Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Yeardley Love

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

When 22-year-old Yeardley Love is found murdered in her apartment just a few weeks before graduating college, her friends all point police to one man: George Huguely, her ex-boyfriend. It doesn’t take long for investigators to uncover a disturbing history of domestic abuse, but despite multiple people knowing just how violent George could get, no one spoke up to get the help Yeardley needed. One Love FoundationDownload the myPlan App  For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/.Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-yeardley-love/

Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and the story I have for you today is about a young woman whose life was senselessly taken from her during what was supposed to be one of the most exciting times of her life. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month here in the US, and this year we're zooming in on one of the most overlooked hotbeds of domestic violence activity. And that's college campuses. This episode was actually suggested by a few of our fan club members who wanted us to share this story that still haunts everyone involved even 12 years later.

This is the story of Yardly Love. It's a little after 2.15 a.m. on Monday, May 3rd, 2010, and two students at the University of Virginia named Caitlin Whiteley, who goes by Katie, and Felipe Auld Schoen are walking to Katie's apartment to turn in for the night after being out at a few sports bars with some other friends. After they get inside, Katie decides to go wake up one of her roommates, Yardly Love, and Yardly had been out with them earlier in the evening before coming home because she was tired.

Now that Katie has returned with Felipe though, she wants to go wake her up just so they aren't the only two awake in the apartment. But when Katie goes to Yardly's bedroom, she notices something concerning. There is a large splintered hole next to the doorknob. It's about three inches wide, and it definitely wasn't there when she left. So Katie opens the door, and when she looks in, she sees Yardly wearing only her underwear lying face down on her bed. Katie walks over and kneels down next to her to see if she's okay, thinking that she

might have passed out maybe from alcohol poisoning. Though that doesn't make sense because even though Yardly had been a little tipsy earlier that evening, she definitely hadn't drunk enough to get alcohol poisoning. But it's literally the only thing that Katie can think of in this moment. But as she kneels down to check and make sure she's okay, she sees something chilling. Blood is pooled around Yardly's head. Katie shakes her friend's shoulder trying to wake her up, but when she doesn't get a response, she rushes out of the room and gets Philippe, who calls 911.

The operator asks if he can find a pulse and he checks, but he doesn't feel anything. So he tries CPR while police and paramedics are sent to the apartment. According to an article by Roger Nyak for the Cavalier Daily, which is the University of Virginia's paper, when the paramedics and the police arrive, they aren't aware of the full extent of Yardly's injuries. In fact, they too think she has alcohol poisoning, just like Katie did. I'm not sure if Philippe just didn't tell them about the blood or if something got miscommunicated, but once they get in the door, they very quickly realize that they're not dealing with a student

who just drank too much. The first thing they see is the large pool of blood underneath her head, which is coming from numerous cuts on her face. There's a large bruise on the right side of her face as well, and her right eye is completely swollen shut. Just like Philippe said, they can't find a pulse, and so the first responders immediately begin life-saving measures. These include multiple rounds of CPR, intubation, and medication to try and get her heart beating

again, but after 24 minutes, it becomes clear that they aren't going to be able to bring her back, and she's pronounced dead at the scene. That's when officers call in backup and immediately begin treating her apartment like a crime scene. And one of the first things they find is that her pillow, comforter, and sheet are all stained with blood, but it's not just contained to her bed. They find blood on the carpet, on a laptop case, and on towels in her bathroom. There's an off-white spot on her wall too that has sort of like a gray color, and in

the trash can they find an empty crushed can of beer. Now, when they analyze the door, they also find hairs stuck in the jagged edges of the hole. It's not immediately clear whose hairs these are, but they gather all of this evidence and send it off to the crime lab for testing. Meanwhile, investigators have taken Philippe and Katie to the police station for questioning. They want to get a better sense of who Yardley was, what she was doing in the hours before her death, and who could have done this to her.

