So many questions, yet so few answers

Yeardley Love’s roommate found her body early Monday morning and called 911.

By mid-morning Monday, Charlottesville knew that a University of Virginia student was dead.

By lunchtime, the town knew the victim was a women’s lacrosse player and that a men’s lacrosse player had been charged with murder in her death.

By the next day, Charlottesville was at the center of a media maelstrom.

Court documents have revealed graphic details: Love was found face down, her face bruised and her right eye swollen shut; the suspect, George Huguely, admitting to police that he had shaken her as her head bounced off a wall; police seizing a red-stained UVa lacrosse T-shirt from his apartment.

After his first appearance in court, one of Huguely’s attorneys read a statement calling Love’s death an accident.

The police and public have focused on the relationship between Huguely and Love. They had been dating, but the relationship had ended, Huguely told police, according to court documents.

But getting a clear picture of either person has been difficult in the days since the killing, with many of those closest to the pair being unwilling to comment as media outlets from up and down the East Coast have converged on Charlottesville.

The picture of Love that has emerged is that of a young woman who lived up to her name.

People who knew her in high school and college have described her as full of friendliness.

“Yeardley was one of the most amazing people you could ever meet, and that’s the God-honest truth,” Virginia women’s lacrosse coach Julie Myers told a Daily Progress reporter earlier this week.

The picture of Huguely has been different.

Huguely’s past has been picked apart. Much of that attention has focused on an incident in Lexington in which he was Tazed while strenuously resisting arrest.

A run-in with the law in Florida has also gotten attention.

And a report from the Washington Post said that Huguely had punched a sleeping teammate in the face, possibly over attention paid to Love.

Huguely’s family and attorneys have been quiet, except to say that the death was an accident.

In response to the case, UVa’s president, John T. Casteen III, has been calling for notification of the university when students are arrested, a position that has attracted interest from the state’s attorney general and opposition from some in law enforcement over concerns about civil liberties and liability.

But at least one old friend has come forward to say something good about Huguely.

“There was nothing like growing up next door to George in Chevy Chase,” wrote Michael Preston in an e-mail.

He recounted the two playing sports and running a landscaping business one summer.

“The George we know is a wonderful, smart man and a very gifted athlete. Most of all, though, he is a close and dear friend,” he wrote. “We all love him, and always will.”

Police say they want to know what changed between Huguely and Love, and when.

Police have confirmed that they’re looking into reports that Love received threats before she died and reports that she and Huguely had fought publicly, including the day before her body was found.

But in the fog of postulation and chatter that now surrounds the case, details have morphed and rumors have flown.

Police are in the process of interviewing dozens of people who knew the two — friends, teammates and family.

They want to corroborate the tales they’re hearing and figure out which are relevant to the case, they’ve said.

They’re also planning to have access to the contents of two computers taken from Huguely’s apartment.

In the meantime, the flow of new public information in the case, if not national interest in it, has slowed, with police unwilling to reveal details about what Huguely and Love did on the night of May 2 or preliminary details about how exactly she died.