Police have released a new wanted poster for Jesse Matthew with updated charges: abduction with intent to defile.
Charlottesville police announced Tuesday evening that they have issued a warrant for the arrest of Jesse Matthew for abduction with intent to defile in the case of missing UVA student Hannah Graham.
In a packed 7pm press conference called just an hour before, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said Matthew, 32 and until now a person of interest in the case, was still at large, and Graham has not been found.
“We absolutely are continuing our search for Hannah, even as we speak,” Longo said, “and we will continue our search for Hannah.”
Longo declined to offer any details about what led them charge Matthews during the brief press conference, but said “state and federal resources” have been deployed to try to find him. Matthew was last seen by police on Sunday, September 21, when he walked into the Charlottesville Police Department with members of his family, asked to speak to a lawyer, then sped away in a pale blue Nissan Sentra. Police were unable to follow him, and charged him in absentia with reckless driving.
A new poster has been released with the updated charges against Matthew:
“Ethiopia, Ark of the Covenant” at The Garage is photographer Philip de Jong’s first exhibition in several years. Image courtesy of the artist
Visual artist Philip de Jong won’t content himself with creating beautiful work. In fact, he avoids contentment altogether.
“At some point as a trained photographer your job is to make anything look good,” he said. “If people describe my work as pretty, I feel insulted on some level because all it means is that I was present for something beautiful.”
Though de Jong cares about compositional finesse and “how light interacts and illuminates,” his artistic effort is a search for photographic connotations and annotations, hints of the “shared human experience.”
“A picture is what it is, it’s accurate, but the truth of a picture is extremely subjective,” he said. “I’m trying to harness some sort of visceral experience.”
The Charlottesville native believes discomfort often predicates such insight. After graduating from Ohio University with a master’s in photojournalism, he moved to Lake Tahoe with his wife and worked as a freelancer and a ski instructor. The lifestyle, he said, was “poverty with a view,” and it spurred creativity.
“There were a lot of divisions among the people who lived out there,” de Jong said. “A lot of relatively young people looking to do work on the edge.” He exhibited shows at galleries around town and even set up an artists’ collective to motivate sales between the haves and the have-nots.
Eventually, though, de Jong and his wife decided to start a family. “We were [both] raised with a certain amount of responsibility,” he said. “[We knew] that if we didn’t have a real career, there was an underlying guilt.” So they came back to Virginia, and de Jong set aside exhibitions.
“Discontent drives all of us, right?” he asked. “But Charlottesville is a very content place. We don’t have any edge. There’s no bite.”
Despite his new, more traditional lifestyle, de Jong continued his search. During his work as a photographer for Ethiopian Airlines’ in-flight magazine, he saw and sought to capture realities beyond the attention of tourists and international media.
In “Ethiopia, Ark of the Covenant,” a current exhibit at The Garage (and his first in several years), de Jong explores what he described in his artist statement as “contradictions everywhere”: modernization versus subsistence farming, deforestation versus dynamic landscapes, a dilapidated chapel that claimed to hold the true Ark of the Covenant.
“Ethiopia is a really proud culture, and they’re getting influenced from China, India, Brazil, and very heavily from the U.S.,” he said. “They came out of a really awful Communist situation. They know who they are but can’t explain who they are.”
But de Jong can’t ignore the limitations of his own perspective. “As a journalist, I have a tendency to oversimplify things,” he said. “I enter the story and then I exit. I’m not so foolish as to believe it’s purely objective.”
So where does de Jong’s truth come from?
“I think a lot of it happens after the fact,” he said. “There’s a lot of editing and waiting to understand the story you’re telling. You really don’t have a perfect view of it until you’re out.”
If critical evaluation is the source of his “few projects that have a voice and body together,” it also causes his resistance to comfort, to ease and easy imagery and the ethos of Instagram.
“I don’t really want to be part of a system that is just visual throw up: it lasts for an instant, it exists and then it doesn’t,” he said. “You want it to have meaning and impact.”
Philip de Jong’s exhibit “Ethiopia, Ark of the Covenant” will be on view at The Garage through September 28.
L’etoile executive chef and co-owner Mark Gresge has been serving up French-Virginian cuisine since the 1990s. Photo: Sarah Cramer Shields
Au revoir
What’s up with all these fine dining spots making big changes? Glass Haus Kitchen transitioned to private events last year, Savour recently up and moved to a bed and breakfast in Louisa, and now L’etoile is closing as a restaurant to focus exclusively on catering.
