Before Yeardley’s remains could return home to Maryland, doctors first needed to examine her lifeless body one last time. It would be a crucial step in evidence gathering, as medical examiner William Gormley noted not only the young woman’s height, weight, ethnicity, and injuries, but also searched for clues that might shed light on her last minutes alive.
Gormley, a well-respected pathologist who graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1977, worked as an assistant chief medical examiner in Virginia’s Richmond-based Central District. Not every death in Virginia requires an autopsy, but many do—those who die in state mental facilities or people who appeared to be in good health and die while unattended by a physician, for example. As someone who died from what appeared to be traumatic injury, Yeardley certainly qualified.
Virginia was one of the first states in the country to institute a statewide medical examiner system in 1946, abolishing its previous coroner system. The difference is significant: Coroners are politicians who win their posts by election. They often have no background in medical or forensic science. But medical examiners are licensed to practice medicine, and most are trained in forensic pathology. They’re schooled specifically in determining both cause and manner of death—the former being the specific method of death, the latter being an umbrella category. In simpler terms, “gunshot to the head” is the cause of death; “homicide,” the manner.
Medical examiners conduct medicolegal death investigations, which require an eye for both medical and legal detail. They typically begin with external observations, then shift to the inside of the body. In Yeardley’s case, many details would have been noted, and many photographs taken, to enumerate the injuries to her face that Reeves had so quickly spotted upon entering the 14th Street bedroom. Undoubtedly there were other autopsies to conduct that day—Virginia opens about 6,000 death cases per year, the autopsies for which are spread among just four facilities—but none would have been more pressing. Statewide, there’s just more than one murder a day—on par with an average year in the city of Detroit—very few of which make national headlines. Yeardley would have become the state’s top priority.
Gormley no doubt checked for the types of clues that help solidify a prosecutor’s case, such as using tape to lift any fibers from Yeardley’s body or panties and checking under her fingernails in the hope of discovering her attacker’s skin cells. He likely examined her neck for evidence of bruising, a sign of strangulation. Internally, he would have dismissed as “unremarkable” her organs, which appeared normal for someone her age, and taken notes highlighting any abnormalities he encountered. All of this would have been standard procedure for Gormley, but in Yeardley’s death, he would have had to spend far more time inside her head than most, taking notes and photographs on the damage done to her brain. Surely Gormley could have predicted, even without Lawrence’s “accidental death” comment, that the defense would attempt to minimize the damage George had done when he slammed Yeardley’s head against a wall.
While Gormley documented his findings, Yeardley’s family made arrangements for her funeral. Sharon Love planned a Saturday funeral in Towson, a few minutes’ drive from their hometown of Cockeysville, close to Notre Dame Prep. The mass and preceding visitations were announced in newspaper obituaries:
LOVE, Yeardley R. On May 3, 2010 Yeardley Reynolds Love, beloved daughter of Sharon Donnelly Love and the late John Love; devoted sister of Lexi [sic] Love…
The family asked that memorial contributions be made to The Yeardley Love Memorial Fund at Notre Dame Prep, or to the Yeardley Love Women’s Lacrosse Scholarship Fund for the Virginia Athletic Foundation.
In today’s world of online obituaries, Yeardley’s, which ran on the Baltimore Sun Web site, reached thousands more people nationwide than it would have in pre-Internet days. And the impact was huge. More than 500 people signed her online guest book to express condolences, with posters listing their hometowns from across the country—Georgia, Florida, California, Wisconsin. One poster, from Austin, Texas, wrote: “What a tragic loss not only to your family, but even to us who did not know Yeardley.” Another poster from Columbus, Georgia, wrote: “May God wrap you in his arms in this time of sorrow. Yeardley was such a beautiful young woman.
Some directed their notes to Sharon and Alexis directly. They asked that the women hold tight to their Christian faith and recognize that Yeardley was now with Jesus. Some identified themselves as belonging to the UVA community—either past graduates or current students—while others were parents of college-aged young women and men who described the ordeal as a “parent’s worst nightmare.” Others still had lost loved ones to the hands of a batterer—nieces and daughters taken from them too soon.
But the virtual guest book was for more than catharsis for strangers. Several people who said they knew Yeardley left heartfelt messages, clearly using the forum as a place to commiserate with others in grief.
“She was such a kind, sweet girl and her beautiful smile and eyes will live on forever,” wrote Tiffany Hales, who claimed to be a former co-worker of Yeardley’s father. “She is in heaven with her dad.”
Brian Frederick, Yeardley’s former Cockeysville rec coach, posted the same letter that was to appear in the Towson Times. He had to miss Yeardley’s funeral, he explained, because his own daughter was graduating college, and he believed Yeardley would prefer he celebrate with her friend rather than mourn at her interment.
