Huguely lawyers mounting alternative death explanation

Attorneys for a former University of Virginia lacrosse player accused of killing a fellow student are building their defense using an expert who suggests prescription drugs could have been a factor in the death.

Attorneys for George Huguely on Wednesday sought to obtain Yeardley Love’s medical records for the expert to use in reviewing her cause of death.

Francis McQ. Lawrence, one of Huguely’s attorneys, said Wednesday in  Charlottesville General District Court that Love’s medical records are material to the case based on the expert’s findings. Huguely is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing on Jan. 21.

“This is an important time to have available to us very important information,” Lawrence said in court.

However, the city’s commonwealth’s attorney argued that the motion to access Love’s medical records from UVa’s departments of student health and athletics was too broad because it would encompass multiple years’ worth of records.

Dr. Jack Daniel, a pathologist in private consulting, testified during the court hearing Wednesday that he disagrees with the medical examiner’s findings that Love died from blunt-force trauma to the head. Daniel said his working hypothesis is that Love suffered a cardiac arrhythmia that caused insufficient blood flow to her head. The doctor testified he thinks Love’s vascular system suffered from a lack of oxygen and caused “ongoing damage,” and therefore Love died from a lack of oxygen.

Witnesses testified that .05 milligrams per liter of amphetamine was found in Love’s body and she had a blood-alcohol content of .14. Dave Chapman, commonwealth’s attorney, said in court that police found a bottle of Adderall prescribed to Love in a backpack at the scene. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Adderall contains amphetamine.

Dr. William Gormley, a medical examiner with the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Richmond, testified that amphetamine in any dose increases the risk of cardiac arrhythmias. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, an arrhythmia is a problem with the rate or rhythm of a heartbeat, and while most are harmless, some can be life-threatening if the heart can’t pump enough blood to the rest of the body.

Gormley said that a cardiac arrhythmia was a “very likely internal event” for Love, although he said he thinks it happened after Love suffered blunt-force trauma injuries. The medical examiner detailed a series of injuries that were discovered during a review of Love’s brain, several of which he said supported his blunt-force trauma finding. He also testified that Love had no sign of skull fractures or various blood-related injuries in her skull, although his office is doing more testing to confirm whether a severe injury called a diffuse axonal injury could have caused Love’s death.

Daniel, who examined Love’s brain, testified that she suffered no lethal injuries to her brain and the damage that the medical examiner found could be ascribed to CPR that a bystander and medical personnel performed on Love. The doctor said he wants to review Love’s records to look for any medications that cause muscle stimulation.

The body of Love, 22, was found May 3 in her apartment. Huguely, 23, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 22-year-old Love’s death. They were both on the university’s lacrosse team and previously dated.

Chapman said in court that a draft order seeking the information from Love’s Adderall prescription bottle would be appropriate, but a request for years of her medical history would be overbroad.

“The court would be authorizing what amounts to a fishing expedition, and that is not permissible under the law,” Chapman said in court.

The judge ruled that he would contact the attorneys after reviewing Love’s sealed medical history and give them another opportunity to argue over the release of the documents.