The Murder of Hannah Truelove

One of the final known images of 16 year-old Hannah Truelove, posted to her Facebook page on August 22nd, 2012.

Hannah Truelove lived with her mother at Lake Lanier Club Apartments—a gated complex located in Gainesville, Georgia. The day Hannah posted the above selfie, she also tweeted: “I need to move out of these dang apartments.” The following day, she was seen hanging out with some of her fellow teenage friends who lived in the same complex. Hannah was last seen sitting at the neighborhood picnic tables with her friends around 7:30pm. She never returned home as planned. By 10pm, after her mother was unable to locate or contact her, Hannah was reported missing.

The apartment complex where Hannah lived (WSBTV)

Around 24 hours later, a man taking a walk through the woods near the apartment complex spotted Hannah’s body buried under leaves. She had been brutally stabbed multiple times. The case was immediately shifted to a homicide investigation.

Initially, it appeared that investigators had many leads to work with. Hannah’s father told police that somebody who rode the same school bus as her could have harmed her. Hannah apparently would often be apprehensive of going to school because she feared riding the school bus. Her father believed that a person on the bus might have threatened her in the past.

Many believed Hannah’s Twitter account provided potential clues as well. On August 12th, 2012, Hannah tweeted “I got me an uglyass stalker -__- .” Six days later, on August 18th, she tweeted, “so scared right now,” and “every time we talk, I feel sick.” Five days later, Hannah was murdered. 

Some of Hannah's tweets, posted days before her murder

It is unclear who those tweets were directed towards, but they led many to believe that Hannah might have been murdered by the stalker she had referenced on the 12th. However, according to Hall County Sheriff Sgt. Dan Franklin, the tweets are likely not related to Hannah’s murder. In a news story covering Hannah’s case from 2016, Franklin told reporters, “all that stuff was investigated and looked into and it was more just teenage drama type stuff.”

Another potential lead came from a sighting of a man in a small, silver four-door car at the apartment complex the evening Hannah disappeared. This man still remains unidentified to this day, but investigators believe that he could be connected to the crime. Police are urging anyone who might have seen this man on August 23rd, 2012 to come forward with any potential information.

WSBTV

Other than that, very few details have been released about a potential suspect in Hannah’s case. There are also very little details on the investigation. Despite this, Sgt. Franklin stated that the case is still actively being investigated. He explained, “we’ve had several persons of interest that we’ve looked at and we’ve interviewed and again what we’re looking for is somebody on the fringe, somebody that has knowledge that has a piece of information that’ll open the door to these people that we’ve already looked at that we’re not ready to discount yet.”

If you have any information that could potentially help solve Hannah’s case, please contact Sgt. Franklin at 770-531-6879.

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