Born, raised and got murdered in Knoxville, Tennessee, Emma Walker. She was known for her extremely kind and pleasant behavior. She was a popular and bubbly high school student who had a passion for cheerleading. She was not just beautiful but she was kind, compassionate, and driven, by all accounts.
In 2014 she was the only freshman to make it onto her high school cheerleading team. She met a boy during her freshman year named Riley who was two years older than her. Riley was a player on the school’s football team. He was popularly known to be a Star Wars nerd in school who actively attended church.
They both got into a relationship at first they both seemed like picture-perfect high school sweethearts where the football star falls and the crush of every highschool girl madly falls in love with the hot and perfect cheerleader. Sounds perfect? But soon after Emma introduced her boyfriend to her parents, they quickly observed that her boyfriend, Riley was possessive and obsessive in love with their daughter.
Riley was controlling and over obsessive boyfriend
As every other possessive boyfriend does, Riley was no exception. He didn’t want Emma to be with her friends even though he had nothing to do with her friends. Just like an over possessive boyfriend, Riley tried to control what Emma wore even his over possessive took him that further that he would go to her workplace where he would spend hours waiting for Emma to finish her shift.
Sometime after being in on and off relationship with her high school over possessive boyfriend, The young couple started to fell into an awful and emotional cycle of terrible fights, breakups, and then patch ups. Emma experienced aggressive behavior of Riley overtime when she asked for the breakup. She started getting aggressive and life threatening messages from Riley that he would kill her if she would break up with him.
This all makes sense why Emma’s parents did not like Riley and later her parent also claimed that they never trusted him. Her parents banned Riley from coming over to the house and they took Emma’s phone in hopes of controlling the awful situation but eventually no one knew that it would get worst.
Riley was Emma’s senior in high school which is understandable that he graduated earlier from Emma. After two years of being in an on off relationship with Emma during high school, he graduated but still did not keep him from Emma.
They both found ways to communicate with each other and despite Emma’s parents’ best efforts to keep her away from that toxic relationship. They managed to maintain somewhat of a relationship and that’s what made Emma’s parents desperate and strict toward her that they banned Emma to go out of the house except to go to school and practice.
Later on after the efforts of Emma’s parent she somehow gathered the courage to break up with Riley and leave him for good because Emma had seen pictures of Riley with different girls on his college campus and concluded that if he wasn’t going to take the relationship seriously then she wasn’t going to by the same token. Riley didn’t take the break up well and tried to overdose.
The Last Meet up of Emma and Riley before her murder
On November 18th, Central High School played a big football game and there was a party while later. Emma went to the afterward party where she began to get stressing and worrying instant messages from an unknown number. Those messages were like, if you don’t comply I have someone you and I will hurt them some of those messages saying that she is needed to come outside. At first Emma thought that it could have been some friends of Riley and they are playing a prank on her since Emma and Riley had just broken up but then she got another worrying text message she could not ignore.
The text message said that there was a body outside in the bushes. Unable to ignore text messages any longer, Emma took her friends outside to investigate. When she walked out the door with her friend, they saw a man standing face down in the bushes and later on they realized that it was Riley.
After that party and the whole awful messaging incident, Emma texted Riley that she hates him but she has no control over her feelings and she needed him. So Riley came over to Emma’s house where they both spend time together and talked for hours until Emma’s mother came back home and found them sitting there. Her mother asked Riley to leave and he did.
An unusual thing happened at midnight after they met
That night Emma’s dad heard a loud banging noise in the house in the middle of the night. He woke up to that banging noise and went to investigate the house, he went to Emma’s room to check on her and he saw her lying in bed look as if to be asleep like normal. Later that morning at 6A.M. when Emma’s mother went to wake up Emma for school, she would not wake up at once. Then she called her name then she shook Emma’s leg but didn’t hear anything. So she checked her pulse and couldn’t find anything, so she immediately called 911.
Her tragic and frantic death first looked like a suicide until the detective arrived at the crime scene and noticed hole in her bedroom wall and then found the bullet lodges on the hall. So as per the investigation, whoever killed Emma, he must have known where her room is and where her bed was located. When detectives began investigating everyone related to her and asked there was anyone who would try to harm Emma. The only name that kept coming and it was Riley.
The over possessive boyfriend turned murderer
In 2018, after the investigation police arrested Riley with first-degree murder charges, six felonies and took him into custody. Despite all the efforts made by Emma’s parents to keep her safe, her life was cut short by her over possessive, detached by her ex-boyfriend William Riley Gaul when he shot her to death in sleep in her own bed. Presently Riley is serving a lifetime sentenced in jail with the possibility of bail after a long 51 years.