Cops: Suspect in UVA Disappearance Is Linked to 2009 Va. Tech Murder
Jesse Leroy Matthew, Jr., the suspect arrested by police in connection to the abduction of still-missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham, has now been forensically linked to another missing woman: 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who disappeared after attending a concert on the University of Virginia campus in 2009. Harrington's remains were found three months later on a farm. Virginia State Police have called the new forensic link a "significant break" in the ongoing search for Graham.
Sources told CBS6 in Charlottesville, Va. that forensic evidence collected in police's investigation of Matthew into Graham's disappearance matches evidence collected in the search for Harrington:
The sources would not indicate what Matthew may or may not have done with Harrington, however the sources indicated that the forensic evidence match showed Harrington had some sort of contact with Matthew the night she disappeared outside John Paul Jones arena on October 17, 2009. Her remains were found in January 2010 on an Albemarle County farm.
"We worked five years to get to this point, so we are relieved," Gil Harrington, Morgan's mother, told CBS6.
Two years after Harrington's remains were discovered, the FBI released a sketch (below) of the man they believed had contact with her prior to her disappearance. A precipitating factor in the sketch's release was a forensic link made between Harrington's disappearance and a 2005 sexual assault case in Fairfax, Va.
Matthew was arrested by Galveston, Texas police last Wednesday after he allegedly fled a police tail after speaking with Charlottesville police Sept. 20. He has been extradited to Virginia and will have his first court date for his abduction with intent defile charge this Thursday.
[Image of Morgan Harrington via WVTF // Suspect sketch courtesy FBI // Matthew mugshots via Charlottesville Police]