Investigator: Harrington case not ‘cold’
December 30, 2009 by afp
Filed under *AugustaFreePress.com
State Police still pursuing leads; ‘We have to keep plugging away’
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The case of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who hasn’t been seen since she left a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville the night of Oct. 17, is “not anywhere near” the level of being labeled a cold case, a Virginia State Police investigator said today.
“A cold case is when you’re not actively pursuing a case, you’ve exhausted all your leads, you’re not putting a whole lot of effort into it. This isn’t anywhere near that. We’ve been working on this every day since we started with core investigators as well as other resources. It’s very much active,” State Police Lt. Joe Rader said on the Harrington case, which has gone cold in one respect, as the media attention on Harrington has gone into decline after an initial period of several weeks of intense coverage of the investigation.
New leads and tips have also slowed, Rader said, with the activity in that arena in recent days being from psychics and remote viewers, “not really people who were there who have concrete information,” Rader said.
What is new is a tightened time frame of interest to State Police investigators, who have narrowed down the time that Harrington seems to have gone missing to a 10-minute window between 9:20 and 9:30 the night of Oct. 17.
“We believe that’s the window when there’s a good chance that she may have gotten into a car on the Copeley Road bridge. We don’t know that, but based on what we’ve done, that seems to be the time frame where something happened, and we can’t account for her after that. She was seen hitchhiking, and then we figure that she got into a car,” Rader said.
It is also now believed that Harrington, 20, a junior at Virginia Tech from the Roanoke area, had been drinking alcohol the night of her disappearance.
Investigators are interested in a red digital Kodak camera owned by Harrington that they have not been able to locate, Rader said.
“Obviously something like a camera could hold information on it that could be valuable to the investigation,” Rader said.
It’s all still speculation now, but investigators believe what happened the night of the disappearance can fall into one of three possible scenarios.
“The first one is, a person wanted to give her a ride, they give her a ride, and something happens. Now the person doesn’t know what to do, so they either let her out somewhere, or dump her somewhere,” Rader said.
That person “could have had the most innocent intentions,” Rader said, “but for whatever reason, something went bad, and now you’re scared to come forward, because you’re scared of the implications. Don’t be scared. Come forward. Talk to us. If you’re out there, and you know something, don’t be scared. We need to talk to you,” Rader said.
The second scenario - “You had a person who had criminal intent from the outset, saw a vulnerable target, and took advantage. They’re obviously not going to come to us,” Rader said.
“The third is something we’re hearing from some people about how she wanted to meet up with someone and not be found. There’s absolutely no indication to that at this point,” Rader said.
All that said, “We’re pursuing this as if she’s still alive,” Rader said. “You’ve got to be careful about pursuing it as if she is dead, because that can narrow the level of objectivity of what you’re doing. If I don’t think she has a chance of being alive, and you tell me, I saw her at the Fashion Square Mall today, chances are I’m not going to take that very seriously.”
Rader thinks the missing link of information leading to the case being cracked will be found in the Charlottesville area.
He also hopes against hope that there’s a happy ending to this story.
“I hope the Harrington family still gets to experience the greatest moment of their life. I know statistically it doesn’t look very good, but we have to keep plugging away,” Rader said.
Tips
Investigators are still encouraging anyone with information in this case to come forward and contact either Virginia State Police at 434.352.3467 or bci-appomattox@vsp.virginia.gov; UVa. Police at 434.924.7166; or the Jefferson Area Crime Stoppers at 434.977.4000.
A $150,000 reward is still available for information that leads to the location and recovery of Morgan Harrington. If anyone out there picked up Morgan, but is fearful to come forward because of possible implications, such person(s) is still encouraged to come forward and contact police. Investigators are willing to work with you in order to locate Morgan and bring her home to her family.
In addition, anyone who has noticed any behavioral changes in a loved one, coworker or friend who may have attended that Metallica concert - or acts strangely (overly interested, shies away, etc.) when the Morgan’s disappearance is mentioned in the news or discussed among people - is also encouraged to also contact police at any of the numbers/email provided above. Anonymous tips are welcome.
L K Tucker on Thu, 31st Dec 2009 7:09 pm
Police and local authorities are still only pursuing the possibility that she is a victim of an abduction. That is not the only possibility. She may be a fugue victim and either hiding or is unaware of who she is.
None of these appeals will reach her if she is alone with amnesia. Jennifer Wilbanks, runaway bride, changed her appearance and got across the country in a day or so.
There have been several cases around the country. Ahmad Arain, UCLA, Matthew Wilson, Rice, and Hannah Upp school teacher/grad student in New York were all revealed to have had mental events before they disappeared.
Virginia Tech was warned after the Cho shooting but took no action to warn students.
Every semester brings a new crop of these cases. They have been happening for over fifty years. That old case is Ron Tammen, Miami of Ohio. The library at Miami University maintains a site about Tammen with pictures and newspaper stories from the period. Even though there had been a string of disappearances, recoveries, and returns before Tammen, 1953, Miami University still does not understand what happened.
Subliminal Distraction is the likely cause ot these events. SD, a normal feature in the physiology of sight, was discovered to cause mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle solved that problem by 1968.
No school offers Cubicle Level Protection where needed or warns students about it.
OlderWiser on Sat, 2nd Jan 2010 9:10 pm
SK, I appreciate the fact that you want to be thorough and cover all possibilities, but it’s such a small statistical chance that such a thing happened. For a woman to be gone this long, almost always she’s been victimized and probably didn’t survive. There are plenty of sexual predators in Virginia, and I happen to know of one up near Quantico who’s in with the 2nd-rate music scene up there. (Oddly enough, almost all sexual predators I’ve met are 2nd-rate musicians, middle-aged, creepy-looking white males, and very good con-artists.) Even if the person who gave her a ride wasn’t the predator, it’s possible that he or she could only take her so far toward her car or parents’ house and had to let her off for the next ride. I’ve given rides to hitchhikers a few times years ago, and that’s very common. If the hitchhiker is going cross-country (or cross state in this case), then they’ll never find someone going that far, have to accept multiple rides. She may have taken 3 or 4 rides before the bad guy found her, or maybe she was let off in a bad spot without knowing it.