck in a choke hold. Love told her mother about a physical altercation, but downplayed it when Sharon told her daughter go to the police. The couple had broken up, and in a few months, she'd move to New York and be far away from him.

We obviously couldn't assume that the worst was going to happen in our wildest dreams. What happened to her UVa coach Julie Myers calls May 3, , the longest day of her life. She was up early unloading the dishwasher when her phone rang at 6 a. Myers' son Timmy always got up at 5 a. At first, she was told that Love had been in an accident and there was "a lot of blood," and Myers assumed it was a car accident.

Then she was told that Love was found face-down in a pillow and that she had died. Myers could not understand what happened. Who would want to hurt Yeardley?

She summoned her team to The Lawn, the grassy, historic courtyard that was once the center of Thomas Jefferson's academic community. Sharon Love made her way down to campus, and in her fog of grief and confusion, she asked Myers, "Do you have Yeardley? Yeardley's body was in Richmond for an autopsy. Sharon attended the team meeting, somehow, and looked at the faces who'd become part of her community, young women who'd eventually get married and have children and live adult lives that her daughter never would.

She encouraged the team to stick together and lean on each other for support. She had no idea that 10 years later, those women -- moms and wives and professionals -- would be keeping Yeardley's memory going in their own little ways. Fox Foundation when she got a call that she needed to get over to Sharon Robinson's house because her cousin had just been murdered.

Robinson was sitting in the middle of her hallway floor, white as a ghost, when Hood found her. Robinson's three small children were around her, so she just mouthed to Hood what had happened. They were racked with grief, and it was way too early to be talking about these things. One local watering hole held a promotion: Anyone who sampled every beer on its extensive tap list got a free mug.

Huguely was one of the first to claim the prize. The following year he was arrested for public intoxication and resisting arrest outside a fraternity house at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

After shouting obscenities and threats and scuffling with a female officer, he was finally subdued by Taser -- though, remarkably, he had no recollection of the incident later.

He was also required to disclose the arrest to the University of Virginia. He did not. Huguely also demonstrated obsessive behavior toward women besides Love. But before they met in person again, Huguely bombarded her with text messages, sometimes as many as 20 in one hour -- "never before 3 a. Huguely's combative behavior extended even to teammates. The Washington Post reported that last season Huguely slugged a sleeping teammate whom he believed had kissed Love.

UVA lacrosse coach Dom Starsia, whose father died last week, declined to be interviewed for this story, but surely he will be asked to explain how so many warning signs were either missed or ignored. If Lacrosse Nation wanted to suggest an embodiment of the sport's virtues and fend off an indictment of an entire culture, it could scarcely do better than point to Love. Her father, John Love, also went to Virginia but left school to join the military and never graduated.

When John died of cancer in , Yeardley, then 15, placed a lacrosse ball in his casket and, friends say, made it her mission to play for UVA and obtain the degree her dad never earned. Yeardley began playing lacrosse with her father at age five and starred in high school at Notre Dame Academy, near her home in Cockeysville, Md.

She compensated for her lack of height with an outsized heart and endeared herself to coaches and teammates alike with her genial personality. As a senior, Love was recruited by UVA. Asked recently by a team publication to recall her recruitment, she said, "When I got off the phone with Coach Myers and she had offered me a spot on the team, that definitely topped the happiest and proudest moment that I will probably ever experience. A regular in the Cavaliers' rotation, Love was a fast defender but most distinguished herself as a good teammate, volunteering for extra drills in practice and even for the thankless task of playing one-on-one defense against an attacker.

She was uncommonly social, except when the Baltimore Ravens, her favorite team, played; then no one was allowed near her. Friends say that she was "deceptively intense," warm and even submissive but "quietly knowing what she wanted and going for it. Later this month, when the fourth years attend graduation ceremonies -- Final Exercises, they're called at UVA -- Love will receive her degree posthumously, fulfilling the promise she made to her dad. Love was buried last Saturday, after a funeral at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore that drew more than 2, mourners, many from the lacrosse community.

Her teammates, most of them wearing black dresses, walked with her family. The UVA men's team was well represented too. The day after the funeral the Virginia lacrosse teams received their pairings for the NCAA tournament.

Both the men, who will host Mount St. Mary's on Saturday, and the women, who host Towson on Sunday, have said they'll compete in honor of Love's memory. And who knows how this suddenly wrenching season will end? The relationship between athletes and tragedy is seldom predictable. Some teams, even the best ones, can have a hard time recovering. Others are galvanized. As one rival coach says, "Don't forget, you're still talking about two of the best teams in the country.

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