tonight on "nightline," college killing. a young woman full of promise is beaten to death, allegedly by her former boyfriend. tonight, the inside story of what police believe drove the murderous rage of a privileged yet troubled lacrosse star. hating the haters. he was born into a fundamentalist church. but now this son has decided to denounce the father and family he says shame america. and our cameras are with him. plus, happy cinco de mayo. it a south of the border celebration, but latin question seen is a lot more than tequila and tortillas. we go straight to the best for

tonight's plate list. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, martin bashir and cynthia mcfadden in new york city, this is "nightline," may 5th, 2010. good evening, i'm terry moran. we're going to begin tonight with a terrible sand terribly sad crime. a murder that has shaken the serenity of one of america's universitie universities. this involves two promising college seniors, both lacrosse stars. both from backgrounds of privilege. but according to police, that did not prevent a brutally violent attack. one that left a young woman dead, a young man behind bars and a community stuns. ash lee ban field has our report. ♪ on the wings of the night >> reporter: a campus in morning. the students in tears. and a college graduation marred by the violent murder of one of their own. allegedly by one of their own.

>> yardley's death is beyond belief. and the actions that led to her death are pinfully difficult to think about. but for many of us, there's little of us that we've been able to think about. >> reporter: they've had less than 48 hours for the news to sink in that star athlete and scholar yardley love was beaten to death in her apartment early monday morning. and that her on again off again boyfriend, george huguely, another star athlete, has confessed, police say, to the whole thing. >> i have no idea what to say. pretty speechless. >> i think it's a scary thing that's happens. >> reporter: in chilling court documents, police say huguely punched his fist through love's locked bedroom door before kicking it in and attacking her. huguely allegedly told police that during the course of the altercation, he shook love and her head repeatedly hit the wall. police say she was found face down on her pillow in a pool of blood and that her right eye was

swollen shut and there was bruises and scapes to her chin. the documents reveal she had a large bruise on the right side of her face which appears to have been caused by blunt force trauma. they were details that hit too close to him for this veteran shar lotsville police chief. >> i'm a 47-year-old children the age of both of these individual individuals. you're looking at a child. >> reporter: police say huguely was read his miranda rights after voluntarily going with police to the station, but that he waived them before confessing to the crime. police say they found bruises on huguely's fists and scrapes on his arm, and though he claimed they were lacrosse injuries, he was sent to the university of virginia medical center for x-rays of his hands. police even took scrapings from under his fingernails. yeardley's roommate and lacrosse

teammate katie whiteley discovered the body. just one day after the crime, personal effects were removed from the murder scene. no one wanted to talk. and the toll it was taking was obvious. despite the brutal details, huguely allegedly offered police, his lawyer, who chose not to request bail at his first appearance -- >> is there anything you want to tell us? >> reporter: told reporters it was an accident. perhaps hinting at his defense. >> we are confident that miss love's death was not intended but an accident with a tragic outcome. >> reporter: joe tacopina says the vivid statements huguely allegedly gave police make this case extremely tough to defend. >> these are or the rihorrific . this is not a set of facts that a defense attorney has a lot to who with. >> reporter: huguely allegedly told police he stole love's

computer and disposed of it. police were able to retrieve it. it is hard to imagine this is the same young man who in 2004 was featured as athlete of the week on local tv. >> more important that we won as a team today. we tried really hard to win. >> reporter: just two years later, at the height of the duke lacrosse scandal, he would tell reporters that he sympathized with the duke players. and said that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. and new details from a 2008 arrest outside a fraternity party are yielding clues about huguely's possible problems with alcohol and rage. the arresting officer says huguely was abusive and made threats, forcing her to use her taser. >> he became more aggressive, more physical toward me. started calling me several other terms that i'm not going to state now. >> reporter: it all comes as a shock to neighbors in chevy chase, maryland, who lived next

door. >> just tragic. tragic for the girl and it's tragic for the -- for george and just awful. >> that wasn't george that night. that was somebody that had taken over. it's not him. >> reporter: his former nanny also can't figure it out. >> i'm just shocked and confused and just surprised because, you know, kids can be kids and boys will be boys, especially being a nanny, but never to the point of something to this magnitude. >> reporter: huguely's mother, father and step-father braved a throng of reporters to attend court. they've been unable to visit him in jail while he's on a 23-hour a day segregated lockdown. he's allowed limited phone calls and viments by his lawyer and guards check him twice every hour. a short drive from the jail, the lacrosse field. coaches made the decision to continue the season in yeardley's honor. this, as her grieving mother and sister began the grim task of