They learned that she was in her fourth year there at UVA, and she was going to be graduating in just two weeks. She and Katie both play on the women's lacrosse team, which at the time is ranked fourth in the nation, and they're supposed to be playing in the upcoming NCAA tournament. She's loved by everyone on the team, has lots of friends, and is just an overall cheerful person. But not everything was sunshine and rainbows in her life. Katie and Philippe tell investigators that Yardley had recently ended her on-again-off-again

relationship with another UVA student, named George Hugley. George is also a fourth year, and just like Yardley, he plays lacrosse too. They'd been dating for about two years, but with graduation getting closer, Yardley had called it quits about a month ago. But it's really the nature of their relationship that catches the investigators' attention, as they learn that the relationship was rocky and could even get volatile. Zinichen Samson reported for the Progress Index that Katie tells them about a recent email exchange between George and Yardley, in which George was extremely angry and used

abusive language towards her. At this point, I don't think Katie knows the full contents of those emails, but she remembers Yardley talking about them and being pretty upset. So police go on to try and gather as much information as possible about what their relationship was like and what kind of person George is. They do this by spending the rest of the night speaking to Yardley's neighbors and friends and family, trying to learn as much as they can. And what they uncover in the next few hours is disturbing.

They hear story after story about how George's anger can often erupt into violence, especially when he's drinking. Like there's one incident they learn about from last year when he punched one of his teammates who was asleep at the time because he thought he had kissed Yardley. Like no conversation, no way for this guy to defend himself, just attacked him in his sleep. There's another incident that took place just a few months before this, when he was out drunk with some other LaCrosse players who were visiting from the University of North

Carolina. And the police learned that during this time, George had actually physically assaulted Yardley and he had to be restrained by the visiting UNC players. Now, there was never a police report filed for this incident and George apparently couldn't even remember what had happened because he'd been so drunk. The investigators also checked to see if George has any kind of criminal history. And sure enough, he does. In 2007, when he was 19, he was charged with possession of alcohol by a minor in Palm Beach,

Florida. They also uncover an incident from 2008 where his father called the Palm Beach police to report a domestic violence incident while they were on a family yacht. Now, I couldn't find who that complaint was against and none of the source material has that information. But what I do know is that once the police got to the yacht, George jumped in the ocean and began swimming to shore, which was a quarter mile away. Now, there wasn't any arrests for this incident and George had to be picked up by another

passing boat. None of that compares to his most recent arrest, also from 2008. This incident took place in Lexington, Virginia, at Washington and Lee University. According to reporting by Harry Jaffe for the Washingtonian, a police officer named Rebecca Moss found him heavily intoxicated, walking into traffic, and she told him to find a ride home or he'd be arrested. But after she gave him this warning, he became incredibly violent and the two ended up wrestling on the ground with him screaming, quote, I'll kill all you b****s.

Officer Moss ended up having to tase him in order to get him to stop fighting with her and he was charged with public swearing, intoxication, and resisting arrest. When he pleaded guilty, he explained that he was really drunk and didn't even remember much of anything about that night. At the time, he paid a $100 fine, had to complete 50 hours of community service, and received a 60-day suspended sentence with six months of probation. But here's the thing, UVA requires all students to disclose any prior arrests, as does the La Crosse team's honor code.

This is to prevent students with violent pass from coming to the school and if the student is arrested while at UVA, they could be expelled. But apparently they don't actually run any background checks or try to verify information their students disclose because considering George's background, he shouldn't still be a student and yet he was still part of the student body. At this point, it's a little after 7 a.m. and they're getting ready to go detain George and bring him in for questioning. But before they do, they get some vital information back from the crime scene texts who are processing

Yardley's room and apartment. Police had been working with her roommates to figure out if there was anything missing from Yardley's apartment. And based on the list given, the texts say the only thing they can't find is her laptop. So this has them thinking that whoever killed Yardley might have taken her laptop to try and get rid of evidence. Find that, and they might have even more proof to use in court. Alright, so now it's time to find their prime person of interest and go talk to him face

to face. So that very same morning, they bring George in for questioning. Now when they bring him in, they don't tell him that Yardley has died. All they say is that they're investigating an assault case. But they do tell him that he is being detained, meaning that he is not permitted to leave whenever he wants. Before the investigators actually start asking George any questions, they notice that his knuckles are bruised and he has a cut on his arm that looks pretty fresh.

Now, keep in mind, he does play lacrosse and it's totally possible that he got those injuries from practice or one of his games. But knowing the types of injuries Yardley has, it makes the investigators look at him even more critically. They start off by asking him, what'd you do yesterday? He says that he played golf for a bit where he had about four to five beers. Then he went to dinner with his father and a few friends. He said he had two glasses of wine at dinner and afterwards he went to a local bar where

he had maybe five more beers. So he'd been drinking pretty steadily that night and it was only after he finished drinking at the bar that he decided to go over and talk to Yardley. Now right off the bat, he says that when he went over, she started acting really defensive, which he says is because she had attacked him the week before. He says that about a week ago, she hooked up with someone else while they were, quote, still trying to figure things out, end quote. Even though they weren't together, this made George really upset and it got worse when

he saw her out at one of the local bars a few nights later. So when he sees her, he decides to go home and at some point that evening, two girls came over. Now, from what I understand, these two girls didn't even go to UVA. They were visiting and according to reporting by Krista Pettersen and Catherine Reichlein for the Cavalier Daily, these two girls were actually still in high school. And while the investigators conducting this interview don't really dig into why there were two high school girls at this apartment, I'm not feeling too great about that.

