Fran Lawrence reads a statement to the media in the George Huguely murder case with his partner, Rhonda Quagliana, who’s standing beside him and mostly obscured.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

It’s no secret in local legal circles that Judge William Barkley is married to high-profile defense attorney Rhonda Quagliana.

Those who aren’t lawyers might remember that Quagliana represented the apologetic rapist, William Beebe, arrested more than 20 years later when he begged his victim for forgiveness as part of a 12-step program. They might remember that she represented porn pastor Gregory Briehl, or wife-murderer Anthony Dale Crawford, or that she and her partner currently represent the accused killer of Yeardley Love, George Huguely.

But her marriage to Judge Barkley, that’s a detail not so widely known.

Jessamy Rouson thinks it should be, particularly when Judge Barkley hears a case represented by his wife’s firm, St. John, Bowling, Lawrence and Quagliana.

Rouson appeared (more)

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Huguely won a continuance Monday morning.
UVA SPORTS, CPD

Reporters hoping to catch a glimpse of George Wesley Huguely V, the wealthy college lacrosse player who became a striped-jumpsuit-wearing inmate, were denied another opportunity on Monday, January 10, as his lawyer won a third continuance in the case in which Huguely is charged with slaying his ex-girlfriend.

“Judge, I can say that both sides have been moving with diligence,” declared Huguely lawyer Fran Lawrence. “There’s just a lot of stuff that’s still out there.”

Lawrence noted that the defense team, which also includes Rhonda Quagliana, has yet to examine about 20 of the approximately 112 items arrayed in the case against their client, a 23-year-old whose previous spurts of violence went unpublicized until he allegedly erupted last spring in a fatal rage.

On May 3 inside an apartment on 14th Street, Charlottesville police found the lifeless body of Yeardley Love, a fellow lacrosse player. They arrested Huguely, who lived next door, after he allegedly confessed to repeatedly bashing the young woman’s head into a wall of her bedroom and then returning to take her computer and toss it in a dumpster.

Lawyer Lawrence has termed the incident a tragic accident, and he seems eager to win a round in the public relations battle. On Friday, January 7, Charlottesville’s top prosecutor revealed (more)

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Huguely stands accused of killing fellow UVA lacrosse player Yeardley Love.
CPD, UVA SPORTS

Charlottesville’s top prosecutor has just revealed a new pack of charges against the silver-spooned scion of a Washington family who stands accused of killing an ex-girlfriend, a crime that shocked the University of Virginia and reverberated across the nation due to the golden lives cut short by the killing.

George Wesley Huguely V will face the five new charges— felony murder, robbery, burglary, statutory burglary, and grand larceny— at a 10am video feed to the Charlottesville General District Court on Monday, January 10, according to a release from Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman.

Hastening to note in the release that Huguely remains presumed innocent until proven guilty, Chapman also (more)

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Yeardley Love and former boyfriend George Huguely, who has been in jail since her death May 3.

When murder suspect and UVA lacrosse player George Huguely spoke with police in May, he allegedly described an altercation with former girlfriend Yeardley Love in which her “head repeatedly hit the wall,” and his lawyer called Love’s death “an accident with a tragic outcome.” Now, the defense is trying to prove that.

Lawyers for Huguely were in a Charlottesville court December 15 seeking access to Love’s medical records, a request the prosecution calls “a fishing expedition.”

Although the medical examiner determined that Love died May 3 from blunt force trauma to the head, Huguely’s attorney, Fran Lawrence, argued that the cause of her death was unknown, and that’s why he subpoenaed records from UVA Athletics Department, UVA Student Health, and from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad, the last of which Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman had already agreed to enter the court record.