Sharon Donnelly Love asked that the media not attend her daughter’s May 8 funeral service, but some reporters attended the visitation beforehand and described the dark wooden casket in which Yeardley was laid to rest, and the pink flowers with green stems that covered it. Visiting hours were held at the Ruck Funeral Home, and thousands arrived to pay their respects. Many had never met Yeardley, but they were touched nonetheless, brought to tears by the description of the tragedy of her final moments. Women who themselves had been battered, trapped in dangerous relationships with volatile men, wondered if they had been spared a similar fate. Despite some family members’ quiet comments that Yeardley was no “shrinking violet” who would have tolerated physical abuse, the young woman’s broad smile still was destined to become entwined with domestic violence.
“This isn’t easy,” one friend said to another as they approached Yeardley’s casket at the funeral. A newspaper reporter overheard.
Photographs of Yeardley in happy times—dressed in Halloween costumes, celebrating victories with her lacrosse teammates—were strewn about the funeral home and displayed on a laptop slide show. Flowers and cards sent in sympathy came from those closest to Yeardley, as well as from complete strangers. One came from CNN’s Larry King Live. The funeral service program passed out the next day featured a photograph of Love as a child dressed as an angel. Underneath the image was this quote: “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget”—her senior quotation from her 2006 yearbook. On the program’s back cover was the essay Yeardley had written during her freshman year of high school. Its final line read, “So far my life has been filled with joy and happiness, and I hope to keep living my life that way.”
Filling the pews were Yeardley’s friends, family, and sorority sisters from Kappa Alpha Theta. UVA president John Casteen attended as well. Each was handed a booklet that included the now-haunting essay.
Though the funeral mass was private, nearly a dozen television cameramen lined up across the street, along with many more photographers. Reporters from some outlets donned muted outfits to quietly sit among the mourners who attended. Some speakers told of Yeardley’s goofiness and her generosity, and more than one commented on her contagious smile.
But it was UVA’s lacrosse coach who led the congregation in a cheer.
The Cavaliers, she explained, took turns before each game leading teammates in a pregame chant. “One, two, three, together, ’Hoos!” they would cry, invoking the team’s nickname. One day, as Love led the cheer, she accidentally counted to four.
This Saturday morning, as Myers’ remembrance caused laughter to mix with mourners’ tears, Myers counted to four. On cue, the congregation responded in one voice: “Together, ’Hoos.”
From then on, Cavaliers would always count to four, Myers said.
The massive Cathedral of Mary our Queen, built in 1959 and visited by Pope John Paul II some 36 years later, seated 1,400 people, which on this day was far too few. Congregants spilled from the pews into the aisles. More mourners still gathered outside, watching as a solemn sea of orange and blue—the Cavalier colors—followed out the casket in hushed respect. Some Notre Dame students wore their uniforms—the same attire Yeardley herself had donned six years earlier to her father’s funeral. Others wore blue and black ribbons and Yeardley’s initials: YL. Yeardley’s mother and sister sat in the front. Had May 3 never happened, they instead would have been preparing to attend Yeardley’s graduation. One photographer snapped an image of Lexie, Yeardley’s older sister, with a tissue pressed to her cheek, her mother’s hand resting compassionately on her left shoulder.
But there were moments of levity as well. Julie Myers described Yeardley as a girl willing to ham, sometimes goofing around with propeller hats to make others laugh. She recalled when Yeardley tried to cook French bread after moving into an apartment with roommates. The attempt was a total failure, and the scorched bread filled the apartment with smoke, setting off fire alarms.
Yeardley was a rare mix of toughness and charm, she said.
“Yeardley Loves don’t come around very often,” she said. “She was truly remarkable, not because she tried to be, but because she just was. It came easy for her to be great, to be kind-hearted, welcoming, encouraging and engaging to all who knew her. She was legitimately awesome.”
After Myers asked the congregation to hold hands and chime, “1-2-3-4, together ’Hoos!” the gathering broke into applause.
But a shadow hid behind every smile. Nuns dressed in white sweaters, navy skirts, and black habits, who had carefully arranged the delicate floral spray before mourners filed into the church, watched somberly as Father Joseph Breighner began the Mass.
“Every one of us is in a state of shock,” said Breighner, known affectionately as “Father Joe” and author of a few spiritual paperbacks, including When Life Doesn’t Make Sense. On the book’s cover, Breighner looks pensive, his clerical collar peeking out from beneath a green windbreaker.
In his homily, he said Yeardley’s friends and family could honor her life by living theirs the way she would have.
“She never made fun of anyone,” Breighner said. “She always wanted others to feel good…. In memory of Yeardley, make the better choices from now on. Choose kindness instead of cruelty. Choose forgiveness instead of vengeance. Choose love instead of hate. Choose the right thing instead of the wrong thing.”
Fr. Breighner, joined at Mass by Auxiliary Bishop Denis Madden, never mentioned George Huguely by name, but he reminded the congregation that Jesus preached forgiveness.
“At some point, we will have to forgive someone,” he said. “Today may not be that day. It may not come for many days. But we will have to forgive, because it is the only way to heal.”
He added that Yeardley’s surname was apt.
“Two thousand years ago, a young Jewish rabbi named Jesus died a senseless, violent death. All he did and all he preached was love,” the reverend said. “This past week, a woman has died a senseless, violent death. Her name was Love. And love is what her life is all about.”