Yeardley Love was born July 17, 1987, to Sharon (Donnelly) Love and John Thomas Love III at the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. After a brutal June, the temperatures along the East Coast had settled somewhat, making the final weeks a bit more comfortable—at least externally—for Sharon to finish up her second pregnancy. The day of Yeardley’s debut, Baltimore was a breezy 71 degrees. For their second daughter’s name the couple chose Yeardley, pronounced Yardlee; of Old English origins, the name means “enclosed meadow.” Yards, as her family affectionately called her, was four years younger than her older sister, Alexis, known by friends as Lexie. Yeardley was immediately in awe of her older sister, a pretty blond with an infectious smile and athletic build.
Yeardley wrote in an essay about her life in 2002, her freshman year of high school, that she liked to do what ever her older sister did. At the time Yeardley wrote the piece, Lexie had just graduated and headed off to Elon University in North Carolina. Yeardley remembered how she always wanted to tag along with her sister and her sister’s friends “and not the children my age.” Photographs from the girls’ youth show Yeardley often at her sister’s side, along with children clearly closer to Lexie’s age than her own.
“She taught me a lot in life, and she has left me very good examples to follow,” Yeardley wrote. “Sometimes I wonder what I could not have done in my life without her.”
The Love girls predictably turned heads. They were beautiful and sweet; their parents were both charming and successful. Yeardly and Lexie’s father—a man whose glasses and well-kept hair said “corporate,” but whose smile had more warmth than most—had worked in finance at Morgan Stanley, according to a coworker who later recalled “Yeardley coming into the office as a young lady to see her dad.” Yeardley’s mother, Sharon, worked with hearing-impaired students in Baltimore city schools.
Yeardley grew up in Cockeysville, a Baltimore suburb in Baltimore County. It seemed an area of typical suburban sprawl, but in reality, the little town had sprouted up in the midst of a limestone and marble quarry. The Maryland Geological Survey boasts that Cockeysville’s “white, crystalline metalimestone” was used for the upper 390 feet of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. By the mid-1800s, the marble was a popular accent in-and outside of the row houses built in Baltimore. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston describes the material as white and fine grained, containing “a brownish mica that can make the stone look slightly gray.”
To outsiders, the town today perhaps appears to lack cohesion—a smattering of hotels and restaurants amid industrial-looking complexes. Those who live there know better, however. Children squeal as they splash around the pools and pond at Beaver Dam, nestled, appropriately, along Beaver Dam Road, northwest of Cockeysville Road. Originally a quarry-created swimming hole, Beaver Dam morphed over time into a full-fledged recreational park, complete with picnic areas and basketball courts. Families would gather from late May through Labor Day (depending on weather) and spend entire days swimming, playing sports, relaxing, and grilling. The more adventurous could plunge into the water from a rope swing as friends cheered them on. Teenagers left on their own would engage in typical waterside teen behavior; summer romances began and ended while relaxing quarryside. Swimmers and sunbathers had their pick between the quarry pond and two chlorinated pools (dubbed the “front pool” and “back pool” for obvious reasons). The Beaver Dam Swimming Club, as it is known, spreads over thirty acres and is a hidden, fun-filled gem that ignites nostalgia in many Cockeysville natives.
Cockeysville shares little in common with the often cash-strapped metropolis eighteen miles to the south. As of the 2010 United States Census, just over 20,000 people lived there, more than seventy-five percent of whom were white. According to a 2007 CNN Money tally, the median income was about $71,200, with an average home price of $350,000. Yeardley was clearly among the privileged. The family’s home on Ivy Hill Road hugged lush parkland. According to county records, the Loves bought the 4.25-acre plot in 1986 for $170,000 and built a 4,400-square-foot home. It was a picturesque setting for John and Sharon to raise their daughters.
And the girls were as pretty as their homestead. Both had inherited their mother’s high cheekbones, and by their teenage years, their already electric smiles had been perfected by braces. Sharon Love sometimes dressed the girls in matching outfits on special occasions, even pinning their neatly combed, chin-length hair with matching bows. Sharon seemed particularly fond of one outfit—a cute black dress with a cummerbund and a collar embellished with a pink rose dangling delicately at the neck. Both girls had a version of the dress, and in 1992, when Yeardley was about five, her mother took her to an Olan Mills photo studio to have her portrait taken in it. An oversized, floppy pink bow sat atop her head, pulling her hair into a half-updo.
While eulogizing her daughter, Sharon Love said Yeardley had a mischievous side, People magazine relayed: “Yeardley would inform her that her outfit looked horrible; Lexie would rush to change. The next day on the computer, Lexie would find pictures of Yeardley dressed in that very same outfit.”