“We’ve been trying to handle both the restaurant and catering at the same time, and we’ve just found that it’s too hard to put our personal touch on both,” L’etoile co-owner Vickie Gresge said.
The French-Virginian style restaurant on West Main Street, which opened in 1993, will remain open until Saturday, September 27. After that, Gresge said she and her husband Mark Gresge, who’s the co-owner and executive chef, will continue to use the kitchen for L’etoile Catering events until the space is sold. As owners of all the fixtures, equipment, and furniture, they’re selling it as a turnkey restaurant through commercial realtor Stu Rifken, and they expect it to move quickly.
“Someone’s going to want to buy it,” Vickie Gresge said. “It’s such a great spot, but it’s a waste of a location if we use it for catering.”
After more than 20 years in the restaurant biz, Gresge said she and her husband are nostalgic about the transition. But with two kids and a potential space with a kitchen that’s much more conducive to catering, focusing entirely on special events is what makes the most sense.
“I like being involved in special events like weddings, and being a part of major life events,” Gresge said. “I also like just going into the event knowing exactly what you’re going to be doing. Sometimes restaurants can be up and down, busy or slow, and it’s hard to prepare for it.”
L’etoile Catering will continue to offer French-inspired classics, and Gresge said the menu will be more flexible than at the restaurant.
“It might be anything from a backyard barbecue to a five-course meal, or just a simple chicken salad luncheon,” she said. “We’ll cater it to whatever the event is.”
What comes after No. 3?
Two newcomers to the restaurant scene have purchased the Corner space formerly known as No. 3 and rebranded it as Poe’s Public House. Joe Fields and Mark Graham, operating as NLT Partners, purchased the bar and grill last spring from restaurateur Andy McClure (of The Virginian, West Main, and Citizen Burger Bar) and have since remodeled and reopened with a focus on bringing in more than just the UVA bar crawl crowd.
“It’s a brand new menu,” manager Kyle Miller said. “There’s no more frozen food. Everything is fresh and made in-house.”
The Edgar Allen Poe-themed menu items include standards like chicken wings (“Raven Legs”), burgers (“The Bells Burger”), and fried chicken (“Poe Man’s Southern Fried Chicken”), as well as more outside the box offerings like fried pimento cheese, a sandwich featuring braised pork and seared pork belly, and an ahi tuna salad.
Miller said the new menu, as well as a fresh coat of paint, new booths, and a reworked restaurant layout, are intended to attract more lunch and dinner patrons from the University and medical center before 10pm, after which darkness and the undergrad crowd will inevitably make Poe’s look a lot like No. 3.
Lunch goes south
Your pork-filled power lunches are no more, as Brookville Restaurant served its last mid-week, midday dinner on September 12. The Southern-inspired restaurant’s acclaimed chef Harrison Keevil said the lunchtime closure will allow him to spend more time with his family (he’s soon welcoming his second child) and focus his energy on Brookville’s brunch and dinner menus.
“It’s giving me extra time to expand the dinner menu,” Keevil said. “We just brought in half a cow, and it’s allowing me to go more in-depth with our whole animal butchery program.”
Keevil insisted the sandwiches on his lunch menu, which have developed a bit of a cult following, will still be available whenever possible to “fulfill [his] desire to have awesome sandwiches on the menu.” The Brook-
ville fried chicken sandwich will be a mainstay on both of the remaining menus, he said.
Tequila time
The windows of the former El Puerto downtown are still covered in paper, but we got a peek inside, and the new owner’s overhaul of the space is coming along. Restaurateur Hamooda Shami, who owns three Carytown restaurants, stumbled into the space by accident when he stopped in for a quick lunch in the spring. Weeks later the owner of El Puerto handed him the keys, and Shami began conceptualizing Yearbook Taco, the second rendition of his Richmond spot Don’t Look Back.
He described it as a Mexican-inspired dive bar. It’ll serve up tacos made by Nate Gutierrez of Nate’s Taco Truck (who’s established a bit of a cult following in Richmond), plus dozens of tequilas and house-made margarita mix. The menu will also include burritos, quesadillas, and nachos, but Shami said the carnitas and fish tacos have been the best sellers at Don’t Look Back.
As for the seemingly random and decidedly non-Mexican name, Shami said he wants Yearbook Taco to feel like a real local spot, not just the extension of the Carytown restaurant, and he plans to decorate the walls with old-timey yearbook photos. He’s already got several ready to be framed and posted, and anyone who’s willing to give their own yearbook photo to the cause gets a free taco.