Amphetamines were found in Love’s body, according to the toxicology report, in an amount that would be consistent with her prescription for Adderall, a stimulant widely used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, said Bill Gormley, who (more)

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Huguely allegedly played golf at Farmington Country Club with his dad the day that Yeardley Love died.
FILE PHOTOS BY UVA, CPD

Besides being accused of murder in the death of UVA classmate Yeardley Love, George W. Huguely V has been branded a spoiled rich kid. But according to an action taken by a local lender, the Huguely family appears to be enduring the kind of financial setbacks that have affected many property owners in the ailing American economy.

According to property and other public records, an 8.34-acre parcel of land along upscale Morgantown Road owned by a company controlled by the accused killer’s father, George W. Huguely IV, has fallen into foreclosure proceedings.

The auction, under the auspices of Charlottesville attorney Rick Carter, was slated for the steps of the Albemarle County courthouse at noon on Tuesday, December 7. According to a source, that auction was called off. The reason, says Carter, is that the land-owning company has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Purchased five years ago for $485,000 in a transaction funded by Virginia National Bank, the originally 10.34-acre property was replatted a year later with a two-acre parcel sold off as the building site. The remaining land appears to contain no house.

An early deed of trust from VNB shows indebtedness of $325,000. How much debt remained on the property at the time of the foreclosure action could not be immediately learned.

The Albemarle assessor values the tract at $333,800. The property is held by a West Virginia partnership whose general partner, and the person signing the documents, is George W. Huguely IV. The company’s legal address is a building in Bethesda, Maryland, that also serves as the headquarters for the Huguely Companies. Efforts to reach the elder Huguely were not immediately successful.

In 1993, a West Virginia firm (more)

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UVA Police Lt. Melissa Fielding and UVA Dean of Students Allen Groves discuss the alleged assaults.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

A hastily organized press conference to address three recent alleged attacks on UVA students may have raised more questions than it answered, as UVA Dean of Students Allen Groves and UVA Police Lt. Melissa Fielding admitted they did not know the identities of two of the three assault victims— and couldn’t be sure, therefore, if assaults had even occurred.

September 28, three days after new UVA president Teresa Sullivan’s “Day of Dialogue” to address violence in the wake of the Yeardley Love murder, Groves sent a message to approximately 23,000 UVA email addresses cautioning students to be extra vigilant in the wake of the alleged ssaults. (more)

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For the September 24 Day of Dialogue, the Rotunda columns become a public art project called “Lines of Darkness and Light,” a meditation on the death of Yeardley Love.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Almost five months after the University of Virginia reeled from the brutal murder of one of its own, an air of mourning still pervades the Lawn. Columns of the Rotunda are clad in black veils on one end, and on the other, a preponderance of black-clad students, faculty, and staff stream into Old Cabell Hall for the start of the university’s Day of Dialogue: Toward a Caring Community.

The day is a continuance of a discussion that started May 3, said UVA President Teresa Sullivan. That was when the death of fourth-year Yeardley Love, a beautiful lacrosse star, rocked the university community and became a national story. Her former boyfriend, George Huguely, another lacrosse player, is charged with her murder.

“In a real sense, we are picking up from where we left off last May,” said Sullivan. “Those of us who weren’t in Charlottesville last May experienced Yeardley’s death from a distance, and even at a distance, it was heartbreaking.”

The September 24 Day of Dialogue was initiated (more)

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Yeardley Love and the man accused of murdering her.
PHOTO UVA ATHLETICS

In the days before the brutal May 3 slaying of UVA lacrosse player Yeardley Love, she and her former boyfriend George Huguely had an argument in his apartment that ended with Love hitting Huguely with her purse, according to statements from a Kappa Alpha Theta sorority sister who was there.

The contents of Love’s purse scattered, and later— once Love realized her camera and cellphone were missing— she asked her friend to go back to Huguely’s to retrieve them. The friend returned with only the camera, according to heavily redacted affidavits for warrants to search the two computers recovered in Huguely’s apartment at 230 14th NW for stored— or deleted— emails referring to Love between April 3 and May 3.

