Found Deceased VA - Morgan Dana Harrington, 20, Charlottesville, 17 Oct 2009 - #15

[carbuff]

I found this article that says the Fairfax rape happened in September 2005:
http://hamptonroads.com/node/560641

"According to a Sept. 27, 2005 article in the Washington Post, the Fairfax case involved a 26-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted as she walked home from a nearby grocery store."

Thank you. I was misreading the date on the photo -- damned bad eyesight and too-small type...

 

[quiqui]

Thank you. I was misreading the date on the photo -- damned bad eyesight and too-small type...

Your welcome! It's funny though because I found articles that said October 2005 too. I also vaguely remember someone looked up if there was a concert at the Patriot Center around the time of that 2005 attack.

Here is a link to the Patriot Center's Sept 2005 schedule.
http://www.patriotcenter.com/events/index.php?month=9&year=2005

Googoosh is ringing a bell for some reason. Off to search some older threads...

[edit]
Here we go - http://potomaclocal.com/news/fairfax/fairfax-case-linked-to-harrington-case-police-say/
September 24, 2005 at 10pm

 

[carbuff]

Your welcome! It's funny though because I found articles that said October 2005 too. I also vaguely remember someone looked up if there was a concert at the Patriot Center around the time of that 2005 attack.

Here is a link to the Patriot Center's Sept 2005 schedule.
http://www.patriotcenter.com/events/index.php?month=9&year=2005

Googoosh is ringing a bell for some reason. Off to search some older threads...

[edit]
Here we go - http://potomaclocal.com/news/fairfax/fairfax-case-linked-to-harrington-case-police-say/
September 24, 2005 at 10pm

Thanks, I'm glad you found that.

It looks like maybe nothing was released about the rape until they were able to come up with the composite, so the articles are from October but the attack happened a month earlier?

I notice also that while the sketch appears to depict an African or possibly Middle Eastern man, the description says nothing about possible race or ethnicity. I'm going to play with that for a bit and see if I can doctor the sketch to look a little more neutral...

 

[quiqui]

Thanks, I'm glad you found that.

It looks like maybe nothing was released about the rape until they were able to come up with the composite, so the articles are from October but the attack happened a month earlier?

I notice also that while the sketch appears to depict an African or possibly Middle Eastern man, the description says nothing about possible race or ethnicity. I'm going to play with that for a bit and see if I can doctor the sketch to look a little more neutral...

I think you're right. Since it happened at the end of September the info was still being released into October.

I'm not sure what to make of the ethnicity/race. I went looking for a copy of the wanted poster to take another look (found one here - http://www.roanoke.com/pdfs/Wanted2005FairfaxCityPoster.pdf) and it lists him as black. I think this is the first time I've seen it specified one way or the other, but my memory is a little fuzzy on that.

Any luck with altering the sketch?

 

[chemcopout]

Not sure. Maybe they were afraid. Suspect the main killer left the US. The accomplices maybe didn't realize the error.

They may have been jealous of the Harrington family's success. People are jealous of what they lack.

But there are different types of jealousy.

Did the perps hate her for being (in their eyes) a rich girl? Is that why they were so heartless?

A lot depends on whether my theories turn out to be true or perhaps even partly true, but JMO this case points to a lot of serious social problems that we have today. Further discussion of the implications of this case would go off-topic, but the whole concept of college (for example) needs to be rethought.

Morgan was basically a girl-next-door type.

for the killer to leave the usa, he would need the money to do so. what nationality do you think the killer is?

i would say he's a white male, upper middle class or higher. he's likely know morgan a long while and developed an obsession with her. this obsession went beyond sexual as well. he stalked her repeatedly in the past.

morgan was the girl next door type, she may have come from a family with money, however she had a really big heart and it showed. she reminded me of a lil neo hippie. she was not stuck up. she didn't seem to flaunt her money or "wealth" like other girls do.

if a guy had a crush on her, she turned him down, then maybe that guy didn't take it that well. it's possible he is so narcisistic that he interpreted something morgan said or even looked at him the wrong way and has held a grudge since.

morgan's murder might not have to do with money unless you want to talk about hiring hotshot lawyer or getting a public defender when it comes down to it.

from how the harringtons describe morgan's murder, it was horrific, graphic, done by a monster. we can only imagine that she suffered. it was done by someone very sadistic, a monster.

while we don't know the cod, we can only imagine that morgan suffered and the cod is very very horrifying a way to be murdered.

that kind of rage doesn't just come from nowhere. it's likely the killer had it building up for awhile. likely he projected it towards morgan and his obsession with her. he may think he is the king of the earth and can get away with murder.

similiar to your reference to a type like manson, walker.

a personality type similiar to manson or worse...

ps- walker you've been posting since the start of morgan's thread, do you remember the pictures of morgan hula-hooping at a music event? that was at the farm or no? do you remember where it was?