No official opening date yet, but Shami’s aiming for sometime in October.
Have a scoop for Small Bites? E-mail us at bites@c-ville.com or call 817-2749 (x38).
The newly expanded—but not yet full—Ragged Mountain Reservoir, photographed from above the week of September 15. Photo: Skip Deegan
Elected officials, members of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA), and environmental leaders were among the crowd of locals that gathered atop the newly completed Ragged Mountain Dam last Thursday to celebrate the official opening of a controversial project that Charlottesville mayor Satyendra Huja called “the most significant infrastructure achievement in this community in our lifetimes.”
It almost wasn’t. Enlarging the Ragged Mountain Reservoir outside Charlottesville and building a new dam was a hotly contested part of a long-term regional water supply plan that took more than a decade to finalize, as many in the city raised opposition to a larger “off-stream” reservoir at the Ragged Mountain site. A dam has existed there since the 1880s; a larger one was built in 1908, and a pipe carrying water from the reservoir in Sugar Hollow, about 15 miles away, was constructed in 1929. Opposition to the latest expansion focused on the clearcutting required, as well as the $36 million pricetag.
But a severe drought in 2002 had underscored what many officials insisted was a dire need to expand the water supply for the growing region, and officials ultimately abandoned an alternative—dredging the existing South Fork Reservoir northeast of Charlottesville. Final designs for the new 192’ dam were approved in 2011, and construction was completed in mid-July. The newly expanded reservoir has been filling back up since, but slowly; while it will eventually hold 1.5 billion gallons, water levels are still some six feet below the top of the 1908 dam.
A new 36-inch pipeline connecting the South Fork Reservoir—which officials concede is shrinking in capacity thanks to sedimentation—has yet to be completed. RWSA director Tom Frederick said staggering the infrastructure improvements was necessary for budget reasons. But that didn’t stop officials from celebrating last week’s milestone after what RWSA Board chair Mike Gaffney, channeling the Grateful Dead, called a “long, strange trip.”
“Once we decided we wanted to live in the woods, it was important to see it every day,” said Paul Ferrell. Photo: Prakash Patel
It’s a long way from London to the woods of northern Albemarle County. Paul and Ginger Ferrell lived in the British capital for 24 years, and as they eyed retirement from across the pond, they zeroed in on Charlottesville as the perfect place to relocate.
When asked if they considered living in town, they laughed. “No,” said Ginger. “In London we were only the thickness of two bricks from the neighbor, so we were ready for some space.” They bought a forested lot in 1999 and four years later were ready to hire an architect.
Ginger saw a Japanese-inspired house designed by Chris Hays, and she knew she’d found the right person for the job. For one thing, the Ferrells shared an interest in Japanese architecture. Hays and his wife Allison Ewing were then transitioning from posts at William McDonough and Partners to begin their own firm. “We didn’t have any preconceived idea of what the house should look like,” said Paul. “We left the design process up to Chris.”
The Ferrells did know, however, that they wanted a bit more space than they’d had in London. “The houses there were always a few feet too short,” Ginger said. And they knew they needed to be immersed in—and not to alter more than necessary—the surroundings. “We wanted something that didn’t require taking down every tree on the lot,” said Paul, a former immigration attorney.
What Hays + Ewing eventually delivered was a design that is rigorous in its simplicity: a two-story rectangle set carefully among the trees. There is much more here than meets the eye. A practice steeped in sustainable design found its expression in a delicate balance of modesty and spaciousness, practicality and leisure.
Upside down
The house’s most unusual feature is its roof. As in traditional Japanese architecture, it dominates the external appearance of the structure, forming a dramatic V-shape that stands out in white against the humbly-sized, cedar-clad house.
The roof’s singular form results from a nifty trick: inverting the trusses, so that ceilings slope upward toward east and west to boost natural light. At the same time, a very ample 10-foot overhang on the western side minimizes solar gain in the summer. This overhang covers a large deck without need of columns to support its edge, so that anyone standing on the deck feels an uninterrupted connection to the woods.
Rain chains at the corners of the deck harken back to, Hays said, “very tranquil experiences” within Japanese teahouses, watching water pour down rain chains outside.
