Community Seeks Closure Following Huguely Trial

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA—As he eyed the array of satellite trucks, wires and cameras on 4th Street in downtown Charlottesville on Wednesday afternoon, George Jones spotted a reporter and decided to give him a piece of his mind.

"It's a sin and a shame," said Jones, a 51-year-old Charlottesville resident, about the crime that brought such media attention to his small town.

A Charlottesville jury for George Huguely V, the 24-year-old Chevy Chase native, shortly after of second-degree murder and grand larceny in the death of ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love of Cockeysville in her Charlottesville apartment. Both were lacrosse players at the University of Virginia.

In a statement released shortly after the verdict, UVA president Teresa Sullivan said: "Yeardley's family, teammates, sorority sisters and friends—indeed all of us at the University—continue to feel the loss of this promising young woman. It remains now to each of us to commit to caring for one another and, when we see someone in trouble, to having the courage to intercede and offer assistance."

The news made its way to University of Virginia students Thursday night in waves via social media, news reports and word of mouth.

"After this latest development, I think for everybody, the sense of closure is almost palpable, because people are discussing and people are able to reflect," said Peter Sahajian, a fourth-year computer engineering student from Lexington, KY.

Like many small towns home to huge colleges—like Towson and —the university community and the Charlottesville community are closely and inextricably linked.

And now, both look for something resembling closure. Many people are no more than a few degrees of separation from Huguely, Love or others involved with the case.

Between 43,000 Charlottesville residents and 22,000 university faculty, staff and students, people know people who know friends or professors or teammates or neighbors. The potential jurors included people connected with the university, some of whom sat on the jury that determined Huguely's fate. The witnesses included friends and former teammates of the couple.

Ask a shopkeeper in Charlottesville's downtown mall and they know the attorneys in the case as regulars, and might have their own strong opinions about Huguely. Many people here, however, are reticent to be quoted, given those connections and the unfortunate reality of the case.

"They're a couple hundred thousand people in the area, but it doesn't feel that way," said Ryland Salsbury, a Virginia medical student from Chicago. "It's not hard to find somebody who's affected."

Sahajian said Huguely's trial is helping to cleanse emotions and continue a conversation about domestic violence that began shortly after Love's death.

"We can kind of talk about the justice that was served in the case, which gives us an opportunity to talk about a more positive end to the situation," he said.

While the jury deliberated their verdict, Taylor Bowen stopped by the courthouse with his black labrador named Piccadilly to watch the novelty of the cameras, tripods, lights and vans set up mere blocks from his front door.

The longtime Charlottesville resident, 48, said his daughter attends preschool just footsteps from the courthouse, and his niece was a sorority sister of Love's.

"There's got to be a lot of emotions in the courtroom," he said Wednesday afternoon, noting that some residents didn't even know the trial was going on and thus were surprised to see the rows of media tents and satellite trucks outside the courthouse.

"I'll be kind of glad when it's back to quiet, this street here."