A search warrant first obtained by NBC29 and reported by The Daily Progress reveals that the forensic link connecting Hannah Graham’s accused abductor Jesse Matthew to the Morgan Harrington case is DNA taken from the “wooden tip” of a cigar butt found in Matthew’s wallet and from Harrington’s shirt, which was found on a bush outside a student apartment building on 15th Street in early November 2009, weeks after she vanished.
The warrant was filed in Albemarle County Circuit Court on October 16 and remains officially under seal, but photos of it were briefly tweeted and then deleted by NBC reporter Matt Talhelm on Monday, November 23. The warrant also reveals that the shirt was blood stained, and that a mixed profile of Harrington’s DNA and that of the unknown assailant taken from the shirt was run through the state DNA databank soon after its discovery. That resulted in a match with DNA taken from under the fingernails of the victim in the 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax. Authorities have said that Matthew is linked to that case through DNA. The likelihood that the foreign DNA taken from Harrington’s shirt comes from an individual other than Matthew is less than 1 in 7.2 billion, the approximate population of the world, according to the warrant, which also states that a cell phone number used by Matthew was in working order on the night Harrington disappeared, October 17, 2009.
Matthew is charged with abduction with intent to defile in the September disappearance of Graham, whose remains were found five weeks later on an Albemarle County property about five miles from where Harrington’s remains were discovered in January 2010. He is charged in Fairfax with abduction with intent to defile, object sexual penetration and attempted capital murder relating to the 2005 attack. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and a trial is scheduled to begin in Fairfax Circuit Court on March 9.
Stacy Trager, a staffer in the Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors had no comment.