 

[chemcopout]

Thanks, I'm glad you found that.

It looks like maybe nothing was released about the rape until they were able to come up with the composite, so the articles are from October but the attack happened a month earlier?

I notice also that while the sketch appears to depict an African or possibly Middle Eastern man, the description says nothing about possible race or ethnicity. I'm going to play with that for a bit and see if I can doctor the sketch to look a little more neutral...

if the suspect is of middle eastern descent, his victim was as well. how likely would he be to pick or have a tendency to pick victims from the same ethnic or similiar background/race? does anyone know the statistics with this on rapists?

 

[chemcopout]

So the music event at the farm, and the lime, are both unsubstantiated rumors.

Have you ever tried to burn a cotton t-shirt? Cotton has a very high burning point. That's why they use it for potholders and such. I once had to burn the clothes I used to bury a dead animal. In a large firepit, with a gallon of gasoline poured on, there were still portions of the t-shirt remaining after an hour. And the stink was pretty amazing.

wow did you googled this? i didn't realize cotton was so hard to burn. i am scared to ask what you were burying..
do we know for a fact that morgan's shirt was 100% cotton or maybe partially cotton? there are accelerants that can be used to burn a cotton t-shirt. if burning doesn't work, you can always throw it into the ocean, bury it somewhere high in the mountains, or dump it into a reststop garbage off any highway.

the fact that the killer(s) decided to plant it instead of rid of the shirt says that they think they are bold and are willing to play games with the law.
it takes a cocky individual to do something like that.

most people would try to get rid of all evidence to cover their hides. this guy doesn't, he tosses the shirt in a specific area where he knows it will be found. did they get the guy in the suspect's sketch's dna off the shirt does anyone know?

 

[Japandaaa]

http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-could-new-dna-testing-method-solve-morgan-harringtons-murder-20110307,0,2447280.story

 

[Walker]

for the killer to leave the usa, he would need the money to do so. what nationality do you think the killer is?

My guess: One of the perps may have been Nepali/West Bengali/ other South Asian. But the rest of the group were "New Age" Americans.

When LE describes someone as "black," they are only referring to skin tone, not ethnicity.

i would say he's a white male, upper middle class or higher. he's likely know morgan a long while and developed an obsession with her. this obsession went beyond sexual as well. he stalked her repeatedly in the past.

Certainly it's possible, but a wealthy man would have everything to lose by committing a murder, and also he would have less cause to resent Morgan were her family less wealthy or influential than his own.

Those scrolls (for example) don't look like they were done by wealthy young men; they suggest cheap tattoo art.

Plus, wouldn't Morgan have told friends/family if some guy were stalking her?

Maybe at VTech Morgan met some girl with academic abilities but from an impoverished and mentally disturbed family background. And, maybe Morgan thought this girl was eccentric, but she was naive about how profound the girl's problems actually were, and how insanely jealous she could be. And, somehow through this girl, she became acquainted with a group which included Sketch; Sketch may have been the girl's boyfriend.

ps- walker you've been posting since the start of morgan's thread, do you remember the pictures of morgan hula-hooping at a music event? that was at the farm or no? do you remember where it was?

Bonnaroo 2009(?) http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2009/02/bonnaroo-2009-line-up-announced-.html

The 8th annual four- day camping and music festival event will be June 11 thru 14 on the same beautiful 700-acre farm in Manchester, TN (60 miles south of Nashville). Each year Bonnaroo works to make history by offering unique and exclusive performances by some of rock's greatest legends and its most significant newcomers. And this year seems to be no different, with a wide range of acts from Bruce/Phish/Nine Inch Nails to Rober Earl Keane / King Sunny Ade / The Ting Tings!

 

[Walker]

wow did you googled this? i didn't realize cotton was so hard to burn. i am scared to ask what you were burying..
do we know for a fact that morgan's shirt was 100% cotton or maybe partially cotton? there are accelerants that can be used to burn a cotton t-shirt. if burning doesn't work, you can always throw it into the ocean, bury it somewhere high in the mountains, or dump it into a reststop garbage off any highway.

the fact that the killer(s) decided to plant it instead of rid of the shirt says that they think they are bold and are willing to play games with the law.
it takes a cocky individual to do something like that.

most people would try to get rid of all evidence to cover their hides. this guy doesn't, he tosses the shirt in a specific area where he knows it will be found. did they get the guy in the suspect's sketch's dna off the shirt does anyone know?

