Tag: morgan harrington

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‘Bittersweet’ bills: Governor signs legislation that could save the next girl

John and Sue Graham were in Charlottesville for Governor Ralph Northam’s signing of legislation that could have saved their daughter’s life. Eze Amos

The parents of two young women who were murdered here were among those in the dignitary-filled room June 21 at Charlottesville’s Central Library, where Governor Ralph Northam signed legislation expanding the collection of DNA for misdemeanor crimes that, had it previously been in effect, could have saved UVA student Hannah Graham and Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.

Many there remembered the frantic search for Graham in 2014 as the school year began, and despite hundreds of searchers, it was five weeks before her body was found. Morgan Harrington disappeared in October 2009, while here for a Metallica concert. Her body was found three months later in the same part of Albemarle County as Graham’s, an area known to their killer, Jesse Matthew.

Northam’s daughter was at UVA at the same time as Graham. “These tragedies are very difficult,” he said. “We can only imagine.”

But, said the governor, “We can make changes.”

The legislation was spearheaded by Albemarle Sheriff Chip Harding, who’s long been a proponent of DNA databanks, and who originally prodded the state to fund its database in the ’90s. While everyone convicted of a felony goes into the database, Harding has pushed for collection of DNA for misdemeanor convictions, and says that 70 percent of first-time violent felons had a previous misdemeanor conviction.

“Three years ago, [Morgan’s mother] Gil Harrington worked with me and we got nine misdemeanors added, including exposing yourself, which is what Jesse Matthews Sr. did,” says Harding. Familial DNA would have linked to his son, who was convicted of a brutal 2005 attack in Fairfax, “and Morgan Harrington would never have been killed.”

In 2017, the Grahams joined Harding to urge the Virginia Crime Commission to study misdemeanors linked to violent felonies, and it identified seven more. “Of those, we only got funding for two—trespassing and domestic assault,” says Harding. Jesse Matthew was convicted of trespassing in 2010, and had his DNA been collected, “it would have prevented Hannah Graham’s death,” says the sheriff.

Brian Moran, Virginia secretary of public safety, noted, “DNA can convict the guilty, and maybe even more importantly, it can exonerate the innocent.”

The governor also signed a bill that requires fingerprints for those arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Delegate David Toscano, Governor Ralph Northam, Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran and Delegate Rob Bell were here for the signing of legislation to collect DNA for trespassing and assault. Eze Amos

Northam called the bipartisan legislation an example of the Virginia way: “The Virginia way is working together.” House Democratic Leader David Toscano carried the bills, which got support from Republican Delegate Rob Bell, who was present and who chairs the Courts of Justice committee. Republican state Senator Mark Obenshain carried a similar version in the Senate.

John and Sue Graham came to Richmond “again and again,” said Toscano.

After the signing, Sue Graham said, “What happened to Hannah won’t happen to another young woman in the same way.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Harrington, who founded Help Save the Next Girl. “So many points along the way, this legislation would have stopped Jesse Matthew. It’s too late for Morgan.”

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Jesse Matthew pleads guilty, receives four additional life sentences

Jesse Matthew could be seen through an Albemarle County courthouse window on his way to entering a plea agreement for the murders and abductions of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington. He was given four additional life sentences. Staff photo

 

Convicted murderer Jesse Matthew pleaded guilty to the first degree murders and abductions of both Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington in Albemarle County Circuit Court on March 2. He was given four life sentences—the maximum sentence for each count.

Matthew will avoid the death penalty because Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci nolle prossed his capital murder charge as part of the plea agreement. Tracci explained that the Commonwealth can re-indict Matthew for the capital murder charge if he should violate the terms of the plea agreement.

For the complete statement of facts about the Hannah Graham case, including a timeline of what happened on the night she was abducted, DNA conclusions and evidence gathered at Matthew’s apartment read Hannah Graham Statement of Facts 3-2-16. For the statement of facts about the Morgan Harrington case, read Morgan Harrington Statement of Facts 3-2-16.

Before the hearing, Matthew’s family and friends lined up to hug Harrington’s mother, Gil. Declining to give his own statement during the hearing, Matthew’s attorney said, “He is very sorry.”

Parents of both slain college students spoke about the impact the murders have had on their lives during and after the hearing.

Graham’s mother, Susan Graham, said, “When we imagine the trauma she endured at the hands of Matthew, our hearts break.” Though details of how Matthew abducted and killed each girl were typed up and handed to Judge Cheryl Higgins, they were not read aloud. Matthew’s attorney, Doug Ramseur, said he is unaware whether the parents have yet learned those details.

“Matthew dumped our girl’s body like a bag of trash,” Susan Graham said, adding that her daughter’s lifeless body was picked over by buzzards. Her daughter, an 18-year-old UVA student who disappeared September 13, 2014, was found dead several weeks later in a field off Old Lynchburg Road.

