Yeardley Love

Maybe it was just as well George Huguely's defense lawyers screwed up their handling of a final witness, keeping him off the stand. His name: Jack Daniel. Yes, a forensic pathologist who shares a name with a whiskey was slated to testify on behalf of the lacrosse player accused of killing his ex-girlfriend in a drunken rage. We'll never know what the good doctor would have contributed to the defense of Huguely had he not been kept off the stand by a big mistake. After a two-week trial, jurors will begin deliberations Wednesday on whether Huguely killed Yeardley Love, the 22-year-old Cockeysville native who also was a University of Virginia lacrosse player.

Jurors in the murder trial of George Huguely V, accused of fatally beating his former University of Virginia girlfriend two years ago, will begin deliberation in the case later this week, after two weeks of intense testimony and several delays. The prosecution gave a lengthy and emotional statement during closing arguments Saturday, describing Huguely, 24, as a bully who couldn't control his drinking or his temper. They claim he killed Yeardley Love, a Cockeysville native, in a jealous rage, then stole her laptop to hide a threatening email trail.

One day when I was driving to the courthouse for the George Huguely trial, I ended up behind a cab that had not just its phone number painted on the trunk but this invocation: "Metaphors be with you. " A couple of turns later, I was following an SUV with a vanity plate making a pun of its own: RKOLOGY. I don't remember how many blocks it took me to figure that one out, but you know you're in a college town when even the cars are making bons mots. We probably all know people who can never quite leave the town where they went to school.

There's little question that George Huguely V, the former University of Virginia student on trial for murder, had a problem with alcohol. He had been arrested twice for drinking-related infractions, one of them violent, in his early 20s. And he admits to consuming at least 15 drinks - and likely had more, witnesses said - the day he confronted Yeardley Love at her off-campus apartment in 2010, assaulting her so severely she later died, according...

The trial of George Huguely V - accused of fatally beating Yeardley Love, his former University of Virginia girlfriend - was suspended for a second day Friday because of a defense attorney's illness. Attorney Rhonda Quagliana was too sick to appear in court to question medical experts, said her co-counsel, Francis McQ. Lawrence, adding that it would be "impossible" for him to quickly prepare to do the questioning himself. "We should not have any difficulties finishing [today]

There are may lessons to be learned from the case of George Huguely and Yeardley Love ("Teammates saw signs of trouble, but failed to act," Feb. 10). Among them is that alcoholism and aggression are real issues that need to be addressed. We all know that alcohol changes the brain, causing some to react in violent ways. For those with prior anger issues, the violence likely intensifies with the addition of alcohol and other substances. Mr. Huguely had consumed 15 drinks on the day of the incident, and other testimony suggests he suffered from anger issues.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Circuit Court Judge Edward Hogshire refused a defense request Wednesday to strike charges against George Huguely V, finding that there was "ample evidence to support a jury finding in favor of all of the indictments" against the former University of Virginia student, including premeditated murder. Huguely is accused of drunkenly beating to death his former girlfriend, Cockeysville-native Yeardley Love, shortly before they were set to graduate. He is charged with murder, breaking and entering, assault, robbery and other crimes in connection with Love's death in 2010 and the theft of her laptop.

Even by the admittedly low standards of such affairs, this was a college reunion filled with more than the usual awkwardness and the sense of an unrecoverable time. When last they were together in May 2010, George Huguely, his fellow University of Virginia lacrosse teammates and the other friends, apartment mates and acquaintances in his small orbit were weeks from the end of a college year and, for some, graduation. But on Wednesday, they were thrown together in a courtroom, where Huguely sat at the defense table, charged with murder, and his former classmates were called to the witness stand to testify against him. Some did so more reluctantly than others; at least one spoke with hostility toward his former friend.

Two years later, George Huguely is barely recognizable from either his mug shot or his lacrosse team photo. In the way that photos like that "read," based on what we all thought we knew, in the former he looked sullen, in the latter he looked smug. Huguely enters the Charlottesville Circuit Courthouse these days noticeably lighter, at least physically, but with sunken cheeks and heavy eyes. It could just be that, often, he seems to be looking down or away, perhaps to avoid the apparent glares from Lexie Love, sitting in the first row of the courtroom where he is standing trial on charges that he killed her sister Yeardley.

- Prosecutors in the Charlottesville murder trial of George Huguely V plan to rest their case Wednesday, on the sixth day of testimony, against the former University of Virginia student, having portrayed him - largely through his own words - as an abusive, alcoholic brute. Defense attorneys, who will begin presenting their side, are likely to counter with an image of a naive jock who never meant to hurt Yeardley Love, his on-and-off girlfriend of two years. The 22-year-old from Cockeysville died in 2010, after Huguely, who's from Chevy Chase, confronted her about their relationship problems while they were both drunk late one Sunday night, a few weeks before they were set to graduate.