Murder suspect arrested in 2008

Associated Press

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.

Four years ago, George Huguely’s prep school lacrosse coaches looked at him and found an easygoing prankster with a lighthearted attitude and the skills to earn him a spot on one of the country’s top college programs.

On Wednesday, police said they had looked in the University of Virginia senior’s apartment and found a crimson-stained Cavaliers lacrosse jersey and a letter to the woman Huguely is accused of beating to death, a senior on UVA’s women’s team.

The arrest of Huguely and the death this week of Yeardley Love, both 22, have struck the highly ranked teams as they prepare for the NCAA tournament and shaken some on the picturesque campus where students are studying for finals.

A memorial for Love was held Wednesday night, and her funeral was set for Saturday in Maryland.

Huguely remained jailed on a charge of first-degree murder.

The teams will compete in the tournament, and the university’s athletic director said Love’s family supported that decision.

Love’s roommate and the roommate’s boyfriend found her battered body early Monday. Police have said Huguely and Love were once involved in a relationship, but that it had ended. According to a search warrant affidavit, Huguely kicked in her bedroom door and told them her head hit a wall several times as he shook her.

His attorney, Francis Lawrence, called Love’s death an accident.

In court documents filed Wednesday, Charlottesville police said they took the stained jersey, the letter to Love and other items from Huguely’s apartment hours after Love’s body was discovered, according to the Charlottesville Daily Progress. The court records were later sealed.

In 2006 Huguely was the star player at the all-boys Landon School in Bethesda, Md., which churns out players for top college programs.

Peter Preston and his family were neighbors of the Huguelys for more than a decade, and their children grew up playing together. He said the allegations against Huguely, whom he knew as “Georgie,” were baffling since he always seemed like “just a wonderful, charming, polite young man.”

Huguely also got into his share of trouble, however.

Police in Lexington, Va., about 70 miles from Charlottesville, said that in November 2008, Huguely was shocked with a stun gun by an officer after resisting arrest on public intoxication. He pleaded guilty to two charges last year, was placed on six months’ probation and was given a 60-day sentence, which was suspended.