escorting her body back to her hometown in maryland for a saturday funeral. >> tragedy is an understatement. it's like -- there's nothing to say that can convey how terrible it is. >> reporter: kendall spira was yeardley's friend for ten years. >> she had a real kindness about her. very kind eyes. she just was a sweetheart. ♪ as the daylight is stirring >> reporter: as the investigation into her murder continues and the university begins to heal, two families are forever left in tatters. one, with a son, an all-american and mvp facing a potential death penalty. the other, with a beautiful daughter, just weeks before graduation, whose radiant smile andling eyes have now been taken from them forever. i'm ashleigh banfield for "nightline" in shar lotsville, virginia. >> and authorities recovered a

stained shirt and a letter addressed to yeardley in the suspect's apartment, potential new clues in this case. thanks to ashleigh banfield for that. when we come back, well, he was born to a fundamentalist father who preaches hate. 33 years later, he's ready to father who preaches hate. 33 years later, he's ready to denounce the family he fled. çnçnçnçnçnçnçn çn çnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçnçn transform plain old ribs into these fall-off-the-bone honey bbq ribs. the secret's in the sauce, made with campbell's french onion soup.

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. the protests are revolting and cruel, vicious anti-homosexual bigotry preached wherever they can find

attention, even including tune rams of fallen soldiers who have nothing to do with their message. but now the son of the man who leads this hate group has stepped forward to denounce his family's hate, and describe what he calls a childhood of abuse. chris bury has the exclusive report. they're widely despised. the fringe fundamentalists from topeka's westboro baptist church have gained infall my by picketing the tune rams of u.s. soldiers. >> thank god for dead soldiers. >> i'm sorry they raised their son for the devil in hell. >> reporter: their outlandish claim, god is killing u.s. troops to punish american tolerance of homosex yums. ♪ soldiers in body bags ♪ wrapped in your bloody flags >> reporter: now the westboro pickets are drawing new scorn from an unlikely source. nate phelps, a son of church

founder fred phelps, is speaking out against them in an exclusive "nightline" interview. just think it's wrong. i think it's evil. i think when they protest at people's funerals, that they defy and deny everything that we consider decent and proper in our society. >> reporter: last weekend, nate phelps returned to face the family, and the church, he left more than 30 years ago. when you see your family with signs like "god loves dead soldiers," what goes through your mind? >> to me, that's the definition of evil, that they are so callus about human emotions, they laugh at the pain of other people. >> reporter: phelps is the sixth of 13 children. their father fred, now 80, is a disbarred lawyer and fiery preacher, known for his life-long rants against gays, jews, catholics and anyone else who doesn't share his bigoted

views. >> god hates fags. >> reporter: this is a typical outburst, captured in the documentary, "hate mongers." >> you're telling these miserable hell-bound bat house wool lowing anal copulating fags that god loves them? you have bats in the belfry. >> reporter: what's not well known, nate phelps tells us, the brutality and abuse that his father inflicted in his on family, at first when his children were young, beating them with a barber strap. >> he used it so frequently that the ends of it frayed so you have this kind of cat o nine type whipping around and it would open up, you know, the flesh on the side of the hip. >> reporter: as the kids got older, phelps said his father would beat him with a handle of a tool similar to a pick ax. >> he would go up to the lower back and when he was really angry and raging he would use it to hit you in the arms.

>> reporter: so he started out with the strap and moved to the handle. >> yeah. >> reporter: and his fists. >> and his fists. and, you know, there were times when he would be raging and spit in our face and be completely out of control and it would last sometimes for hours. >> reporter: we contacted the phelps family but fred phelps would not comment. so, we asked his daughter shirley, a lawyer who serves as the church spokesperson about her brother nate's allegations. is it true that your father beat him with a wooden handle? >> he spanked all of his children. >> reporter: with a wooden handle? >> sometimes a strap until you go so big, you know, a strap on a kid who is 12, 13 -- >> reporter: he used the strap and then the handle? >> exactly. and it wasn't a wooden -- let's be sure we call it what it was. a paddle. >> reporter: not even their mother, now 84, was spared physical abuse, or the fury of fred phelps, according to nate. nate claims that your father beat your mother.

>> the skrim sure says for children to be spanked. but with respect to spouses, wives, you know, i'm married. it says husbands, love your wives and treat them like you treat your own body. that's the standard. >> reporter: you didn't answer the question. >> i said he lied. he lied. >> reporter: fed up with his father's rage, nate phelps left home the very moment he legally could. >> i left on the night i turned 18. literally at midnight. >> he is thes stranged son of fred phelps. >> reporter: last weekend, nate returned to topeka, the featured speaker at a rally in support of gay rights. >> i'm here to use the same tactics and arguments that my father uses to insist that yet another group of americans be elevated to equal status in our society. >> reporter: his homecoming was bittersweet. nate is among four of the 13 phelps children who severed tied with their family.