The warrants were filed August 17, and Judge Paul Peatross ordered them temporarily sealed. Only redacted versions of the affidavits have been released.

Among the information blacked out are the names of at least two of Love’s friends, who recounted hearing about an email Huguely sent Love. One of the friends was in a hotel room in Chicago with Love, who read it to her. Apparently the email was so gripping that Love read it to her friend out loud again (more)

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UVA student Love was found dead May 3 in her 14th Street Apartment.
FILE PHOTO BY DAVE MCNAIR/INSET: OFFICIAL UVA PHOTO

A report by the Charlottesville Newsplex suggests that landlord Woodard Properties re-rented the apartment of slain UVA student Yeardley Love with no warning to the new occupants about the place’s tragic history. This raises intriguing questions about crime, memory, and real estate. Then Hook reporter Lindsay Barnes examined the real estate aftermath of heinous crime in an article he penned in the wake of the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall.

Hook Senior Editor Courteney Stuart also addressed this issue in a story after the murder of Jayne McGowan.

Story updated 10:33am with link to Jayne McGowan article.

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In the wake of the slaying of lacrosse player Yeardley Love, UVA students will now be required to actively report any arrests or convictions at registration, new UVA president Teresa Sullivan explained in an August 5 press conference.

According to UVA spokesperson Carol Wood, a requirement to report any such offenses has existed since 2004; the change in the policy means that a student must give a yes or no answer to the question. A lie would be a direct violation of the school’s single sanction honor code, punishable by expulsion.

UVA athletes continue to be required to report any arrest to their coaches within 24 hours, according to Wood. As has been widely reported, prior to Love’s slaying, Huguely had been arrested near Lexington after an altercation with a female police officer. Lacrosse coach Dom Starsia has said he was not made aware of that arrest.

August 10, 2:47pm: This story has been expanded upon to clarify the history of the UVA’s crime reporting policy. Original headline: Love case prompts new policy at UVA

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Daily Progress editor McGregor McCance emerges from the July 1 document-unsealing hearing.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Two months after the bloody, pre-graduation death of UVA student Yeardley Love, newly released documents suggest that accused killer and fellow fourth-year student George W. Huguely V knew he had injured his 22-year-old former girlfriend because, he allegedly told police, he saw blood coming from her nose before throwing her on her bed. And days before those chilling details, the Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed what the earliest reports suggested: that blunt force trauma to the young woman’s head was the cause of her death.

The revelations— including the fact that police found Huguely’s passport inside a pair of his cargo shorts— run counter to what Huguely’s lawyer has termed “an accident with a tragic outcome” and bolster the state’s murder case against the scion of a prominent Washington family who allegedly told police he repeatedly slammed Love’s head into a wall during an “altercation.”

The documents, released July 8 by Judge John J. McGrath Jr., include affidavits and search warrant inventories previously sealed until several media organizations— the Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Washington Post, and the AP— pressed the Charlottesville Circuit Court to unseal them.

Left sealed, however, are warrants for email and cellphone records, as well as the names of witnesses, Huguely’s Social Security number, and “item number one” on the inventory of things removed from the black 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe registered to Huguely’s father, which were redacted from the documents.

Huguely, who like Love was a lacrosse player, is charged with first-degree (more)

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Charlottesville native Steve Schoeffel scored two goals in Duke’s victory over the Irish.
PHOTO FROM DUKE SPORTS WEBSITE

Duke lacrosse player C.J. Costabile is getting some well-deserved attention for his lighting-fast goal in the Blue Devil’s 6-5 overtime win against Notre Dame in the 2010 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship yesterday, but without a certain Charlottesville native and Covenant School alum, Costabile may never have had such a shot at glory.

Midfielder Steve Schoeffel, a fifth-year senior on the Duke squad and son of local physicians Cindy and Mark Schoeffel, scored two goals in yesterday’s contest.

“It was very exciting,” says Cindy Schoeffel. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a voice. This is the fourth time we’ve been there, and it was very thrilling to finally be hugging each other.”

