Correction:
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said that George Huguely went to Yeardley Love’s apartment and kicked through her door on March 2, 2010. The date was May 2, 2010. This version has been corrected.
CHARLOTTESVILLE — George Huguely V did not merely leave his sometime girlfriend Yeardley Love bleeding in her pillow, a prosecutor told jurors Saturday in his closing argument.
He left her unable to move, disabled from the damage that Huguely, who is more than 6 feet tall, had done to the 5-foot-4 Love in their final, violent argument in 2010, when he kicked through her bedroom door to reach her.
An attorney in the murder trial of George Huguely V has fallen ill, causing an already-delayed trial to fall even more behind. The Post's Mary Pat Flaherty reports that the judge in the case is still pressing to finish the trial on Saturday. Huguely is charged with the murder of former girlfriend and fellow U-Va. lacrosse player Yeardley Love in May 2010. (Feb. 17)
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Attorneys for Huguely are asking a judge to sentence him to 14 years rather than 26 years.
The Chevy Chase native faces up to 26 years in prison.
The judge has decided that the public will not have access to medical records or any photos showing Love’s body.
If she could have moved, Commonwealth’s Attorney Warner “Dave” Chapman asked, why wouldn’t she “have crawled to get help”? If she could have moved, why wouldn’t she have stopped Huguely from taking her laptop as he left?
If she could have moved, why wouldn’t Love have lifted her head off that bloody pillow, where a roommate found her facedown early May 3, 2010, about two hours after Huguely had left?
After two weeks of the murder trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys circled back to their original portrayals of Huguely, 24, of Chevy Chase. To Chapman, he remains a killer and a controlling, abusive and spurned lover. To the defense team, he was a “stupid drunk” and “boy athlete” who made terrible choices but took no lethal actions.
Huguely pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and five other charges before the jury was seated. He did not take the stand, and jurors heard from him only through statements he made to police on the morning of his arrest, which were videotaped and played in court.
Huguely and Love, 22, of Cockeysville, Md., had dated over two years at the University of Virginia, where they played lacrosse and were weeks from graduation when she died. The Virginia medical examiner ruled that she died of blunt force trauma to her head.
There is no dispute that Huguely came to Love’s off-campus apartment late the night of May 2, 2010. And no one disputes that he kicked through her door or that he and Love fought.
Jurors must decide what Huguely did during that fight and whether his actions amount to a crime. On Saturday evening, the judge sent them home and said deliberations would begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday, after the long holiday weekend and the Charlottesville court’s Tuesday grand jury session, which will take over the sole courtroom.
In his final appeal to jurors, defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence urged them to reject the murder charge and consider a lesser crime. “George bears responsibility in her death. . . . He played a role in that, and he will take responsibility for it in a way you determine,” Lawrence said.
‘Where’s the intent?’
But, Lawrence asked, “where’s the intent to kill?” — a key element of first-degree premeditated murder, which can carry a sentence of life in prison. “He didn’t kill her. He left her there alive.”
Lawrence asked jurors to weigh involuntary manslaughter when he addressed them at the start of the trial. That charge covers an unintentional killing attributable to the defendant’s negligence and has a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Huguely also pleaded not guilty to murder in the commission of a robbery, burglary, breaking and entering and grand larceny.
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