As far as the public has been informed, the DNA was found only at the site where Morgan's body was found.

Maybe Sketch fled to his home country soon after the murder. His American gf planted the tee shirt to throw searchers off. She had no clue that Sketch had violently attacked another woman in 2005; therefore, she assumed that even if DNA were found on the shirt that it could not lead anywhere. She has no criminal record, but if her own DNA were identified, then she could just explain that she knew Morgan, saw her at college or maybe visited her apartment or Morgan gave her a ride some place.

 

[Walker]

if the suspect is of middle eastern descent, his victim was as well. how likely would he be to pick or have a tendency to pick victims from the same ethnic or similiar background/race? does anyone know the statistics with this on rapists?

The 2005 victim was from a South Asian country (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Sri Lanka ... ).

http://www.readthehook.com/blog/ind...irfax-case-connection-offers-hope-fresh-fear/

Jenkins says her son returned with a man and a woman who comforted the victim, and the three communicated in what she believes was Urdu--- a language primarily spoken by Muslims in India and Pakistan. The young woman "felt more comfortable speaking in her language," says Jenkins, who says she never saw the young woman again but heard she had moved in with family somewhere nearby.

 

[iluvmua]

*RIP Beautiful Girl*

 

[cluciano63]

Has LE ever released the ethnic make-up from the DNA? Or are guesses being made based on the drawing of suspect? Just wondering, as it is possible that LE sent the sample for this type of testing.

The fact that Morgan's DNA matched a prior rape case seems to indicate that Morgan was a random victim, to me.

 

[LadyBug99]

I also believe that this was a crime of opportunity. I think the cards were stacked against Morgan that night. I highly doubt that she had a stalker following her around. If Morgan had a stalker why would they choose a huge public event to make their move? Why not grab her from her apartment, campus etc? Morgan had plans to go to a concert with three friends. No one could have guessed that she would have become separated from them that evening. Seems to be too much of a risk. IMO. It also seems like a huge stretch that he would follow her to C-ville just hoping to that she made some poor choices that would have left her so vulnerable. I don't believe that Morgan fell victim to anyone that was involved in the scroll drawing. I also doubt that she was targeted for being a free spirit who showed interest in the free Tibet movement. JMO

In my opinion, this was a rape and brutal attack by a man who has attacked before. In the 2005 case, sketch was scared off. We don't know what his intentions were for the first victim.

 

[carbuff]

wow did you googled this? i didn't realize cotton was so hard to burn. i am scared to ask what you were burying..
do we know for a fact that morgan's shirt was 100% cotton or maybe partially cotton? there are accelerants that can be used to burn a cotton t-shirt. if burning doesn't work, you can always throw it into the ocean, bury it somewhere high in the mountains, or dump it into a reststop garbage off any highway.

the fact that the killer(s) decided to plant it instead of rid of the shirt says that they think they are bold and are willing to play games with the law.
it takes a cocky individual to do something like that.

most people would try to get rid of all evidence to cover their hides. this guy doesn't, he tosses the shirt in a specific area where he knows it will be found. did they get the guy in the suspect's sketch's dna off the shirt does anyone know?

No, I didn't google it, was just speaking from personal experience is all, and it could well have been something besides the cotton. And I was just helping a friend bury his dog who had wandered off and died where we didn't find him for a couple of days. That was NOT a pleasant task.

The thing about the mountains, rest stop, whatever, is that if he wasn't normally a person who went out driving in rural areas, a trip like that would really attract notice. Those are the kinds of places I would choose -- but I grew up in a rural area. If he's a city guy, those places are going to be really intimidating. The central area of campus is more likely to seem safe. It's dark, there are lots of people around -- that's a kind of anonymity, when you're just one in a crowd that nobody's paying attention to -- and if you leave it there, nobody can trace it back to you, because hundreds of people pass there every day and anybody could have left it.

If Morgan's body wasn't left at AF until later, he might have dumped the t-shirt just to try to lead LE in a different direction, away from where he left the body -- which would mean that wherever they were looking right before that must have been very close to where she was.

He might have kept the t-shirt as a trophy then decided it was too dangerous to keep.

If it's a plant, who do you think he's trying to point suspicion to? It's not like there's a suspect to incriminate.

 

[carbuff]

Has LE ever released the ethnic make-up from the DNA? Or are guesses being made based on the drawing of suspect? Just wondering, as it is possible that LE sent the sample for this type of testing.

The fact that Morgan's DNA matched a prior rape case seems to indicate that Morgan was a random victim, to me.