Indeed, while Duke fans embraced, Virginia coach Dom Starsia may have been kicking himself.

According to Cindy, who played field hockey at the University of Wisconsin, her son grew up a Virginia fan, but when he met Starsia during Virginia camps, the coach told him he was a good player but “not what I’m looking for.”

“Steve is small and fast,” says Cindy, “and I guess Dom was looking for football players who played lacrosse.”

But then Duke coach Mike Pressler saw something in the young man. After Steve attended Duke’s camps, the Schoeffels received weekly letters from Pressler.

Schoeffel in action during the quarterfinals against UNC.
PHOTO COURTESY CINDY SCHOEFFEL

“They were very nice about recruiting him,” says Cindy. “Mike told us it was not what Steve was now as a player, but what he would become.”

However, heading off to play lacrosse at Duke in 2006 had its challenges. Pressler resigned following allegations that Duke players had raped a stripper they had hired for a party, allegations eventually proven to be false. In fact, Steve Schoeffel was able to play this season only because he was one of the players allowed a fifth year of eligibility by the NCAA after the 2006 season ended in the wake of the “Duke lacrosse scandal.” While Pressler was the one who wanted Schoeffel, new coach John Danowski became the one to help him mature as a player.

“That was a very difficult year,” says Cindy of the 2006 season, “but I think it helped the boys to consider that everything they do matters”— a lesson that Duke’s athletic department had to learn as well, she says.

Ironically, Schoeffel also helped take down number-one ranked Virginia in the semi-final match-up May 29, during perhaps the Virginia program’s darkest days.

“We’re very sad for both families,” says Cindy, reflecting on the murder of a female UVA lacrosse player allegedly by a member of the UVA men’s squad. Like the aftermath of the “Duke scandal” that her son and their family had to endure, she hopes some good will come of the tragedy.

For a time, Schoeffel played with another Covenant star on the Duke squad, midfielder Bo Carrington. In 2008, the Daily Progress interviewed them both about the Duke rape scandal. On the other side of the field yesterday, Schoeffel faced off against another local standout, Max Pfeifer, a sophomore midfielder for the Irish who was a star at Western Albemarle.

Coverage of the game by the New York Times includes a great shot of Schoeffel celebrating after the victory, which was Duke’s first NCAA title.

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In a May 27 op-ed on the Huffington Post, UVA alum Liz Seccuro, whose 1984 sexual assault in a fraternity house and her assailant’s apology sent 22 years later made international news, weighs in on the deaths of Yeardley Love and Morgan Harrington and on violence against women at UVA.

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John Casteen bestowed degrees at his last graduation as president of the University of Virginia.
PHOTO BY DAN ADDISON/UVA PUBLIC AFFAIRS

After a 20-year tenure, the final exercises May 23 couldn’t help but be poignant and bittersweet for retiring President John Casteen. But for the reporters converging on Charlottesville from Roanoke, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, Casteen’s work as leader of Virginia’s flagship university took a backseat to something sadder.

Although the sun broke through the overcast sky as the Class of 2010 began its walk on the Lawn, the Sunday morning event was marked by the shadow of the murder of their classmate Yeardley Love three weeks earlier.

Clearly, it weighed heavily on (more)

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With family and friends of the couple mostly circling wagons in silence, the Washington Post has managed to tie together the newspaper’s copious reports on the late Yeardley Love and the violence-prone, lacrosse-playing lover who allegedly took her life earlier this month. Appearing in its Sunday issue, the 2,246-word story recounts tales of Love, George W. Huguely V, his father, Farmington Country Club, and Boylan Heights restaurant.

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Some recent visitors to the Rotunda thought the tops of the capitals were draped in mourning for slain student Yeardley Love.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

Some may have thought the Rotunda was in mourning, but according to UVA preservation planner Brian Hogg, the “black socks” that appeared on the columns of the Rotunda in March are there to protect the building.