But anyways, he says that Yardley unexpectedly came over and started hitting him in the face and it got so bad that his roommate's girlfriend physically removed Yardley from the apartment. And it's really bizarre. Like basically, just based on how he is framing everything, it seems like he thinks everything wrong with their relationship stemmed from her actions. But then he starts getting into the night before. He says that he was just gonna go talk to her about the incident before and their relationship. Just talk, nothing more.

He was, quote, trying to make everything better, end quote. Now they asked George if she was expecting him that night. Like maybe that's why she left her friends early. But he said that he's not sure if she even knew he was coming over. He said he tried to give her a heads up. He had emailed her like six times over the last few days saying that he was gonna come over, that they had to talk. But he said he couldn't actually call or text her that night to say that he was headed

over because Yardley had lost her phone. So he just showed up at her door. And he says this was about 1245. And when he got there, he said her front door was unlocked, so he just let himself in. But her bedroom door was locked. He said he asked her to let him in. She was on the other side, but when she wouldn't, he admits to kicking a hole through the door so he could get in.

Again, this is just to talk, apparently. Now when he kicked in the door, he said she started freaking out. And then he says that she got aggressive with him, which, yeah, if someone kicked a hole in my door who I was saying I didn't wanna talk to, I would be aggressive towards that person as well. I would be terrified and in full defense mode. And when he got in, he says that she pushed him and told him to get out. But when he refused to, he says that she retreated to the corner of her bedroom to try and get

away from him. And that's when he said things got weird. According to George, Yardley started violently banging her own head against the wall. He even uses the term fish out of water to describe how she was flailing around. Once she started doing this, he says he grabbed her by her arms and shoulders and shook her bed, again, repeating that they needed to talk about their relationship. He says that her head hit the wall repeatedly during this, but he never hit her. George goes on to say that at some point during their argument, they wrestled on the ground

and he admits to holding her down. At this point, her nose was bleeding and he realized that he wasn't going to get what he wanted out of the conversation. So he said he tossed her onto the bed, told her to go to sleep, and then left. The whole confrontation he said was eight, 10 minutes max, and afterwards he went back to his empty apartment and went to sleep. Now obviously, the investigators have some questions about this whole story, especially because the extent of Yardley's injuries don't line up with what he's claiming happened.

Now granted, he thinks they're talking about an assault, meaning in his mind she is still alive, but the investigators know the truth. And what are the odds that another person came in after this altercation with Yardley and then beat her to death? No. In their minds, this dude is lying. They ask him about Yardley's shirt because remember she was found wearing just her underwear so they're trying to trip him up, but he says that when he left, she was still wearing

her t-shirt and underwear. He also makes a comment about their interaction that gives me chills. As he's talking more about the specifics of what he did to her while he was at her apartment, he says that she didn't try to defend herself against him. And I think he's saying, like, hey, see, I wasn't scaring her because she didn't try to even defend herself, like she didn't feel threatened. But their size difference is important here because George is a big dude. In that same article by Roger Nyak for the Cavalier Daily, George is reported as being

six foot two and over 200 pounds. By contrast, Yardley is about five, six and half his weight. So even though she was super athletic, if he was going after her, there wasn't much she could do to defend herself. Now, detectives move on from this because there is one thing they really want to get to, Yardley's missing laptop. Even though the crime scene is still being processed, they still haven't been able to find it.

At first, he says he didn't take anything from her apartment, but when they ask him again, what do you know? He changes his story and admits that he did take her laptop. He says that he grabbed it as collateral. That's the word that he uses collateral. And when they ask him where it is at first, he says it's in his room, but eventually changes his tune again and says that it's in a dumpster. At this point, there is no question in investigators minds.

They are convinced that George is the one responsible for Yardley's death. So they drop the bombshell on George that they aren't investigating an assault like they first said. They are investigating Yardley's homicide, and they outright accuse George of killing her, which he denies. But between his confession of being there, the altercation he admits to and everything else they've heard from their friends, they are certain that they've got the right guy. George is arrested for her murder, and they get a warrant to search his apartment.