Yeardley and Lexie were undeniably sisters, sharing eyes so blue that they were virtually guaranteed to have red-eye in any amateur photograph requiring a flash. They shared, too, the same boisterous laugh, one that could carry across a lacrosse field, not to mention a room. But they had their differences, too: Lexie’s look was at times more natural and clean, her blond hair often pulled away from her face and her makeup spare. As Yeardley reached college, she opted to accentuate her already noticeable eyes with mascara lining both top and bottom lashes, and when she wasn’t playing sports, her light brown hair often fell loose around her shoulders.
Yeardley was an active and sporty child, and something of a daddy’s girl. She began playing lacrosse with her father when she was five. Lacrosse quickly became her favorite sport, and she not only played year round, but sometimes for two teams at once.
Yeardley’s first foray into private education was at St. Joseph School, which serves kindergarteners through eighth graders and costs about $5,500 per year. The parish, roughly three blocks down Church Lane off York Road in Cockeysville, is split on both sides of a narrow back road—the chapel on one side, the classrooms and offices on the other. From the school’s mission statement:
Rooted in the teachings of Jesus, our school is enriched by Catholic tradition and lived Gospel values, which are enhanced by the celebration of liturgy, sacrament and prayer. We further the children’s knowledge and practice of their faith and guide them to serve others through the use of their gifts and talents. Here at St. Joseph School, we foster a safe and secure environment in which children can grow and learn.
Sister Joan Dumm, a forty-year educator at St. Joseph, taught Yeardley in the second grade. Dumm readied her for the Catholic ritual of First Holy Communion, which symbolizes a child’s initiation into the church.
Dumm recalled speaking with John Love, his voice thick with an Irish accent, while he waited to pick up his then-seven-year-old daughter. He was charged with bringing his girls home from school.
“Oh, yes, every day,” Dumm said. “We would bring the lines down to the crossing guard to get them across safely, if they were going to the south-side carpool.”
John’s affection for his daughters was obvious to everyone, she added: “He loved his girls.”
Dumm recalled the simple, idle chitchat in the carpool lane that she and John shared as he waited for Yeardley to bound out of the school. The sister described Yeardley as “a happy, lively little girl” whose school life at age seven centered on the sacrament of First Holy Communion, her first reception of the Holy Eucharist—the consecrated bread and wine (or, in a youngster’s case, more likely unfermented grape juice) presented as the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
“That’s the big thing for the second grade,” Dumm recalled.
The students tended to enjoy practicing and learning the ritual because it meant spending time away from the classroom.
“There were never any problems with getting them to go to church,” Dumm said of the students. “In fact, they liked to go across the street so they didn’t have to do what ever work we had to do in the classroom. So church was kind of a nice place to go.”
Sister Georgia Moonis, Yeardley’s homeroom teacher in the fourth grade, recalled the girl as “on the quiet side.” It was around then that Yeardley played lacrosse at Sky Walkers, a program whose stated mission is to “instill in every girl the confidence that she has no limitations.” Players are taught the importance of teamwork over individual performance, and the lessons are meant to carry over from the field into real life. Yeardley was quiet in the classroom, but she was tenacious on the field.
People couldn’t help but be drawn to her. She was the type of young woman whose future success seemed predetermined. No one felt a need to worry about her; with her upbringing and self-assuredness, she seemed poised to map out what ever destiny she wanted. She could take care of herself, and she was from the type of family that would pick up any slack were she ever to stumble. She was the unlikeliest crime victim anyone who met her could have imagined.
Kaki Evans recalled her being “vivacious and loving” in one online post; in another, Grace Caslow marveled at the “incredible impression” the young woman made.
Friend Catherine Barthelme posted in an online memoriam that she could never find a better friend than “Yards.” She missed her laugh her smile and her sense of humor “every single day.”
In an online condolence posting directed at Sharon and Lexie Love, Casey Donohoe, a Jarrettsville, Maryland native, recalled first meeting Yeardley at Sky Walkers in middle school and playing lacrosse with her in high school. “I remember her with her side ponytail and bright ribbon,” Donohoe described. She said she admired her kindness and generosity. Brian Frederick, a coach with the Cockeysville recreational program, recalled in a letter to the Towson Times that Yeardley wasn’t a flashy child “except for that smile,” he wrote. She was an understated go-getter, Frederick wrote, the kind of independent and beautiful young woman he hoped his son would marry someday.
Yeardley and Frederick’s daughter, Meghan, were longtime friends, he wrote, having attended St. Joseph from kindergarten through the eighth grade before matriculating at separate schools. Meg and Yards played against each other throughout their four years in high school, Frederick recalled.