>> label me a traitor, and, you know, you can't take that in without feeling some feelings even if you haven't been there for 30 years. >> he grew up living and learning the word of god and the scripture says when that happens and you walk away, there's no hope for you. would have been better for you had you not known the worlds of god. >> reporter: westboro's remaining followers are nearly all members of the extended phelps family. its leaders live at this walled compound in topeka, flanked by upside down american flags. less a church than a family group, dominated by one man's rage. >> you're talking to us about us versus them whenever single dale for 19 years, we have stood on your streets trying, begging you to put away your idols, your false golds and filthy manner of life. hello? we're ask you to be like us. you dummy. >> reporter: is there anybody out here but members of your extended family? >> yeah. >> reporter: how many?

>> well, let's make this question be more of what you're trying to get at. there's about 80% of us that are related by blood or marriage. kind of like 100% of those that were on the ark when god sent the 16 million straight to hell. >> reporter: no matter the kalam ty, 9/11, the iraq war, the west virginia mining disaster, and now, the louisiana oil spill. >> oh, my gosh. it's awesome god smack. >> reporter: are all evidence of god's wrath in their eyes. whether they're protests at funerals are free spech or intentional cruelty, will be argued by the supreme court this fall. >> they have a right to say what they want to say. they have a right to say it publicly. i think where i would draw the line, very strongly, and i hope this is what the supreme court does, is to say that they don't have an absolute right to when and where. >> reporter: not, he says, at the tune rams of american soldiers. >> who are they? strangers walking into that

church or standing outside of that church as i'm burying my son, and who are you to tell me how i was or what i may or may not have done to cause this? you know, that's just evil. it's hateful. >> reporter: so, after years on the sidelines, nate is going public against the westboro church and what it stands for. it's his way of atoning for the evil he believes that his own troubled family has inflicted. ♪ now golds hates this land >> reporter: i'm chris bury for "nightline" in topeka, kansas. >> a son blazing his own trail there. our thanks to chris bury for that. when we come back, we'll turn to food, and some latin flavor. it's a special cinco de mayo edition of the "nightline" plate list.

>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with terry moran. >> ah, cinco de mayo. an unofficial holiday that for americans of americans means margaritas. but there is also latin cuisine where there's spicy or mild, it's an art all its own. jose garces is tonight's "nightline" plate list. >> my mother was a great cook, as well as my grandma. she actually taught my mom and then my mom cooked four, five nights a week and usually i would be the one next to her helping her, you know, whether it was making a cake, making empanadas, i loved it.

so, i have some beautiful tuna. i have a dry rub. and that's looking pretty nicely done. put the tuna down right there. so, i have some cucumber here, which i'm going to julien. i have a firm vegetable here, givens a lot of texture to this taco. a little bit of cilantro. going to give that a little flip. i have some homemade corn tortillas. i'm going to put a little bit of oil down, bring them back to life. i think my work ethic started at a young age. i had a paper route when i was 7 years old and my parents told me -- i would push a giant wooden cart around the streets of chicago, and i always worked. gosh, when -- from the time i was 8 until now, i've been working. my social security is looking solid. hopefully it's still there attend. i'm going to take the tuna, do

some nice slices on it. a little bit of avocado pure ray. some of that nice, fresh tuna. our slaw right on top of it. we're going to finish it with a little bit of chili sauce. it's kind of an elegant taco. this is money right here. this is it. wow. real deal. my grandma's name is what i called my first restaurant. her empanadas are on the menus. she was over, hanging out, making them, drinking a corona, at 90. and she cooks incredibly still.

so, i'm going to show you how to make this. i'm going to put corn stock on to simmer. the onions going in. corn. you can find this in most latin markets. it's really earth kw and really represents mexican culture very well. i have here a little bit of my favorite cheese. we're going to start building this. pour a little bit of the corn in. then you do a little bit of that lime chili mayo a little more corn. some of the powder. it not this fancy in mexico, but it's pretty darn close. magic in a glass. growing up in chicago, as an eck ka do ecuadorian american in an irish-catholic neighborhood was pretty interesting. i think for a little while i

shunned my roots, i tried to become more american. i think that struggle eventually led to who i am as a chef because i went back to becoming really a latin chef and someone who embraced our culture and really looked to bring it to the forefront. >> that stuff looks good. better than your average nacho plate, for sure. when we come back, the fight over arizona's immigration law as it comes to the nba. but first, here's jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next on abc. >> jimmy: tonight, samuel l. jackson, christa miller, music from godsmack, and in celebration of cinco de mayo, we're going to taser my cousin