Hannah Truelove Disappearance and Death

Friday evening August 24th I took the Davinia and Indiana out for their usual before dinner walk. I was running a little behind so instead of being 7:00 or a little bit before it was about 7:15 possibly a little later before we actually got outside. There were people moving in using the front of the building so I took them down the back stairs and out to the little open area behind the building. There were a few police cars and some people standing around talking to the police. I didn’t want to be nosy and didn’t want the dogs to start barking at anything so we walked around to the front of the building where we met up with some of their friends and they got some back rubs and Indiana got to lick a few kids.

More Police arrived lights going and now I was starting to think something a little more serious was going on. Within minutes even more rescue vehicles arrived and so a few of us decided to go to the back of the building to find out anything we could. After all not only was this happening in our community but in our backyard so with so much police (fire rescue, the Sheriff, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), Swat, Crime Scene, and any other department you could think of) showing up in force something obviously was happening and it wasn’t anything good.

Hannah Truelove a resident of Gainesville, Georgia was found dead at the Lake Lanier Club on Friday August 24, 2012. This picture was taken from my balcony using no cropping, zoom lenses, or photo shop. Her body was found in the woods behind the white cars are parked in this picture (picture taken 9/12/12).

Within about a half hour 45 minutes we found out that a 16 year old girl had died. By 9:00 that night not that we were allowed to talk about it publicly since it had not been confirmed by the coroner we knew her death was violent and extremely suspicious. Apparently Hannah Truelove went missing Thursday night and I had no idea not because I was out of the loop but because no one had any idea. Even though she lived in my complex with her mother there were no frantic knocks on my door asking if I had seen her or anyone outside just gossiping and talking about a missing 16 year old girl. Literally the first time I heard that she had been missing since the night before was when I learned she was dead. The same with everyone else in my complex I have spoken with. No one knew she went missing.

I understand she was 16 and teenagers don’t always come home by curfew and sometime sleep at a friend’s house because they are mad at their parents but I don’t understand why there was no talk of a missing girl at all. Had there been the trail on the person who killed her would not have gone as cold. It would not have been 24+ hours from the time she was last seen to the time her body was found and authorities could begin to piece everything together. At the time we still didn’t know if it was a random thing or she was a specific target and I did think about leaving that night with the dogs to go to my parents but I also realized that there would not be a safer place anywhere considering all of the police presence nothing was going to happen. Even the traditional news vultures had arrived on the scene. I say vultures because they literally camped out on the side of my building ALL night. When I took the girls dogs for their before bed walk there were several news agencies there and as the night went on they remained and where there until around noon on Saturday. They did ask to get me on camera to give my thoughts or opinions. Umm no thank you.

If I made the decision not to post on any Social Media account about what was going on I certainly was not going to speak to them to get them better ratings because they could say they had exclusive information from a resident. I also chose not to take pictures that night or at anytime they were actively investigating the scene. It just did not feel right to me at all. I do however wish that I had gotten to see the Police Dog they had out searching the scene. I didn’t even realize there were any on the property until I saw a truck marked k-9 unit leaving. They honestly did not leave any stone unturned during their investigation which is still ongoing. Violent death and certainly violent death of a young girl is not something that happens here EVER so every department that could help the investigation was called in and worked through the night and into the next day to learn everything they could about what happened to Hannah Truelove.

Actually police just knocked on my door and took my statement a few minutes ago (there is a community meeting at 7pm where authorities will be speaking to us) so I felt like I could finally post about this tonight as there is absolutely nothing I know whether having witnessed it first hand or heard through the gossip mill (better know as dog walk time) that I have not given to authorities.