The underage bar scene was Manhattan's worst kept secret. Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers flirted while they drank at Dorrian's Red Hand, a place that then had long been in the business of serving drinks to minors with fake IDs. I know this firsthand, because Dorrian's was one of my haunts when I was a young teenager, twenty years earlier. Chambers and Levin weren't strangers; in fact, they'd had sex before, even though he had an on-and-off-again girlfriend. He was blue-eyed, tall and handsome, but he'd also done a stint in rehab for cocaine abuse, had been expelled from college for fraudulent credit card use, and had burgled to support his drug habits. She was pretty and vivacious, and completely unaware that Robert was bad news. The defense would ultimately paint her as a sexually voracious slut and then, as now, the double standard would apply. The case highlighted the dangers of adolescents living in the fast lane, while no one watched, in a world without cell phones or computers. She was alone and 18. One thing is clear: she had no idea how much danger she was in.

Neither did Yeardley Love. She was alone when she died, but her tumultuous, volatile, and unhealthy relationship with George Huguely—and by all accounts it was that—was played out in a very public way, until the end at least. He was known to keep tabs on her, texting and calling to see where she was, whom she was with; she used texts and email to goad and manipulate him. Huguely's drinking problem and his capacity for violence while intoxicated weren't secrets. In 2007, he was arrested for underage drinking in Palm Beach where his father had a mansion, just after he started dating Yeardley. In 2008, closer to school, a drunken Huguely took on a female police officer, showered her with racial and sexual insults and threatened her. She Tasered him. He was convicted of public drunkenness and resisting arrest. Later that year, his father called police after an altercation with his intoxicated son on their yacht; the younger Huguely jumped into the water. No charges were filed. In early 2009, he allegedly attacked a sleeping teammate for kissing Yeardley. Despite the black eye and bruising, both men minimized the incident to their coach and no charges were filed.

Amazingly enough, none of this behavior made Huguely any the less attractive to young women. Stephanie Adja, Yeardley's sorority sister who would testify at the trial, was happy to hook up with him over the course of the years, presumably during the "off" phases of his relationship to Yeardley.  In her testimony, using Millennial shorthand, she qualified herself saying that they'd never been "girlfriend and boyfriend."

In February 2010—three months before Yeardley would be killed—there were 120 young people at a party where Hugeley put a chokehold on her. Her cries for help were heard by Michael Burns, a lacrosse player from the University of North Carolina, who'd hooked up with Yeardley before and would again that night. (In his testimony, like Stephanie Adja discussing Huguely,  Burns would  explain that while they'd had sexual relations, they had never "dated.") Burns rescued the crying girl who was understandably and visibly distressed, as other witnesses testified. She left the party with Burns.

No one called the authorities. Nor did anyone report the incident.  Not Yeardley, not Michael Burns, not her friends, nor any of the other partygoers who, if they didn't see it, doubtless heard about it, via text, email, or old-fashioned talk. As a group or as individuals, were they just inured to what happens when a lot of booze is involved? Were they used to seeing intoxicated people act out physically? How often had they witnessed abuse in dating? Did they see it as a minor thing because it turned out fine?

As counterintuitive as it sounds, how they reacted isn't surprising as the statistics and research on dating and other forms of violence make clear.  According to the CDC, 10% of high school students report being hit, slapped, or physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend. There's universal agreement that this percentage is low, since dating violence, like rape, is consistently unreported.  More ominously, controlling and abusive behaviors are often misunderstood by girls and young women as forms of attention.  In her book, But I Love Him—published in 2000, the year Yeardley turned 13, and aimed at helping parents of teen daughters with the problem—Dr. Jill Murray observed that while the increase in dating violence was alarming, more alarming was that "...the signs of abuse are also behaviors that young women find most flattering,"  It'll come as no surprise that dating violence is associated with alcohol and drugs. The CDC further reports that among adult victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner, 22.4% of women experienced some form of partner violence between the ages of 11 and 17.   According to the National Intimate Partner Survey (CDC), 1 in 5 women  has been raped in their lifetimes; 1 in 6 women has been stalked; 1 in 4 has been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.  Campuses are actually less safe than the outside world: 1 in 4 women will experience sexual assault, rape, or attempted rape in college.  Moreover, it's actually taken the action of the  federal government to make colleges and universities responsive to the problem.

As one Millennial explains, the hook-up culture imposes its own code of silence, especially when sexual coercion, physical violence, or even rape is involved.  "Most of the time, you've had too much to drink," she tells me.  "Whatever happens, it's not happening with a stranger but with someone you've chosen to go with, someone you know.  People are embarrassed to own up to it, even if they were forced. And there's always the 'she said, he said' thing."

Two days after the choking incident, Yeardlley called Burns and told him that "Everything was ok.  George was just acting crazy."  It turned  out that Huguely couldn't remember exactly what happened- though he knew something had- and he wrote Yeardley a letter apologizing.  He was angry, though, that she'd shared both the letter and the incident with her friends.  That letter was found by police, still in her desk drawer, the night she died.

It wasn't "okay," though.  Why didn't anyone take the incident seriously?  My Millennial source explains: "You get used to the dramas, big and small, that unfold around the hookup.  When people are drunk, there's always drama."

 In the week before Yeardley died, things between them ratcheted up.  On April 27, after discovering that Huguely had hooked up with Stephanie, Yeardley stormed into his apartment, and hit him with her purse.  A few days later, she texted him to say she'd hooked up with Michael Burns.  He emailed back: " I love how you don't think you did anything wrong. You tell me you hooked up with Burns a week ago and then you go f**k Burns and say Burns can f**k me better than you.  I should have killed you."

She answered the email: " You should have killed me?  You're so f**ked up." She discusses the email with friends and shows it to her roommate.