Maryville College Football Player Charged In The Murder Of His 16-Year-Old Ex-Girlfriend

A Maryville College football player was arrested late Tuesday and later charged on Wednesday with first-degree murder. His ex-girlfriend, a 16-year-old cheerleader named Emma Walker, was sleeping Monday morning when was she shot dead. Her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend William Riley Gaul is now being accused of firing a gun outside Walker’s window. He is being blamed for the fatal shot that took down this sleeping high school student.
What do we know so far? Well, we know that the breakup was recent. We also know that Walker’s aunt Jenny Weldon recalled that Gaul would not accept the reality of the breakup. “She had chosen to move on,” said Weldon to the Knoxville News Sentinel. “He refused to accept it. He chose not to accept her wishes.”
Walker and Gaul met in Central High School. But after Gaul graduated this year and went on to Maryville College, these two former lovebirds couldn’t stay together (which is the reality of many couples when one of them goes off to college). We don’t know exactly what happened between these two to cause this and we’re not sure what really happened the night of the murder (we just have a bunch of puzzle pieces to sort through). But we can tell you that Gaul took to Twitter just hours before he was arrested. This Maryville football player wrote, ‘To think that every memory we have, every happy special moment we shared, can’t ever be relived. I love you, Emma Jane Walker.”
While Walker’s friends and family gathered at a memorial service at Central High School for the slain cheerleader, Gaul took to Twitter once more:
https://twitter.com/rileygaul/status/801206645392961536
Gaul was arrested just hours after that tweet. He was a freshman wide receiver for the Maryville Scots football team. Now, he will be dealing with a first-degree murder charge in the state of Tennessee. He is currently being held on a $750,000 bond in the Knox County Jail. He’ll have some serious time to think in the slammer. Meanwhile, a donation page has been set up in Emma’s honor. Click here to donate money to help assist her family with funeral arrangements.
I’ll leave us all with an image of the deceased. Rest in peace, Emma Walker.
Twitter
UPDATE (May 9th, 2018): 
A Tennessee court has convicted Gaul for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, as well as guilty of felony murder, stalking, tampering with evidence, theft of between $500 and $1,000, and possession of a firearm in a dangerous felony.
Knox County District Attorney Charme Allen, in response to the verdict, said: “Today is about justice for Emma Walker and her family.”
In his closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Allen was quoted as “Every person in here that she touched, their lives will never be the same again because of him, and his selfishness, his lies, his possessiveness, his manipulation and his obsessiveness of Emma Walker.”
He has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 51 years. He will first be eligible for parole when he is 70 years old.