The inverted trusses, which slope up more sharply on the east side, give all the east-facing rooms—kitchen, master bathroom, and stairwell—a measure of drama. “The bathroom is narrow, but it doesn’t feel cramped,” said Paul. That’s due to a ceiling 12 feet high on one side, as well as carefully considered glazing. Three windows light this space, placed so that natural light increases by reflection, and curated views open to the exterior.
Neutral and not
Materials in much of the Ferrells’ space are rich but subtle, like the black slate that surrounds the fireplace. (“I had to twist Chris’ arm for a mantelpiece,” Paul joked; the one that resulted is ultra-slim.) Dark-stained oak floors lend grounding to the lighter-hued window and door trim and kitchen cabinets, which the Ferrells finally bought from Lowe’s after a long search for something suitably minimal.
Lots of glass allows the interior to meld with the outdoors. Photo: Prakash Patel
Despite the quietude of the living spaces, there are some provocative touches that reflect the rigor and cleanliness of clients’ and architects’ shared modern sensibility. The bed in the master bedroom is set up as an island, facing large western windows and backed by a dark built-in storage cabinet that doubles as headboard. Pendant lights, hung extra-low, serve as reading lamps.
An interest in the Bauhaus, with its notions of integrated design, helped inspire the stairwell design, which incorporates four large glass panels that Ginger, a stained-glass artist, acid-etched with a stylized forest image. Downstairs, a game room, glass studio, office, and guest suite open onto a patio and lap pool.
Landscape architects Nelson Byrd Woltz worked alongside Hays + Ewing from the beginning, and responded to the Ferrells’ wish for a low-maintenance retirement home. “The last thing we wanted was a lawn,” said Ginger.
Instead, the woods march right up to the eastern wall of the house. Views to the west, whether from the deck or through the dining/living room’s three sets of French doors, further connect inhabitants to the surroundings.
“Once we decided we wanted to live in the woods, it was important to see it every day,” said Paul. He and Ginger have found themselves noting the rise and fall of the local squirrel population—the result of design that, as Hays said, aims to “connect people to the places they live, the natural cycles and seasons.”
This is not only a matter of lots of windows; it’s a larger intelligence that incorporates landscape design, interior layout, and minimalism in furnishings.
“When it snows, it’s magic,” said Ginger—“like being in a snowglobe.”
DETAILS FROM JAPAN
With both members of Hays + Ewing having lived in Japan, and the Ferrells having a strong interest in Japanese architecture, incorporating design ideas from that country was a natural fit for this project. Japanese touches are scattered throughout the home.
The main living space on the second floor, like the downstairs rooms, has lots of glass in the form of sliding doors. These wide openings allow the interior to meld with the outdoors.
An especially tall kitchen ceiling harkens back to kitchens in Japanese monasteries.
In Japan, spaces are demarcated on floors with tatami mats. In the Ferrells’ lower level, Hays inlaid wooden planks at regular intervals in the concrete floor to create a similar visual effect.
Rain chains provide a sensory experience that’s eminently practical.
Pocket doors save space and make for a less cluttered-feeling interior.
THE BREAKDOWN
Architect: Hays + Ewing Design Studio
Landscape architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape
Architects Builder: Peter Johnson Builders
Square footage: 2,515 heated area, 2,050 exterior deck and terrace
Structural system: precast concrete panels by Superior Walls for retaining walls, structural insulated panels by Murus, wood framing along western wall
Exterior materials: cedar siding, cementitious panels, mahogany deck, metal rail with mahogany top rail, concrete terrace with slate banding
Interior finishes: oak floor on second floor and trim, pigmented concrete floor on first floor, marble and soapstone countertops
Roof materials: standing seam roof with kynar finish
Window system: aluminum clad wood windows, low-e glass Integrity windows by Marvin Mechanical systems: 16 SEER heat pump, radiant concrete slab (first floor), solar thermal panel for hot water with 17 KW generator
Other notable, custom, or innovative features: oxygenation for pool filtration, Inverted truss, V-shaped ceiling to bring light in on east and west sides, domestic hot water exchanger, passive solar strategies: broad roof overhang to shield windows and doors on west wall for second floor; second floor deck shields windows on first floor
Russ Warren’s “Blue Muse,” shows the strong influence that Picasso had on his work. It’s part of the “Picasso, Lydia, and Friends 2014” exhibition at Les Yeux du Monde gallery. Image courtesy of artist
“What inspires you?”
