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April 25 (UPI) -- A wrongful death lawsuit against a man who killed a lacrosse player at the University of Virginia begins on Monday, roughly a full decade after he was convicted and sent to prison for the crime. George Huguely killed the athlete, his ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love, during a drunken rage by hitting her head against a bedroom wall and leaving her to die in an apartment near campus in May 2010. Prosecutors said at trial that Love died of blunt force trauma to the head.
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Huguely, now 34, was ultimately sentenced to 23 years in prison for second-degree murder. He's been imprisoned at a prison work camp west of Richmond, Va., and is scheduled for release in October 2030.
The wrongful death suit that begins Monday was brought four years ago by Love's mother Sharon Donnelly and seeks more than $30 million in damages.
Both Huguely and Love were seniors at the time of her death and both played lacrosse for the University of Virginia on the men's and women's team. Relatives and friends said at trial that it was known that the couple had a volatile relationship.
"My daughter was murdered ... at the University of Virginia by an out-of-control lacrosse player with a violent past. Our lives will never be the same," Donnelly said after the sentencing hearing in 2012.
Before Love's death, Huguely had pleaded guilty over an unrelated drunken encounter with a police officer in Lexington, Va., court records indicate. During his trial, the officer testified that Huguely had to be subdued with a stun gun.
Also during trial, a video of Huguely's 64-minute interview with police was shown in court -- on which he admitted going to Love's apartment while drunk and said that he should have stayed away. He appeared to react with disbelief when investigators told him Love was dead and that he killed her.
"She's not dead, she's not dead, she's not dead," he said on the video.
The wrongful death trial is scheduled to run through May 4, according to court records.