“God, I looked forward to those games,” he wrote. “I knew I’d get a big ‘hello’ and that beautiful smile from Yeardley after the game—win or lose.”
While some young adults need time, not to mention trial and error, to shape their paths in life, Yeardley knew hers from the time she was in elementary school: She wanted to play lacrosse throughout high school and college, and she vowed to attend the University of Virginia, the college her father had briefly enrolled in before having to leave for the military. He never got his degree; Yeardley promised herself that she would attain one for the both of them.
She decided when she was about nine years old that she would go to the University of Virginia, lacrosse stick in hand. After getting her bachelor’s degree, she wanted to attend Virginia Law School for three years, she wrote in her high school essay, and after that, she wanted to become a lawyer and raise a family.
“If I had to wish for three things in my life, they would be to go to University of Virginia for college, have a happy and healthy family when I grow up, and to always keep in touch and stay close with my family,” she wrote.
Yeardley competed in both field hockey and lacrosse at Notre Dame Preparatory School, a private school in nearby Towson, Maryland, which costs upward of $15,000 in yearly tuition. Lexie had graduated in 2002; Yeardley was four years behind her. In exchange for the hefty tuition, parents are promised a lower student-to-teacher ratio than Maryland’s state average (comparing at about 1:9 at Notre Dame to the state’s 1:16), as well as access to a slew of sports and extracurricular activities. While area public schools struggle to keep abreast of even basic requirements, Notre Dame’s students bring laptops to use wirelessly in their classes and have access to courses such as Japanese, architectural drawing, and computer graphics. The high-tech bent is balanced by decades-old traditions: The school’s uniform hasn’t changed since its founding in 1873.
From the time Yeardley began high school, her classes were geared toward college preparation: four credits in English, three credits in history and social studies, three credits in science (including biology and chemistry); three credits in math (including upper algebra and geometry), three credits in sequential levels of a foreign language, one credit in fine arts, two credits in religion, two credits in physical education, three and a half credits in electives, and twenty hours in social service. The latter requirement fell under the school’s “service and justice” heading, which, according to the school, was meant to “address a two-fold mandate: in regards to service, to address the immediate needs of underserved populations; and, in regards to justice, to seek ways to change those systems which inherently prove unjust to individuals, societies, and the world.” In short, charity work was a requirement for Yeardley to graduate, and her efforts would be rooted in the Gospel. According to the high school’s mission statement, the goal was to “prepare women of moral integrity to become more loving, just, and wise.”
Yeardley excelled at everything she tried, teachers and administrators at the Catholic school told reporters in the days after her death.
“Yeardley was an outstanding young lady—joyous, spirited, a wonderful person,” the school’s headmistress, Sister Patricia McCarron, a woman with a kind, round face, said. “I know we all enjoyed watching her on the lacrosse field and seeing her walk the hallways at NDP. We are proud to call Yeardley one of our girls.”
Yeardley seemed proud in return. She regularly returned to Notre Dame when she came home on college breaks and kept in touch with Notre Dame’s lacrosse coach, Mary Bartel.
“Yeardley was the core of the personality of the team—she was our laughter, a good soul,” Bartel said. “She always found an appropriate way to lighten things up. I don’t think there is a soul in this building who couldn’t say her name without smiling. Yeardley loved NDP and NDP loved her.”
If either McCarron or Bartel knew anything about George Huguely, they didn’t tell reporters.
Yeardley was giving, too, said those who knew her, volunteering at a soup kitchen and counseling at a summer camp program for children living in housing projects. Neighbors in sprawling Cockeysville remembered her as an ideal mix of kind, ambitious, and intelligent. The advantages she had been given weren’t lost on her, either.
Yeardley marveled at a young age at how lucky she was to have a happy, intact family that instilled values in her.
Sadly, the insulation of Yeardley’s early years shattered while she was still a budding high school student. Her father, John, with whom she had played lacrosse since she was five, died of prostate cancer three days after Christmas in 2003—Yeardley’s sophomore year—in a loss that would have derailed many bright young lives. Yeardley was devastated, but her friends and family told reporters that she showed strength and grace beyond her years. She and her sister bonded, their mother told People magazine.
“Rather than giving in to grief, they vowed to stick together and make their father proud,” Sharon told writer Jill Smolowe.
In another account, Molly Ford, a childhood friend, said Yeardley’s strength had been inspiring: “She didn’t fold when that happened. She was strong to her family and everyone else around her.”
Added Casey Donohoe: “She handled everything so graciously and was so strong throughout.”