The earliest versions of the rape perpetrator's wanted poster indicate they thought he was "black" but the recent versions don't include that information. LE has not released any information about the DNA except that it was a match; in fact, it's only the last few weeks that they even admitted it was DNA and not other forensic evidence.

There are certain kinds of serial killers and serial rapists who target a particular kind of victim, but there are also opportunistic rapists who don't care about age, color, body type etc. as long as they've got a victim in a suitable spot.

I agree, everything about the case makes me think opportunistic perp.

 

[goldiegirl]

I also believe that this was a crime of opportunity. I think the cards were stacked against Morgan that night. I highly doubt that she had a stalker following her around. If Morgan had a stalker why would they choose a huge public event to make their move? Why not grab her from her apartment, campus etc? Morgan had plans to go to a concert with three friends. No one could have guessed that she would have become separated from them that evening. Seems to be too much of a risk.

In my opinion, this was a rape and brutal attack by a man who has attacked before. In the 2005 case, sketch was scared off. We don't know what his intentions were for the first victim.

Absolutely agree. IMO the connections are either just coincidence OR maybe they show that a random perp did have a certain type of target victim, but I definitly do not believe he knew Morgan beforehand. As others have mentioned, the fact that he'd done this before pretty much spells random. I think it's hard to wrap our heads around the fact that within 10 short minutes of a girl going hitchhiking a rapist/serial killer happens to be in the area and drives by and takes her, but unfortunately it's happening more and more often.

I can understand some of the profiling going on, but I really just think it might indicate a certain type of victim that he liked to target IF ANYTHING. Honestly, I think it's more than likely just a coincidence. Yes, historically some serial killers have had a profile of women they target who looked like ex girlfriends or whatnot. However, due to the circumstances of this crime, I have a hard time believing he would have passed up ANY girl who was standing on the bridge that night. Even if she seemed to have some interest in certain cultures and his previous victim seems to be from one of those cultures, I don't think he could have figured this out about Morgan simply from driving by. She doesn't look like the past victim at all. I really don't think her jewelry or clothing had anything to do with it. Of course, I could be WAY off, but I really do think it was just that a rapist/murderer happened to drive by. Then, of course, that begs the question - hasn't he come across other opportunities in the last 5 years since his first known victim? Where are all the others?

 

[carbuff]

One connection between the two crimes that might be significant, though: they both took place very near grocery stores. He might have followed the first woman home from Giant, and Morgan was near the convenience store on the corner. He might well have found that lurking around grocery stores, in urban areas where people walk a lot, was a good place to find victims who have their mind on other things and are easy to ambush.

I don't for a minute believe these are his only two victims; I think other cases just haven't been connected yet. They might be among the thousands of rape kits lying around police departments and forensics labs waiting to be processed, or maybe no DNA available.

 

[LadyBug99]

The earliest versions of the rape perpetrator's wanted poster indicate they thought he was "black" but the recent versions don't include that information. LE has not released any information about the DNA except that it was a match; in fact, it's only the last few weeks that they even admitted it was DNA and not other forensic evidence.

There are certain kinds of serial killers and serial rapists who target a particular kind of victim, but there are also opportunistic rapists who don't care about age, color, body type etc. as long as they've got a victim in a suitable spot.

I agree, everything about the case makes me think opportunistic perp.

I believe that the woman that was attacked identified sketch as African American. Maybe LE left out that info because no further testing has been done to verify that? Or perhaps that is just one more thing that LE isn't releasing for whatever reason. I do not believe that she was misrepresenting his ethnicity though. If she feared to tell the true ethnicity (as Walker suggested), Why report this rape and beating at all?

I also wonder if the grocery store aspect is a link but it could be just another coincidence. I think the major link that needs to be identified, is the link to AF.

Carbuff - What are your thoughts on the location?

 

[carbuff]

I believe that the woman that was attacked identified sketch as African American. Maybe LE left out that info because no further testing has been done to verify that? Or perhaps that is just one more thing that LE isn't releasing for whatever reason. I do not believe that she was misrepresenting his ethnicity though. If she feared to tell the true ethnicity (as Walker suggested), Why report this rape and beating at all?

I also wonder if the grocery store aspect is a link but it could be just another coincidence. I think the major link that needs to be identified, is the link to AF.

Carbuff - What are your thoughts on the location?

They haven't explicitly said, but I get the impression that the sketch may have come from the witness, not the victim, and that the LE working on Morgan's case have doubts about the accuracy. They haven't said anything specific, but the part about race isn't on the picture and description they're using.


As for the location -- I don't know. If the person who dumped her came in through Blandemar Farms or over the creek, it might have nothing whatsoever to do with Anchorage Farm -- it might be a place where the perp has gone fishing or hunting or drinking.