Amber Hunt - All-American Murder

When a murder case touches as many lives as that of Yeardley Love, I, as a human first and journalist second, cant help but pay attention. My professional background is mostly in gritty Detroit, where enough lives end in violence each year that reporters simply cant keep up. Not every victim gets a newspaper mention, much less a book.

Some have already argued that Yeardley is no different from, nor more deserving than, the hundreds of victims who die prematurely each year in Baltimore, the big city next door to Yeardleys small-town roots in Cockeysville, Maryland. Largely, those people are right. But every now and then a crime comes along from which some good can come, and it seemed to me that Yeardleys case had that rare potential. The details in this book come from hundreds of hours spent examining police and court documents, conducting interviews, collecting first-person data, reviewing video footage, and verifying published media reports.

It has not been an easy story to tell.

The case against the suspect in this death is ongoing, as of my deadline. As such, the lawyers and law-enforcement officials connected with it were predictably unable to comment. But far beyond that, I was met with a silence I could not have anticipated. The silence in this case became part of the story. It was more than frustrating; it was frightening, and it went beyond protecting the criminal case.

My primary motivation for telling this story was to help ensure that Yeardley was known as more than a college lacrosse player who died a much-publicized death. She had hopes and dreams and flaws and family, just like everyone else. She was not merely a fleeting headline to those who knew her.

As my research unfolded, I repeatedly reminded myself of a simple journalistic truth: Not everyone wants the story told, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt tell it.

Luckily, I had a great deal of help. For starters, I owe huge thanks to Sarah MacKusick, my sister-turned-research-assistant, who helped push me along at the projects start. Toward its end, I turned to Nick DiMarco, a talented reporter and editor with the Lutherville-Timonium Patch (an online news organization). DiMarco was crucial in helping me research Yeardleys younger years in Catholic school.

I also owe thanks to Brendan Fitzgerald, reporter with C-VILLE Weekly in Charlottesville; Megan Pringle, anchor for WMARs Good Morning Maryland ; Liz Seccuro, author of Crash Into Me ; Matthew Power, freelance writer and contributing editor for Harpers Magazine : and Nick Perry, Seattle Times reporter and coauthor of Scoreboard, Baby! Additionally, I send props to the Washington Post , the New York Daily News , the New York Times , and the other daily newspapers whose works are credited in these pages. My bias here is unapologetic and undeniable: Without newspapers, the truth would too often be lost.

On a personal front, I (once again) owe undying gratitude to Elijah Van Benschoten, my partner and backbone. (Shirley and Bryan are pretty swell, too.) For a variety of reasons, I also thank Missy, Allison, Madeleine, and Rachel, my sisters; Pat and Larry MacKusick, who treated me as family even after we technically werent; Jane Dystel, my agent and morale booster; Allison Caplin, my editor and cheerleader; Charles Spicer, my publisher (who only had to give me one pep talk); Jim and Wendy House; and the many friends, both past and present, who helped shape me even if they dont know it: Jonathan Wallace; Alexa Capeloto; Megan Pennefather; the whole Batcher clan; Todd Bowser; Joe Swickard; and too many others to mention this time around.

Finally, I owe a great deal of sanity and self-discovery to my friends at the University of Michigans Knight-Wallace Fellowship, where I spent 20102011 growing as a journalist. I got a mental boost from my extraordinary fellow Fellows, who are without question among the best journalists in the world. In addition to Matthew Power and Nick Perry, thanks go to Laura Daverio, William Foreman, Antonio Gois, Je-Seung Lee, Todd Leopold, Alec MacGillis, Ted Mellnik, Ana Laura Perez, Justin Pope, Emily Richmond, Christopher Sherman, Harry Siegel, James Thomas, Liu Tianzhao, and John Walton. Hats off as well to Charles Eisendrath, Birgit Rieck, and the amazing women behind the curtain.

The call for help was panicked and vague. Caitlin Whiteley, a twenty-two-year-old University of Virginia student, had returned home to her cookie-cutter apartment in Charlottesville to find her roommate unresponsive. It was early Monday morning, the end of a typically hard-drinking Sunday Funday on campus, and Caitlin couldnt grasp what was wrong. Shed walked home with Philippe Oudshoorn, a friend and fellow athlete, to find Yeardley Love facedown on her bed and a hole kicked through her bedroom door. Something about the way Yeardleys hair lay seemed awkward and unnatural, so Caitlin pushed it aside and gently shook her friends shoulder. No response. Then Caitlin noticed some blood.

Oudshoorn hurriedly picked up the phone and told the nine-one-one dispatcher that something was amissa message that somehow was translated to possible alcohol overdose when patched through to nearby police carsbefore lifting Yeardleys body from her bed and attempting CPR. By the time detectives arrived to the second-floor apartment on Charlottesvilles narrow 14th Street Northwest, the bloody scene looked nothing like the bender gone awry they had anticipated. Medics were bent over the battered body of Yeardley, a pretty and athletic twenty-two-year-old, and were frantically trying to breathe life back into her.