“There is some deterioration in the marble of the capitals,” says Hogg. “We’ve put the netting up as a way of controlling their exposure while we evaluate their condition and options for repair.”

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UVA President John Casteen, Allen Groves, Craig Littlepage and Patricia Lampkin held a press conference two days after Yeardley Love’s death.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

On May 2, the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team was the toast of the collegiate sports world, and university president John Casteen was preparing to preside over his final graduation. A day later, one student-athlete lay dead with another student-athlete accused of killing her. And that has changed lives on the two lacrosse teams—  and at the helm.

“I think he’s suffering,” says University spokesperson Carol Wood, noting that Casteen, the father of three daughters, “wants to find appropriate ways to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”

Casteen had certainly made conquering the scourge of binge-drinking a hallmark of his 20-year presidency. After a notorious 1997 stairway death, Casteen helped launch a variety of responsible drinking programs including securing a $2.5 million donation four years ago to convince students that drinking to oblivion is not normal.

Ironically, fourth year lacrosse player George Huguely, who, according to an affidavit, has admitted to the violence that led to the death of women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love, has a history of drinking problems. With revelations that his coach knew about at least one act of drink-fueled violence, UVA may be facing (more)

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A newly released federal study on campus violence finds that most attackers are men, and that most attacks are against “intimate partners.”
PHOTO UVA SPORTS/POLICE

In the wake of the Virginia Tech Tragedy, the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Department of Education were asked to study violence on college campuses. The study was completed in April, just a month before the alleged attack and murder of UVA student-athlete Yeardley Love, and its findings appear to suggest that American college campuses are sexually charged, stressful environments where men are most often the attackers.

Of the 272 incidents of assault studied, 161 of the attackers were current or former students. Of those killed, 190 were students and 72 were employees of the college. Of those injured, 144 were students and 35 were employees.

According to the study, 60 percent of campus attacks studied were against “current or former non-spouse intimate partners,” and 15 percent were against “current or former spouses.” Of the attacks, 94 percent were committed by men.

Among the factors that motivated attacks, some form of jealousy, revenge, stress, and sexual aggression top the list. Factors relating to “intimate relationships” lead the way, closely followed by sexual advances being refused and an obsession with someone.

Twenty-nine percent of the attackers harassed or stalked their victims beforehand, and in 31 percent of the attacks “concerning” behavior of the attacker was observed by friends, family, associates, professors, or law enforcement officials. As is the case with the Love murder, media reports following the attacks often uncovered “concerning” behavior that had not been widely observed by those who knew or were associated with the attacker.

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George Huguely on the field and behind bars. What compelled his rage?
UVA SPORTS/POLICE PHOTO

Papa loved mama
Mama loved men
Mama’s in the graveyard
Papa’s in the pen

–Carl Sandburg

Why would a college athlete, a young man from a prominent family with everything going for him, attack and possibly— as police allege– brutally murder his former girlfriend? As shock gives way to grief, questions about drugs and sanity invariably arise over UVA student George Wesley Huguely V’s fatal altercation with 22-year-old Yeardley Love . Although Huguely has several alcohol-fueled incidents in his past, two doctors say in recent interviews that it’s unlikely that intoxicants alone could drive someone to kill.

“If intoxicated, the risk will increase,” says Dr. Bankole Johnson, (more)

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Yeardley Love and George Huguely.
UVA SPORTS

Imagine the families. Chevy Chase, Maryland and Cockeysville, Maryland are only about an hour apart. George Huguely and Yeardley Love had been dating for some time. The families had to have met, right?

Now, in the wake of Yeardley Love’s death— allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend, George Huguely— imagine the interactions between the two families. If it hasn’t happened already, at some point, it will. They’ll cross paths, and familiar looks will be replaced with downward gazes, stifled emotions. Should they speak, think of the fumbled words, the tears, the heads shaking.

