Morgan Harrington

Case background and investigation

Morgan Dana Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student, went to a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on October 17, 2009. She left the arena during the event and did not get back inside. According to the statement of facts described by NBC Washington, she texted a friend shortly before 8:50 p.m. to say she would find a ride. Wikipedia's summary of the case, drawing on contemporary reports, says she was last seen at about 9:30 p.m. trying to get a lift on a nearby bridge, and that her purse, with her identification and phone, was found in a parking area at a university athletic field.

Her remains were found on January 26, 2010, at Anchorage Farm in southern Albemarle County, roughly ten miles from the arena. The death was treated as a homicide. According to NBC Washington, a Pantera T-shirt she had been wearing was recovered about three weeks after she vanished, and DNA on it matched the profile from an unsolved sexual assault committed in Fairfax, Virginia, in September 2005. That link tied the two crimes to one unknown offender but did not produce a name.

The case changed after University of Virginia student Hannah Graham disappeared in Charlottesville on September 13, 2014. Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. was arrested in Galveston County, Texas, on September 24, 2014. According to Wikipedia's account of the Graham case, authorities said on September 29, 2014, that forensic evidence from the Harrington investigation matched evidence taken from Matthew. Graham's remains were found in Albemarle County the following month; C-Ville Weekly reported that the two sites were about five miles apart.

Matthew entered an Alford plea in the 2005 Fairfax case in June 2015 and received three life sentences. On September 15, 2015, he was formally charged with first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile in Harrington's death. NBC Washington reported that prosecutors were prepared to present witnesses who had ridden to the arena that night in a taxi matching the one Matthew drove, and phone records showing a gap in his phone activity around 9:30 p.m.

On March 2, 2016, in Albemarle County Circuit Court, Matthew pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile in both the Harrington and Graham cases. He received four consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. According to C-Ville Weekly, a capital murder charge in the Graham case was dropped as part of the agreement. Harrington's mother told reporters after the hearing that the one mistake nobody had made over the years was giving up, ABC News reported.