The VSP now says that Morgan Harrington was “murdered” and that they’ve ruled out an accidental death. #
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Forgive me, but I have a hard time buying into the police theory that whoever did this has connections to Anchorage Farm. Let me explain:
If you want to get rid of a body and get away with it, you want distance or cover, or preferably both. Distance meaning somewhere removed from you physically and NOT linked to you in any way, thus the location of the body, if or when it is discovered doesnt naturally result in a connection to you. Cover meaning that if the body is nearby and thus its location would tend to indicate your involvement, you want it well hidden. Down a well, like the woman in Louisa, under a new garage floor slab, whatever, just WELL hidden. Here, however, we have a killer who the police seem to think sought neither?
Since her discovery its also struck me as strange that she was left in the hay field, seemingly 30 or 40 feet from the cover that the wooded creek area would have provided. Why? I think her killer was completely unfamiliar with Anchorage Farm, and the fact that as a working cattle farm where hay was periodically cut, her discovery was inevitable.
Instead, they saw the risk of her discovery as coming from the same place they did, Blandemar Farm Estates. They put barriers in the form of the creek that had to be crossed and the fence that had to be climbed between Morgan and where they thought the risk of discovery might lie, and further placed her in the field because there, in tall grass, she presumably couldn’t be seen from those same two barriers, the creek and the fence. The woods weren’t wide enough to accommodate. If this person knew Anchorage was a cattle farm and that this was a hay field, they wouldn’t have put her there, especially if they could be linked to that site upon her discovery.
What I think is more likely is that the killer had a location in mind different from where Morgan was found. Further down Red Hill Rd? Off Taylors Gap Rd.? In Blandemar itself? I don’t know, but they went to that area specifically to get rid of her. Maybe they were scared off from their original site by a passing car, a barking dog, a house with suspicious lights on, anything, perhaps they couldn’t find the place they had in mind? Driving back towards 29 they came across a spot where they could pull over and spend a few minutes unobserved on a lightly traveled side road. With the hour getting late and the sky beginning to lighten they took their chances. Adrenaline helped to overcome her weight and the aforementioned obstacles. They left thinking she was well hidden (or why not go back and move/cover her? Why even leave her there to begin with?)and that to reach her someone would have to do as they had, leave the road, reach the woods, cross a creek, climb a fence and then go just a bit farther to find her, they had no idea that Dave Bass would simply have to ride his tractor down his fence-line to discover what they had done…
Just my $.02
Would it be possible for the police to identify anyone with a Charlottesville IP who used Google maps or Mapquest and looked at that area of southern Albemarle on the night of the 17th/morning of the 18th of October? Or perhaps looked at the specific site where she was found at any time prior to her discovery, as they might have done to assess their risk retroactively? Thats where I’d start if I were investigating this.
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If the person or people disposing of the body (assuming that she wasn’t taken there alive and killed at the site) were doing it at night, they wouldn’t have much luck stumbling around a totally unfamiliar rural area in order to find a good spot.
Not to say that someone couldn’t just be stupid and not realize what a bad idea that is. But I’ve done my fair share of night-time bushwhacking in Outward Bound and in the course of tracking deer. To just stumble into an unknown area of woods and fields in the dark while hauling a dead body with you would be a recipe for disaster. There might be a house very close by that you can’t see if the lights are out.
Assuming that the perpetrator/s were not completely stupid, they would have gone at night to a remote area that they had some familiarity with. In daylight during hunting season they would have to be REALLY stupid to go out to a place like that, where they would probably be seen.
I don’t believe that the police have said yet whether the body had been shallowly buried and then uncovered somehow. Assuming that she was just right there in the grass, it is possible that the body was originally within the edge of the woods and then moved by animals. I have left many a deer carcass stripped of the meat at the back edge of my property and then found that it had been moved as far as 50 feet away at some point over the next few weeks.