For those with an interest in visual art, the question could elicit a response of Diane Arbus, Stan Brakhage, or Jean-Michel Basquiat. However, for many UVA alumni, the answer might very well be the University’s legendary art professor, Lydia Gasman. This month, an exhibit at Les Yeux du Monde gallery entitled “Picasso, Lydia, and Friends 2014” connects a web of influence between Gasman, her peers and students, and the artist who inspired her life’s work, Pablo Picasso.
Gasman grew up in Romania and found fame in Bucharest as an award-winning painter in the 1950s. Moving to Paris in the 1960s, she grew to appreciate modernist art and discovered Picasso. She went on to teach art history at Vassar College, the University of Haifa in Israel, and later, at the University of Virginia.
From her first days in Charlottesville in 1981, Gasman was a legend. Her art history classes regularly overflowed out of lecture halls. From the podium, she possessed a stunning ability to synthesize diverse disciplines into enthralling, if sometimes unexpected, lectures. Gasman’s former student—and the curator of the current Les Yeux du Monde exhibit—Lyn Bolen Warren recalled that “She would break the rules. She’d teach a class on Early Modernism and stay the whole semester on Van Gogh, but wow, you’d learn so much. Students fell in love with her, gave her standing ovations.”
In addition to her teaching, Gasman’s work focused in sharp detail on the life and work of Picasso. Spending years decoding the artist’s symbolism and texts, Gasman permanently changed the course of Picasso scholarship. She re-interpreted the artist’s notes and sketchbook doodles while also re-examining his interest in mysticism, magic, and rituals. Gasman published multiple books and essays on the artist, including an essay on his wartime writings that was included in an exhibition catalogue for the Guggenheim Museum.
After Gasman passed away in 2010, two of her former graduate students, Warren and Victoria Beck Newman, launched the nonprofit Lydia Csato Gasman Archives to honor the friend, artist, and academic. Warren recalls that Gasman “decoded Picasso’s writings, but because we worked with her for so long we know how to decode her writing. She’d have a file for every single class she taught and then she’d write the main points and the pages to back them up and they’d become like artworks in themselves.” Today, the archives seek to inspire the curious and the scholarly alike by preserving and publishing Gasman’s research, her work as an artist and art historian, and her classroom lectures to be used by researchers, scholars, and the public. Ultimately, they hope this will inspire others to build upon her scholarship and continue her legacy.
This legacy also includes the public exhibition of Gasman’s work and that of related artists. An inaugural exhibit was held in 2012 to celebrate the formal launch of the archives, and the current exhibit at Les Yeux du Monde is the follow-up in the bi-annual series to honor Gasman.
Curated by Warren, this exhibit features Gasman’s work alongside prints by Pablo Picasso and original work from Gasman’s colleagues and contemporaries, including Bill Bennett, Anne Chesnutt, Dean Dass, Sanda Iliescu, David Summers, and Russ Warren. Though these artists vary in medium and style, each shares aesthetic, philosophical, or personal ties with the inspirations for the exhibit: Gasman, and in turn, her fascination with Picasso.
Russ Warren’s exhibited work is, in many ways, the most visually similar to well-known Picasso work. However, a closer look begins to reveal further similarities in the work of the other artists: the intonation of a line in Iliescu’s painting that’s reminiscent of Picasso’s bull; Summers’ stylistically similar brushstrokes; the Picasso-like playfulness of Bennett’s sculpture that invites the viewer to interact with it and take part in what feels like an elaborate magic trick. Discussing one of her pieces on display, Iliescu, a professor in the UVA School of Architecture, said that there is “a sense of hope in this collage: an idea that transformation is possible always… that something once old and ungainly or useless and taken-for-granted might attain a special sort of grace.” Arguably, it’s this special sort of grace that is the seed for inspiration itself.
Of course, it should also be made clear that the Picasso prints alone are worth the drive out Route 20. As your humble Feedback writer, I don’t dare don the hat of an art critic for Picasso’s work, though; I simply urge you to experience the exhibit firsthand.
“Picasso was so brilliant and I think Lydia mirrored that with a similar temperament,” Warren reflected. “She just could not stop creating—that really fast, furious inspiration and work ethic.” Through these artists’ work, this influence, energy, and enchantment fills the rooms of Les Yeux du Monde this month.
On display through October 5, the exhibit is free to visit and open to the public on Thursday-Sunday between 1-5pm, or by appointment. For those interested in meeting the artists and hearing discussion of their work, a lunchtime talk will be held at Les Yeux du Monde on October 1 from noon-1pm.
