Member-only story
The High School Love That Ended in Murder
How one student’s obsession turned deadly.
Almost everyone loved Emma Walker in her small suburb of Knoxville, Tennessee. She was a cheerleader and had aspirations of becoming a nurse after high school. She was 16 years old and had a few years left before college and nursing school. Her boyfriend was 18 and attended Maryville College in eastern Tennessee and his name was Riley Gaul. He was a football player at the college.
Emma and Riley met two years prior when Emma was 14 and Riley was 16. In the public eye, they were your everyday high school sweethearts. Behind the scenes, it was constant arguing and fighting. Riley was very possessive, jealous, and he thought he owned Emma.
On November 21st, 2016 Emma’s mom went into her room to wake her up, but Emma wasn’t waking up. She instantly realized something was wrong and called 911. The police found Emma dead in her bed and they ruled the house a crime scene. The police found two bullets in Emma’s room. One was in the wall and the other one was in her pillow.
During the investigation, they found that the bullets were 9MM and shot from the same person due…