They remove multiple items, including two laptops, neither of which are Yardley's, a notebook, his shower curtain, several rugs, and the shorts that he said he was wearing during the attack. They also take swabs from his front door, his kitchen, and his bathroom. And in the end, they do find her laptop in the dumpster that George directed them to. Once they have that, they immediately get into it and search for those emails George said that he sent in the days and weeks before Yardley's death. According to an article for CBS News by the Associated Press, the exchange starts off

with Yardley sending him an apology, to which he responded with an incredibly angry tirate, accusing her of sleeping with somebody else just to hurt him. But then, in another email, he asks her to help him make their relationship work. So it's just this like flip-flop of him asking her to work with him and then him berating her. And chillingly, in one of the last emails he sent, he wrote, quote, when I found out about Mike Burns, I should have killed you. End quote.

And that's referencing the guy that she allegedly had hooked up with. Yardley's autopsy is conducted the next day and they confirm what police already suspected, that Yardley died of blunt force trauma to the head. Meanwhile, news of Yardley's death and George's arrest makes its way across campus and it devastates both the women's and the men's lacrosse teams. The two teams are super close and the fact that they knew both the victim and the perpetrator just compounds their grief. And it makes all of them look back on their interactions with Yardley and George wondering

if there was anything they missed, any red flags that they might have noticed that would have saved her. But even if they had noticed anything, many people question if it would have even been talked about because of an unspoken code. Lacrosse is a really tight knit sport. In fact, in a sports illustrated article by Jenny Levy who coached lacrosse at the University of North Carolina, she says that it's an everyone knows everyone sort of environment. And so some people begin to think that no one reported anything because they were worried

it might impact the closeness of the teams. And a lot of Yardley's teammates knew that something bad was going on. Some of them even witnessed George's alarming behavior firsthand. And no one went to their coaches or teachers or the police to report anything, though some of Yardley's friends and even her mom tell police that they encouraged her to get her a restraining order. But she never did. And guys, I want to stop here for a second because if you see one of your friends experiencing

something that just doesn't sit right with you, whether you are in college or not, say something, do not just brush it off or hope that it's all going to work out or they're going to grow out of this phase. Talk to your friend about what's going on and go to whatever authority figure you feel comfortable going to teacher, coach, police, someone who can help navigate this situation because this kind of thing is scary and complicated and sometimes just telling your friend to get a restraining order isn't enough. And I feel like unless you've been in that kind of situation, you don't understand why

someone wouldn't get the help they need, why they wouldn't get the restraining order. But for people in the midst of an abusive relationship, it's not that simple. So don't just sit by and wait for things to get worse because at that point it might be too late. Now after her death, a lot of Yardley and George's friends do come forward. And a few of them do fill police in on what George really did in the hours after the murder. Now remember, George said in his interview with investigators that he went to his apartment alone after he left Yardley's, but it turns out that he wasn't alone that whole evening.

His friends say that after the dinner he had with his dad, they all went over to George's apartment to continue drinking and watching TV. At about 11.40 PM, everyone decided to go to a nearby store to get more beer, but George decided to stay behind. According to an article for the Boston Herald by the Associated Press, the friends say that they were gone for maybe 15, 20 minutes and when they got back, George wasn't there. Now it didn't take long for him to return and he explained that he'd just gone to visit some teammates in another apartment building.

At the time, they thought this was like a little weird. Like he was super drunk, there was no reason for him to go to another teammate's apartment. And moreover, they said that he had this weird blank look on his face. Like clearly there was something wrong, but they didn't know what. It's worth noting though that none of his friends reported seeing any injuries on him when he came back. But when they asked him if he was okay, he didn't say anything. He sort of just sat there and stared straight ahead.

Even though this behavior was out of character, they said they just thought that he was really drunk so they left it alone. Now it's unclear why George lied about this. I don't know if he didn't think the police would check or if he was just trying to minimize the repercussions that he knew would be coming his way. But all it does is paint the picture of this violent, entitled guy who is capable of killing someone and then going back to hanging out with his friends as though nothing had happened. George is charged with first-degree felony murder, burglary, robbery, breaking and entering,

and grand larceny since he stole the laptop. He pleads not guilty and his trial begins on February 8th, 2012. The prosecution presents everything, the emails, testimony after testimony from Yardley's friends and teammates, and that grayish spot on her bedroom wall, which they believe is where George repeatedly bashed her head. Unfortunately, they weren't able to get any prints off of that beer can and the sources differ on whose hair was actually in the splintered door, but even without that, swabs taken from both his and Yardley's bodies proves that he was the one in her room that night.

