Lacrosse player told: 'You killed your girlfriend'

A US lacrosse player found out his girlfriend was dead during a police interview in which he was told: "She's dead George, and you killed her," according to a preliminary court hearing.

Yeardley Love was found by her roommate at the University of Virginia lying face down in a bloody pillow on May 3, 2010 and her death was ruled a homicide the following month.

Her on-again, off-again boyfriend George Hugely V was taken into custody for questioning but was unaware that Ms Love had died for the first hour of the police interview, the Washington Post reports.

Hugely admitted he swung Ms Love by her neck and shook her but said: "There is nothing I did to her last night that could have killed her."

Huguely's lawyer said he "did not believe such a terrible thing could have happened".

The student's recorded statement to police, and the emails and computer messages he is alleged to have exchanged with Love were kept from the hearing and were instead made privately available to the judge.

More than 20 witnesses testified in the hearing in Virginia, describing a rocky relationship during their senior year at the University of Virginia, including fights over Love's discovery that Hugely may have been dating another woman.

Several lacrosse players said they saw Hugely drinking on the day of the murder, from 9am until after midnight.

The district judge ruled there was enough evidence against Hugely to send the case through to the next stage of the legal process.

He will stand before a grand jury in Charlottesville Circuit Court later this month facing charges of murder, assault, robbery and burglary.