John T. Love’s obituary in the Baltimore Sun was simple, direct: “Beloved husband of Sharon Donnelly Love; dear father of Alexis D. and Yeardley R. Love.” His funeral mass was held at Immaculate Conception Church in Towson; interment at Druid Ridge Cemetery.
Yeardley, then fifteen, attended the funeral wearing her Notre Dame uniform and black-and-white saddle shoes. She placed a lacrosse ball in his casket.
After her father’s death, Yeardley didn’t slow down, and her interest in lacrosse seemed to heighten. It’s a fast-paced sport with a simple goal: to fling a ball into your opponent’s net. Only the goalie can touch the ball; the rest of the players have to manipulate it using the “crosse,” a stick with a net attached to its end. Growing up in Cockeysville, where even the local dollar store stocked miniature lacrosse sets, helped fuel Yeardley’s passion. On the field, she was petite but fierce, manipulating the lacrosse stick with increasing ease as the years passed. She was a swift defender, making up for being shorter than some teammates with her absolute diligence. In 2004, she earned notice in the Towson Times, her local paper, as having netted the only goal in a game against Garrison Forest. In 2006, her senior year, Coach Bartel said that Yeardley was one in a hardworking team. “This is a good group,” she said. “We have a lot of team players and hard workers.” But Yeardley stood out; that year, she went All-County. After high school, she was determined to play at UVA, not only her father’s would-be alma mater, but also the school at which her uncle had been an All-American lacrosse star years earlier. An archive clip from a March 2009 interview with Virginiasports.com revealed just how excited Yeardley had been to finally go to UVA; she called it a “dream come true.”
“I had wanted to play lacrosse at Virginia since I was little,” she told a reporter at the Web site. She praised Coach Bartel, saying she “always pushed me to work harder. She not only prepared me to play at the college level, but she taught me important life lessons. She always put a strong focus on good sportsmanship and working together as a team.”
Many young people with Yeardley’s popularity, talent, and looks would have an attitude to match. But she didn’t, teammate Casey Donohoe told People. Before lacrosse games, Yeardley gave Donohoe gifts—Gatorade sometimes, a favorite snack others. The gift was anonymous, the teammate told the magazine.
“I didn’t know till the end of the year it was Yeardley. She was just so thoughtful,” she said. “You would think she would be cocky and conceited, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She was humble about everything.”
As a senior, Yeardley was recruited by the one school on her radar. When UVA coach Julie Myers offered her a spot on the renowned team, Yeardley beamed, she told a team publication shortly before her death. “That definitely topped the happiest and proudest moment that I will probably ever experience,” she said.
Yeardley spent countless hours practicing and playing at UVA’s Klöckner Stadium, where soccer dominates in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. The stadium, built in 1992 for more than $3 million, seemed a good luck charm for its athletes. The men’s soccer team won national championships there, as did both the men and women’s lacrosse teams. By Yeardley’s senior year, she lived less than one and a half miles from Klöckner, an easy walk down University Avenue and Emmet Street. Because of its proximity to both the stadium and area bars, the Corner, as locals call the area where Yeardley lived, was a popular spot for both lacrosse and soccer players to call home. Given the tight-knit nature of her lacrosse community, it was no surprise that Yeardley began dating a fellow player about a year into her college career. On the surface, the two made sense, with their overlapping interests and similar backgrounds. They were regularly spotted hanging out with other players at area bars—the Boylan Heights bar in particular, which was a quick walk from each of their senior-year apartments.
As much as Yeardley loved her social college life, she was focused on the future. Poised to major in government and minor in Spanish, she had spent the summer before her senior year interning at a public relations and marketing firm in New York City, and she had a job lined up for after her May graduation—a milestone that, it turned out, she would never reach.
As medics carried Yeardley’s lifeless body from her apartment, friends doubled over in tears on the front lawn. One young woman wailed on her cell phone, waking a neighbor with her cries. No one working the police beat has failed to encounter the tale of a boyfriend with a temper, the girl in danger, the realization setting in far too late that a powder keg had long ago been ignited. Still, this case was different than most. Yeardley seemed to have everything, and more than that, she seemed poised to give back to the world. On the field, she was the type to volunteer for extra drills, playing defense against attackers. Off the field, she was determined but gracious, affluent but humble. She was the daughter, the sister, and the friend that people either wanted to have or wanted to be. Now, friends who had been preparing for the rush of finals and the relief of graduation found themselves bracing for an unfathomable funeral instead.
Amy Appelt, a former lacrosse All-America at UVA who graduated in 2005 and founded “onenine lacrosse” to train players, told Sports Illustrated’s SI.com that she had coached Yeardley for a season and knew her well.
“You hear that God has a plan for everyone,” she mused, “but maybe He messed up this one time.”