According to the statement of facts released by the county, the crop top Graham was last seen wearing the night of her abduction was found near her skeletal remains, unzipped and inside out. Her jeans were also found nearby, with one leg inside out and holes in the denim that had not been present earlier in the night.

Graham’s father, John, said many people thought his daughter would change the world. “She did change the world, but at a terrible price.”

Two of the life sentences Matthew was given March 2 pertained to Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student who was last seen at a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena on October 17, 2009. Her body was found in a field in January 2010, about five miles from where Graham’s body was found almost five years later.

Harrington’s father, Dan, said he lives in “a world that’s gone gray, flat and devoid of joy,” now that his “beautiful, smart, talented and bright” daughter is gone. “Our family has felt the pain of this loss every second of every day.”

He and his wife, Gil, have built an African school and founded a scholarship in Harrington’s name. They also created the Help Save the Next Girl nonprofit foundation to sensitize young women and girls to predatory dangers.

Ramseur spoke after the sentencing, saying “This is obviously not a day for celebration,” before media fired questions about his client, such as why Matthew didn’t apologize himself and if he ever explained why he murdered two young women. The attorney deflected the questions and said it’s “unfortunate” that, because Matthew won’t have a trial, the public might never hear evidence from the the defense. He did say in an initial statement during the hearing that Matthew decided to plead guilty because he didn’t want a death sentence “hanging over his head.”

Legal expert David Heilberg says most capital murder cases now end in plea bargains, and he expected this as the likely outcome for Matthew.

Now that the death penalty is off the table, Matthew’s four additional life sentences are debatably meaningless, Heilberg says. Last summer, Matthew was given three life sentences for abducting, violently sexually assaulting and attempting to kill a Fairfax woman in 2005.

“You only have one life to serve,” Heilberg adds. “At this point, it can’t get any worse.”
Watch a video of Gil Harrington addressing the public below.

 

 

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Legal expert speaks to Jesse Matthew’s anticipated guilty plea

Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington. Photos courtesy Charlottesville Police Department and Virginia State Police

Jesse Matthew is set to enter a plea deal in the abduction and murder of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington in Albemarle Circuit Court on March 2.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Tracci issued a letter February 29 stating that although it is anticipated that Matthew will plead guilty and resolve both cases, Tracci’s office will not provide any additional details or comments before the hearing.

Legal expert David Heilberg says most capital murder cases now end in plea bargains, and he expected this as the likely outcome for Matthew and his defense attorneys, Doug Ramseur and Michael Hemenway.

“It would take the death penalty off the table,” which Heilberg says is likely Matthew’s motivation. “At this point, it can’t get any worse.”

Last summer, Matthew was given three life sentences for abducting and sexually assaulting a Fairfax woman in 2005. “You only have one life to serve,” Heilberg adds.

Matthew is accused of capital murder in the death and abduction of Graham, an 18-year-old UVA student who disappeared September 13, 2014, and was found dead several weeks later on Old Lynchburg Road. He has also been indicted by a grand jury for the 2009 murder and abduction of Harrington, a Virginia Tech student, who was last seen at a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena that October. She was 20 years old at the time.

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Harringtons speak to parents of slain 13-year-old

A Facebook group of over 4,000 people aimed to help find Nicole. Photo courtesy of Help Find Nicole Lovell

A Virginia Tech student is charged with abduction and murder after a 13-year-old Blacksburg girl, Nicole Lovell, went missing last week. Dan and Gil Harrington, parents of a slain daughter who disappeared from Charlottesville six years ago, speak out.

“We have just heard that the body of your precious daughter, Nicole, has been found and will be brought to the medical examiner’s office in Roanoke,” the Harringtons wrote to Lovell’s family.

The local group they founded, Help Save the Next Girl, posted their message on a Facebook page called Help Find Nicole Lovell, where more than 4,000 Facebook users posted information before Lovell’s death and grieved once the middle-schooler was found dead.

“That office is just a few blocks from our home, and our daughter also spent time in that place,” the Harringtons added.

Their daughter, 20-year-old Morgan Harrington, was abducted from a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena in 2009. Jesse Matthew is charged with her death, as well as the death of UVA student Hannah Graham.

Nicole Lovell was last seen in her family’s apartment home between 7pm and midnight January 27. Her remains were found January 30—about 100 miles from home, on the side of Route 89 in North Carolina, according to Blacksburg police.

A family member found Lovell’s dresser pushed against her bedroom door and suspected that she climbed out of her window, the Roanoke Times reported.

Before police located her remains, the family had already expected the worst. Lovell required daily medication for a liver transplant and didn’t take the medicine with her when she left, police said in a press conference. Lovell’s mother, Tammy Weeks, spoke to the media about how her daughter survived a liver transplant, MRSA and lymphoma by age 5, adding that Lovell was bullied at school for the scar left by the operation.