What inspires you? Tell us in the comments section below.
One victim of a possible sexual assault was found along 15th Street near these railroad tracks. Photo: Max March
More than a week after 18-year-old Hannah Graham disappeared in the early hours of Saturday, September 13, Charlottesville police are offering limited information on several alleged assaults that occurred near UVA Grounds. While the alleged assaults and Graham’s disappearance all occurred within the same 48-hour period, police say they are unrelated and in one case an arrest has already been made.
According to Charlottesville Police Sergeant D.J. Harris, a female UVA student reported a sexual assault that allegedly occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 13, near Wertland Street. Harris declined to offer specific details about the alleged assault other than the time and general location but said the assailant is described as a white male. An investigation is underway, Harris said, but no arrest has been made.
A second possible sexual assault was reported two nights later, sometime around 1:30am on Monday, September 15, when a woman was found along the 200 block of 15th Street not far from the railroad tracks.
“She was unconscious—sleeping, or incapacitated. We don’t know,” said Harris, who said that although the woman received medical treatment, police are still not certain whether an assault of any kind occurred. “That’s the problem with this. We don’t know,” he said. “We’re going to treat it as though something major has occurred. We’re taking every precaution. We’ve canvassed the area.”
Harris said police believe the second woman, who does not attend UVA, had been there for 30-40 minutes before she came into contact with police, who have reviewed surveillance video of the area and did not see signs of an attack or any other disturbance. He declined to say whether she had been alone prior to becoming incapacitated and he would not elaborate on the nature of her injuries or the type of treatment she received. “That’s part of the investigation,” he said.
A third assault also occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, September 13, at the intersection of 13th and Wertland streets. According to Harris, the male victim was beaten and suffered serious injuries.
Harris said 28-year-old Eldridge Smith, a Charlottesville resident, was arrested on September 17 and charged with unlawful wounding related to the incident. He is due to appear in Charlottesville District Court on Tuesday, September 23 at 10am.
Jesse Matthew posed for a photo with his cab for The Hook newspaper in September, 2007. Photo: Meg Miller
As police search for a person of interest in the Hannah Graham case after losing track of him on Saturday, September 20, details about his employment history are emerging.
“On Saturday, we became aware that several years ago Jesse Matthew worked at Yellow Cab,” said Yellow Cab of Charlottesville owner Mark Brown, who told C-VILLE that he does not have records establishing the exact dates of Matthew’s employment but that he has not worked for the company at any time since Brown purchased it in 2012. His employment was first revealed by WVTF radio on Sunday, and a photo of Matthew published in The Hook newspaper in 2007 shows him standing with his cab.
Matthew, 32, who was the last person known to have interacted with the missing 18-year-old second year UVA student before she vanished early in the morning hours of Saturday, September 14, is currently employed as a patient technician in the operating room at UVA Medical Center and was hired in August 2012, according to UVA spokesperson McGregor McCance.
Surveillance video captured Matthew encountering Graham as she walked along the Downtown Mall after 1am on the night she disappeared. According to police, eyewitnesses place both Graham and Matthew at Tempo restaurant at the east end of the Mall soon after they were captured on video. Police conducted a search of his Hessian Hills apartment and impounded his car, a burnt orange 1998 Chrysler coupe, on Friday, September 19, and in a Sunday afternoon press conference, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo became visibly emotional as he named Matthew for the first time, and described how Matthew had sped away from a police tail on Saturday after he’d come to the police station and requested an attorney. After speaking with an attorney, Matthew, who has not been charged in the Graham case, left the station without giving further statements to investigators, Longo said.
Police declined to describe the vehicle he was driving as police trailed him on Saturday, but said it was not the orange Chrysler. Arrest warrants have been issued against him for two reckless driving charges, Longo said.
Hannah Graham's parents, Susan and John Graham, first publicly pleaded for assistance in locating their missing daughter at an afternoon press conference on Sunday, September 21. Photo: Max March
The parents of missing UVA student Hannah Graham spoke publicly for the first time at an afternoon press conference today, one week after their daughter was reported missing and minutes after Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo told assembled reporters that police have lost track of the person of interest in her disappearance.