The Huguely family would likely want to apologize, and the Love family might want to forgive. But truthfully, nobody could (more)

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Defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence, with partner Rhonda Quagliana, faces the media horde after client George Huguely’s first court appearance. PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

George Wesley Huguely V is not the first UVA student to be charged with murder.

In 2003, Andrew Alston was charged with second degree murder for stabbing local firefighter Walker Sisk to death on the Corner, and many were stunned when a jury sentenced him to three years for voluntary manslaughter.

So what can a shocked community expect when Huguely eventually comes to trial?

The Hook checked with a couple of top gun defense lawyers to see how they’d defend the young man who made a statement to police that he’d had an altercation with victim Yeardley Love, kicked her door in, and shook her so hard that her head repeatedly hit a wall, and then took her laptop when he left.

Rule number one: Hire the best lawyer money can buy. (more)

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The father of UVA lacrosse coach Dom Starsia reportedly died this morning at the age of 86, according to the Daily Progress. The death of his father, Dominic Joseph Starsia, adds another layer of grief for the beleaguered coach who should have been proudly focused on leading his #1 ranked team to the NCAA tournament but is instead coping with a horrific crime allegedly committed by one of his players, George Huguely V, charged Monday, May 3 with first degree murder in the death of UVA women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love. Two days after Love’s death and Huguely’s arrest, UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage announced both men’s and women’s lacrosse teams will go ahead with the tournament.

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Alcohol and violence were factors in George W. Huguely V’s 2008 arrest in Lexington.
ROCKBRIDGE REGIONAL JAIL

A red-stained UVA lacrosse t-shirt and a letter to Yeardley Love are among the items taken by Charlottesville police from accused killer George Huguely’s apartment on May 3.

Police removed two white Apple laptop computers, a green spiral notebook, two white socks, a bathroom rug, a shower curtain, the apartment’s entryway rug, a pair of blue cargo shorts, and a Bobby Jones brand polo shirt, according to the Daily Progress.

The search warrant in the Charlottesville Circuit Court clerk’s office is now sealed, as is the judge’s order to seal that and subsequent search warrants.

“My recollection is that [Albemarle] Judge [Cheryl] Higgins signed it,” says Paul Garrett, clerk of court. That now-secret order was requested by the commonwealth’s attorney, adds Garrett.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman did not (more)

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Unlike the Yeardley Love family, Gil Harrington knows of no suspect in her daughter’s slaying.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Gil Harrington brought her murdered daughter Morgan’s ashes to Africa and brought an African stone back to Charlottesville, she told a group of reporters gathered on the Copeley Road Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, May 5, before she placed the stone among the memorabilia that covers the northeast corner of the Copeley Road bridge to commemorate the life of the 20-year-old killed after disappearing from a Metallica concert in October.

“We’re trying to make something positive of this loss,” says Gil, who described the three-room wing in Morgan’s memory that will be added to a school in Zambia and talked about how Morgan had dreamed of traveling with her mother to the impoverished country.

While construction won’t (more)

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Yeardley Love shared an apartment with two roommates, who discovered her unresponsive and called 911.
PHOTO: DAVE MCNAIR/UVA SPORTS

Among questions swirling in the wake of the so called UVA lacrosse killing is the confounding early report of possible alcohol poisoning allegedly made by the roommates who discovered the body of 22-year-old Yeardley Love, who now appears to have been beaten to death.

“City Police were called to 222 14th St. NW, apartment number 9, for a possible alcohol overdose,” read the first official announcement of the incident, a press release from the City of Charlottesville to reporters at 9:40am Monday, May 3. Although the release did call the case a homicide investigation, many have expressed confusion over such vastly differing causes of death, particularly after a search warrant affadavit— which led to the arrest of UVA men’s lacrosse player George W. Huguely V— revealed horrific details of what may have transpired.

Among the heinous-sounding elements: a “pool of blood on her pillow” and a (more)

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