Virginia Tech student David E. Eisenhauer, 18, was charged January 30 with murder and felony abduction. Nineteen-year-old Natalie Keepers, who is also a Tech student, was charged January 31 with a felony count of improper disposal of a dead body and a misdemeanor for accessory after the fact in the commission of a felony.

Blacksburg police said investigators determined that Eisenhauer and Lovell were acquaintances. “Eisenhauer used this relationship to his advantage to abduct the 13-year-old and then kill her.”

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Comings and goings draw more attention than Jesse Matthew

Gil and Dan Harrington drove two hours to be at a five-minute hearing for their daughter's accused murderer, and say they feel "honor bound" to be there. Staff photo

The status hearing for accused murderer Jesse Matthew had the former Monticello High student in court December 17 for what was basically the postponement of scheduling a motion hearing to bring in uncharged crimes during sentencing, should he be convicted of the murder, abduction and capital murder of Hannah Graham in July.

Garnering more attention during the brief hearing in Albemarle Circuit Court was Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford, who hands over the keys to the prosecutor’s office January 1 to Robert Tracci. He was there, and had been in the same court earlier in the day to be sworn in to the job that’s still Lunsford’s for two more weeks.

Before Matthew came into the courtroom, Jon Zug, clerk of court-elect, told Judge Cheryl Higgins that this would be his last appearance before her as assistant commonwealth’s attorney. Higgins came down off the bench and walked in front of it to shake Zug’s hand. “Good luck,” said the jurist.

More somber were the parents of Morgan Harrington, the Virginia Tech student whom Matthew is accused of murdering and abducting in 2009. Gil and Dan Harrington drove two hours from Roanoke to be at the hearing that barely lasted five minutes. Gil Harrington acknowledged the effort put in to be there, however briefly. “We really feel like it’s our duty,” she said. “We are honor bound to be here. It’s part of my covenant with Morgan.”

She noted the difficulty of the holiday season for parents of a dead child. “Maybe this is more of a distraction for us,” she said.

Although Matthew’s DNA was linked to Morgan Harrington during the course of the fall 2014 Hannah Graham investigation, he was not indicted with her death until September 2015, nearly six years after Harrington was last seen alive. “This is a really slow process,” said Gil Harrington.

That Matthew was charged in her daughter’s death has given the Harringtons some “psychic relief,” she said. “We feel more progress toward celebration and joy than in the past.”

After the hearing, Lunsford explained she was providing notice that the commonwealth would seek to use unadjudicated conduct during Matthew’s sentencing, and a motion to hear that would be heard January 11. Although she declined to comment on the behavior, Matthew, 33, has been accused of sexual assault at both Liberty University and at Christopher Newport University, but was never charged.

Lunsford said she wouldn’t take questions about this being her last day because it wasn’t. As for her plans for 2016, she said, “I got a puppy.”

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Motions in Jesse Matthew trial to be filed under seal

Jesse Matthew was given three life sentences on October 2 for attempted capital murder, abduction with intent to defile and sexual penetration with an object of a Fairfax woman in 2006. Staff photo/mugshot Charlottesville Police

At a previous motions hearing, Judge Cheryl Higgins allowed police to unshackle Jesse Matthew’s belly chain, freeing his hands to only handcuff restraints. Nonetheless, in a September 30 hearing, Matthew appeared, once again, with handcuffs attached to his belly chain, making it difficult for him to raise his right hand when he waived his rights to a speedy trial for charges of the murder of Morgan Harrington.

The trial was set for October 2016, just three months after Matthew will face capital charges for the abduction and slaying of UVA student Hannah Graham.

The defense had asked Higgins to recuse herself in the Graham case because she has a daughter who is a UVA student. Judge Higgins disclosed in the Harrington portion of the hearing that her second daughter goes to Virginia Tech, where Harrington was also a student.

Higgins also heard motions by defense attorney Doug Ramseur and denied all but one, allowing the defense to file motions under seal, giving the public no access to the motions until the time of the motions hearing. The commonwealth’s responses will be kept under seal, as well.

“The reporters who are covering this are certainly invested,” Ramseur said, adding that every motion he files gets reported and it could affect Matthew’s right to a fair trial. He also stated that motions potentially involving the names of witnesses raised serious concerns because he does not want the media to contact witnesses before the trial.

Higgins denied the defense’s’ request for Matthew to undergo a prison violence risk assessment by a professional, as well as the request for all grand jury information such as identities and addresses, and selection processes for the grand jury over the past four years.

After the motions hearing and scheduling for the Morgan Harrington trial, Gil Harrington, her mother, said she approached Matthew’s mother, offered her condolences and shook her hand.

“It’s very surreal to be here as many times as we’ve been here,” Harrington said. “You become habituated to the obscenity of it.”