“I believe Jesse Matthew was the last person she was seen with before she vanished off the face of the earth,” said Tim Longo, his voice rising to a shout as he spoke Matthew’s name publicly for the first time. He described how Matthew, a 32-year-old lifelong Charlottesville resident who goes by the nickname “L.J.”, had come to the Charlottesville Police station accompanied by family members on Saturday, September 20, and requested an attorney. Police arranged for him to speak with one, who Longo did not identify, and Matthew left the station without giving any further statements to investigators. Soon after, Longo said, while Matthew was driving in a location east of town, he accelerated to an “unsafe” speed, eluding Virginia State Police who have been shadowing him all week. There is now a warrant for Matthew’s arrest on two reckless driving charges, Longo said.
Police are asking anyone who saw this burnt orange Chrysler coupe on the night Hannah Graham vanished to contact police. Photo courtesy Charlottesville Police
Previously released surveillance video from two downtown businesses shows Graham, an 18-year-old second year UVA student from Fairfax, encountering a tall, black man with dreadlocks who fits Matthew’s description on the Downtown Mall just after 1am on Saturday, September 14. According to police, the two were also seen by eyewitnesses at Tempo restaurant on Fifth Street at the east end of the Downtown Mall just after 1am, before Graham vanished. Matthew’s vehicle, a burnt orange Chrysler coupe with damage to the front bumper, pictured here, was parked on Fourth Street NE, according to Longo, and was impounded following a search at Matthew’s Hessian Hills residence on Friday, September 19. Police have said they have reason to believe Graham was in his vehicle, but while they had sufficient probable cause to conduct the searches, they did not have probable cause to charge Matthew with any crime. According to Longo, results from forensic testing performed on the car and on items removed from Matthew’s home are expected no later than Tuesday morning.
“We’re waiting to hear if any evidence was recovered from either of those two venues,” he said. “I hope and pray that such evidence was.”
Also speaking at today’s press conference was Mark Eggeman, state search and rescue coordinator for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, who organized this weekend’s massive search effort. More than 1,200 people from as far away as Baltimore scoured dumpsters, parks and yards across the city, Eggeman said, with 85 percent of the city expected to have been searched by the time the search ended on Sunday night.
“We have generated more leads, new information, and one piece always leads to the next,” he said.
Hannah Graham’s parents John and Susan Graham spoke publicly for the first time since their daughter’s disappearance, expressing their anguish and their appreciation for the outpouring of community support. As Susan Graham clutched a worn, plush rabbit that was given to Hannah when she was a newborn, and which had been her most beloved possession, her father John described a time the rabbit had been lost for months when Hannah was a toddler but had been found and returned.
“All we want to do now is to bring Hannah home safely,” he said. “I appeal to anyone, please, please help us.”
There is a $50,000 reward for information leading to Hannah Graham’s whereabouts. Anyone with information in the case should contact the Hannah Graham tip line at 295-3851.
In the minutes after a missing UVA student was recorded by two separate surveillance videos as she walked east on the Downtown Mall just after 1am on Saturday, September 13, multiple eyewitnesses report seeing her with a tall, heavyset black man with dreadlocks dressed all in white along the Downtown Mall and at Tempo restaurant on Fifth Street, police revealed at a 5pm press conference. That man appears in the surveillance videos walking west by himself and then east side-by-side with Hannah Graham. He lives at the Hessian Hills residence police searched earlier today, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo said, and owned a “burnt orange” Chrysler Coupe that was taken into custody following the search and which was parked on Fourth Street the night of Graham’s disappearance.
“We believe that Hannah Graham may have gotten in that car,” said Longo, who declined to name the man, reveal what type of evidence was retrieved from the apartment or car this morning, or whether it appeared to provide a link to Graham.
“There was no probable cause to arrest him,” said Longo, who said police have pored over more than 400 tips in the week since Graham vanished and asked anyone who may have seen the man she was with that night or in subsequent days to report the sightings.
The lead investigator on the case, Detective Sergeant Jim Mooney, declined to describe the man’s demeanor and said only that he’d spoken with him this morning during the search. “I would like to speak with him again,” he said.
The search for 18-year-old Graham launched when her family and friends reported her missing on Sunday, September 14, nearly 36 hours after she’d last had contact with anyone in person or by phone. Early surveillance video captured at McGrady’s restaurant and the Shell gas station on Preston Avenue show the UVA second year student walking unsteadily on the sidewalk and around the patio at the restaurant, then leaving without gaining entry and heading east on Preston towards the Mall.
There is a $50,000 reward in the case. Information should be called in to the Hannah Graham tip line at 434-295-3851.
