Several residents of 15th Street claim to have been interviewed by investigators who canvassed the area in connection to the death of Morgan Harrington. The residents, who wished to remain anonymous, told C-VILLE that investigators mentioned finding a shirt that could possibly belong to Morgan Harrington, who was wearing a black Pantera t-shirt when she disappeared the night of October 17. The street is between 1 and 1.5 miles from the Copeley Road Bridge, where Harington was reportedly last spotted.
"About 11:30am, I got a knock on my back door. I opened it up and it’s a guy who flashes a badge and says he’s a detective," said one resident. "He just told me that they were canvassing my building, because they had found what they thought was Morgan Harrington’s shirt somewhere in the bushes in front of the building." The resident said the investigator asked whether the resident remembered anything suspicious from the night Harrington disappeared, or since, and recommended that the resident call CrimeStoppers if anything occurred. The investigator was not in uniform and did not leave a business card, but reportedly flashed a badge.
A second resident told C-VILLE that, on Wednesday, "I came outside from my apartment. I was going to my car, and there was a woman who was kind of digging in the bush, and there were two guys walking around the apartment across the street. I heard the one guy [say] they hadn’t found anything, so the one guy was like ‘Well, we found her shirt over here.’"
The second resident added: "There wasn’t any UVA police car around. They looked like they were wearing detective clothes. It’s really speculative, but, whatever."
A third resident reported being asked about suspicious events since Harrington disappeared, by an investigator who also mentioned finding a shirt that might be Harrington’s.
Asked whether there was a law enforcement presence on 15th Street, Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller said that she didn’t know. "We’ve gotten a lot of tips and a lot of different leads related to the case. They may’ve been just following up on a tip almost in a process of elimination versus it being some critical aspect of an investigation."
Read C-VILLE’s coverage of the Morgan Harrington case here, and pick up Tuesday’s issue of C-VILLE for an up-to-date account.