Ex-boyfriend Sentenced In Lacrosse Slaying

Ex-boyfriend Sentenced In Lacrosse Slaying, A jury had recommended George Huguely V serve 26 years in prison for murdering Yeardley Love. Former U.Va. athlete gets 23 years for slaying ex, A former University of Virginia lacrosse player who killed his ex-girlfriend in a drunken rage received a 23-year prison sentence Thursday in a case that forever changed the school’s attitudes toward relationship violence and made it easier for abuse victims in the state to obtain restraining orders.

George W. Huguely V had three years trimmed from a jury’s recommended sentence of 26 years for the May 2010 slaying of Yeardley Love. Huguely, 24, could be released in less than 20 years.

“Unlike Ms. Love, Mr. Huguely still has the majority of his life ahead of him,” Charlottesville Circuit Judge Edward Hogshire told the court.

Asked by the judge if he wanted to address the court before sentencing, a shackled and tearful Huguely turned to Love’s mother, Sharon Love, and sister Lexie and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss and I hope you find peace.”

Huguely, of Chevy Chase, Md., was convicted in February of the second-degree murder of Love, 22, of Cockeysville, Md., a Baltimore suburb. Jurors also found Huguely guilty of grand larceny for stealing Love’s computer from her apartment.

Huguely and Love, both seniors and varsity lacrosse players at U.Va., had a volatile relationship that spiraled into Huguely’s deadly confrontation with Love late on the night of May 2, 2010, after a day of heavy drinking and golfing by Huguely. Love was found the next morning, her battered face in a blood-soaked pillow.

During a 3 1/2-hour sentencing hearing, prosecutor David Chapman presented witnesses who described violent incidents involving Huguely before he killed Love. They included the beating of a friend who went home with Love after a party and the unprovoked punching of another person after a night of drinking. He also angrily wrapped his hands around a young woman in a bar after she told her father, his former high school lacrosse coach, to talk to Huguely about his heavy drinking.