But the defense, well, they have a different story. They claim that when George went over to the apartment, it was just to talk and that he wasn't planning on hurting her. In fact, they pull up some texts that George had sent a few other students that night asking if he could come over, so they argue that he wasn't planning out an attack at all. When it comes to how she died though, well, they say that it was due to heart failure caused by the combination of her Adderall prescription and drinking alcohol. And all those injuries on her body that were clearly from being beaten, they say those were

caused by incorrectly administering CPR. But the prosecution is having none of this **** and they bring in UVA's primary care physician who works with all of their student athletes. This guy, Dr. Danny Mystery, testifies that they perform EKGs for all student athletes who use Adderall since taking it in high doses can result in heart problems. But Yardley wasn't abusing her prescription. In fact, according to Michelle Davis and Catherine Reichman's reporting for the Cavalier Daily, she was found to have 10 times less than the lethal amount of Adderall in her system.

Anyway, Dr. Mystery says Yardley had three screenings during her time at UVA with the most recent being September of 2009, and none of those screenings found anything abnormal with her heart. And just to really hammer home that her death was a result of blunt force trauma and nothing else, they bring in multiple other medical professionals who all say the same thing. There was nothing wrong with her heart, and the only explanation her autopsy gives for her death is blunt force trauma to her head. So that was the argument that the defense was fighting all along.

But after this, the defense changes their tune and states that Yardley died of suffocation from laying face down on her pillow, which also is absolutely ridiculous. And fortunately, the jury thinks so too, because on February 23rd, they find George guilty. But not for what you might think. George is found guilty of larceny and second degree murder. He's found not guilty for the felony murder, robbery, burglary, and breaking and entering charges. Now, while first degree murder carries with it a life sentence, second degree has a penalty

of anywhere between five and 40 years, and grand larceny charges carry one to 20 years. The jury recommends that he serve a total of 26, 25 for the murder, one for the grand larceny. Ultimately, he's sentenced to 23 without the chance of parole. He does appeal his conviction multiple times, actually, but it is upheld every time. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Yardley's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against George, and they were awarded a total of $15 million in damages. But that money can't bring back the daughter they lost.

So in order to help prevent this same tragedy from happening again, they established an organization called OneLove, which helps educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships. They hold workshops about the signs of an abusive relationship and how to find the resources that will be most helpful to people experiencing abuse. In fact, as of August 1st, 2022, OneLove has educated over 2 million young people through workshops and peer-to-peer discussions. And over 100 million people have been reached with OneLove's educational video content. One really cool thing that they've done is to support the creation of the MyPlan app,

which is an app that helps people gauge the level of danger they're in. It also helps them make a plan to safely get out of the situation and find resources to support them. It is super safe. You don't enter any of your personal information, and it's even protected by a PIN number, so no one can get in and look at anything. I actually downloaded it myself to just kind of poke around and see what it was all about, and I 100% think this can be a great tool, especially if you don't know where to start.

We've actually made a donation to OneLove to support their ongoing work in education and abuse prevention. I truly cannot commend their efforts enough. If anything in Yardley's story reminds you of a relationship that you're in, it's important for you to remember that you're not alone. According to OneLove's website, over one in three women will be in an abusive relationship in their lifetime, as will nearly one in three men and one in two trans or non-binary people. There are resources out there for you no matter who you are or what circumstance you're in.

And listen, if you're not sure if your relationship qualifies as abusive, download the MyPlan app or head over to OneLove's website. They're a really fantastic resource because stories like Yardley's don't start with physical assaults and death threats. They start with your partner constantly needing to know where you are or getting upset when you spend time with other people or hanging around outside your apartment or dorm room. It starts with them pressuring you into doing things you don't want to while saying they love you or by threatening to harm themselves if you don't do what they want.

Like I said, if anything in this story reminds you of your own relationship, reach out to someone who can help you navigate getting out safely and don't convince yourself that you're being too sensitive or overdramatic. Trust your gut. Don't wait and hope that things will get better. You deserve the chance to live a happy, secure life, but you don't have to take that first step alone. For all of those resources, make sure you check out our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

Also make sure you're following us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast, and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. So, what do you think Chuck? Did you approve?