Matthew is scheduled to be sentenced in Fairfax on October 2 for a 2005 sexual assault of which he is also convicted.

“We’ll obviously be interested in what happens,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford after the September 30 hearing, “but that’s a separate case in a separate jurisdiction.”

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Harringtons’ day in court: Jesse Matthew indicted for Morgan’s slaying

Gil and Dan Harrington face a media crush outside Albemarle Circuit Court. Staff photo

Nearly six years after 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington disappeared from a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena, her parents sat within feet of the man accused of abducting and killing her.

Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., 33, was arraigned September 16 in Albemarle Circuit Court for first-degree murder and abduction with the intent to defile, one day after a grand jury indicted him. Gil and Dan Harrington were in close proximity to Matthew, who had been expected to be arraigned by video conference.

“It was not menacing and scary, but it was brazen,” said Gil Harrington about seeing Matthew in the courtroom.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been in the same courtroom with him. She’s been present at the hearings for the Hannah Graham case, for which Matthew is charged with capital murder. She was present in June for his trial for attempted capital murder, abduction with intent to defile and sexual assault stemming from a brutal 2005 attack in Fairfax.

And she was present last year at the trial for the murder of another missing girl, Alexis Murphy, 17, in Nelson County, for which Randy Taylor was convicted.

But this is the first time Gil and Dan Harrington had been in court to see charges brought against the alleged killer of their daughter.

Morgan Harrington was last seen October 17, 2009, on the Copeley Road bridge near JPJ Arena. Years before the disappearance of Hannah Graham became a national news story, hundreds turned out to search for Harrington, and for months after she vanished posters plastered the area. Her body was found in January 2010 in a field on a farm off U.S. 29 south of Charlottesville.

In the ensuing years, the Harringtons never seemed to give up hope that Morgan’s killer would be found. Every year on the anniversary of her disappearance, they commemorated the date on the Copeley Road bridge. They founded an organization called Help Save the Next Girl because they were convinced Morgan’s killer was still out there and they wanted to make young women aware of predators.

A few months after she was found, the Harringtons first learned of a link to the 2005 Fairfax assault and saw a drawing of the man identified by the victim.

That link didn’t lead to Matthew until September 13, 2014, when 18-year-old UVA student Graham allegedly crossed paths with Matthew on the Downtown Mall, and was never seen alive again. Her body was found in October 2014, also south of town just a few miles from where Harrington was found.

“We’ve known for some time we share a bizarre link with the Grahams,” said Gil Harrington after the hearing.

In court, Matthew’s capital lawyers in the Graham case, Doug Ramseur and Michael Hemenway, were appointed to represent him in the Harrington case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford said afterward she has no plans to join the two cases nor to seek capital charges in Harrington’s death.

“I’m not sure it matters now,” said Dan Harrington outside the courthouse. “I think it’s an incredible relief for us. It’s a very emotional day.”

“He’ll never hurt anyone else now,” said Gil Harrington.

She also thanked the media for not saying, “Oh, another pretty girl, too bad,” while covering the case. And she hugged reporters Ted Strong, a former Daily Progress reporter now with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and former C-VILLE Weekly editor Courteney Stuart, both of whom have covered the case for years.

“We’re six years out and we’re still going strong,” said Gil Harrington. “We need to find a new rhythm and pace as we switch to a new marathon.”

–with additional reporting by Samantha Baars

This article was updated at 3:50pm September 16.

 

It's been six years since Morgan Harrington disappeared. She was linked to Jesse Matthew a year ago.

Jesse Matthew indicted in Morgan Harrington slaying

Nearly six years after 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington disappeared from a Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena, an Albemarle County grand jury has indicted Jesse Leroy  Matthew Jr. for first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile. Both charges carry penalties of up to life in prison.

Matthew, 33, who is currently being held at Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, was served with the indictments September 15. He is facing capital murder charges in the death of 18-year-old UVA student Hannah Graham, who vanished September 13, 2014. Her body was found in the woods south of Charlottesville in October.

In June, Matthew was convicted of attempted capital murder, abduction with intent to defile and sexual assault stemming from a brutal 2005 attack in Fairfax.

Virginia State Police had confirmed a forensic link that tied Matthew to Harrington, who was last seen October 17, 2009, and whose body was found several months later in a field at a farm south of town, a few miles from where Graham later was found.

Matthew, a Monticello High grad, will appear in court by video at 12:45pm September 16.

 

Related links:

http://www.c-ville.com/discovery-remains-new-charges-jesse-matthew-offer-hope-closure/

http://www.c-ville.com/leaked-search-warrant-reveals-dna-link-harrington-case/

http://www.c-ville.com/accused-hannah-graham-abductor-indicted-fairfax-sexual-assault/

http://www.c-ville.com/jesse-matthew-pleads-not-guilty-victim-testifies-fairfax-case/