Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
Thanks to my partner-in-crime, David in TN, who sent me this story, and who had sniffed out this connection a few days ago, and been urging me to blog on it.
Police: Arrest in Graham disappearance yields break in another case
By Mariano Castillo and Eliott McLaughlin,
Updated 3:43 PM EDT, Monday, September 29, 2014
CNN
(CNN) -- The arrest of Jesse Matthew -- the suspect in the disappearance of University of Virginia student
Hannah Graham -- has resulted in a "significant break" in the 2009 death of another young woman in the same area, police said.
Virginia State Police did not elaborate on the development into the investigation of the death of Morgan Harrington, only saying there is a "new forensic link."
Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student, went missing after attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville in October 2009. Her remains were found on a farm months later.
Matthew was being held in isolation in a Virginia jail cell, authorities said Saturday.
Authorities took Matthew to Charlottesville, Virginia, on Friday after he agreed not to fight extradition from Texas, where he had been taken into custody after police obtained a warrant for his arrest on Tuesday.
Where is Hannah Graham?
Investigators think he was the last person with Graham. He is charged with abduction with the intent to defile in the case, according to Charlottesville police.
Graham was last seen September 13 in an area of Charlottesville known as the Downtown Mall. Police have asked owners of large parcels of property in surrounding counties to search their land and report back.
Authorities are offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the safe return of the 18-year-old, a second-year student the university.
Almost from the start, speculation was raised about the possibility of a connection between Graham's disappearance and Harrington's death.
"Certainly the question has arisen. It's certainly a legitimate question," Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo told reporters last week.
No arrests have been made in Harrington's case, and the cause of her death is still under investigation.
Matthew's father has said his son is not the type to hurt anyone.
"For a big man, he's as gentle as they come," Jesse Matthew Sr. told CNN affiliate WTVR. "The only thing I could see, him, maybe trying to give the girl a ride or help her out."
"To kill or hurt somebody, that's not my son."
Authorities found Matthew on a Galveston County beach after deputies got a call about a suspicious person camping there. A license plate check revealed he was wanted, CNN affiliate KPRC reported.
Matthew did not resist arrest, police said.
Mike Rodenberg, a vacationer who was fishing near the campsite when Matthew was arrested, said Matthew asked about why he was throwing some of his catch back.
"He seemed real nice. He was real soft-spoken," Rodenberg said. "(He) said he was down here from New Jersey and was looking for a job. I told him if I caught another redfish he could have it."
In addition to Graham's disappearance, Matthew also has been questioned in connection with an alleged sexual assault nearly 12 years ago.
According to a statement from Lynchburg police, a woman reported she was raped on the campus of Liberty University on October 17, 2002. Matthew was a student there for three years and played on the football team.
However, no charges were filed because the woman didn't want to go forward with the case, and investigators determined there wasn't enough evidence to arrest Matthew, said Michael Doucette, the commonwealth's attorney for Lynchburg.
Matthew told authorities that the woman consented, Doucette said, adding that there were no witnesses.
"He seemed real nice." He was "soft spoken". Also he's "gentle". Invariably people like this cause surprise in some people who know them when they are arrested. It always seems to be out of character. These cons are actors who have practiced their personal presentation skills so that people are lulled by their assumed personas. They're nice up to the point that people suddenly discover that they're not so nice, that they've been had.
ReplyDeleteIf only our late friend, Larry Auster, was here to see and write about this.
ReplyDeleteLarry wrote several blog items about the Morgan Harrington case. It was, he wrote, a prime example of what can happen to young white women.
David In TN
David,
ReplyDeleteI recall a series of essays he wrote about similar cases, including Immette St. Guillen and a college girl from New Jersey, both of whom started out with girlfriends, got themselves plastered near to the point of passing out, and were wandering around Manhattan alone in the wee hours, when gigantic black men came upon them and strangled them. The perp who murdered the girl from Jersey kidnapped and raped her first, if memory serves.
I'll take an unpopular stance, it's the parents that are to blame. Negro males rape, beat and kill. It's what they do. The parents of these young women knew that, as anyone with a functioning brain who pays attention to the world around them knows.
ReplyDeleteThe parents chose to withhold that lesson from their children in an attempt to luxuriate in a twisted sense of moral superiority. If these young woman had been taught to fear negroes, they would be alive today. It is no more complicated than that.
Matthew was indicted by a grand jury on September 15 for the Morgan Harrington murder. I just sent you a CNN story.
ReplyDelete