Breakthrough in case of 16-year-old girl found dead in woods after tweeting she had a 'stalker' as father says she was 'afraid' to ride bus to school
The body found near the woods belonged to Hannah Truelove, 16, and it was her father's grief that carried the story. When Jeff Truelove spoke publicly for the first time in September 2012, weeks after Hannah's body was discovered behind her mother's apartment complex in Gainesville, Georgia, on August 24, he had nothing but questions.
"I can't understand it. I mean, who can do that to somebody?" he said of the killing, which officials described only as "violent." "It's so brutal."
Hannah had been reported missing by her mother late on a Thursday night. Around the time her father spoke, investigators announced a breakthrough in the hunt for her killer: a vehicle they said might be connected to the crime.
The case drew national attention at the time, in part because of its details — Hannah had written on Twitter about a stalker, and had told her father she was afraid to ride the school bus. This is an archive of the original 2012 report.
Aftermath: Jeff Reaves, then 17, was charged with Hannah's murder, convicted at trial, and sentenced to prison; the Georgia Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 2013 (Reaves v. State, 292 Ga. 545).
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