48 Hours - 48 Hours: The Hannah Graham Story Episode 4: The Case Widens

Episode Date: September 17, 2015

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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. I'm Neil Orgenstein for WTOP Radio. Over the coming week, I'll be doing a series of podcasts leading to 48 Hours' season premiere on the disappearance of Hannah Graham. It's the story of how one missing, then murdered college student in Charlottesville, Virginia, leads to other cases of unsolved attacks against young women.

Join us each day as we examine new details of these crimes in this series of podcasts, and also on the two-hour season premiere of 48 Hours on Saturday, September 26th at 9 p.m. Eastern on the CBS television network. My Facebook feed was just waterlogged with, you know, Hannah Graham missing, missing, missing, missing. Previously on the CBS News 48 Hours podcast, the Hannah Graham story. You literally have no clue what's going on. At the same time, you don't want to because you don't want to hear something bad. We appeared before a magistrate and obtained an arrest warrant for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., charging him with a class two felony of abduction with the intent to defile. When I looked up and I saw him, I mean, his facial features are unmistakable. I just held my breath.

At the time, it seemed like an eternity. But it took only 12 days in September 2014 from when UVA student Hannah Graham disappeared until Jesse Matthew was identified, tracked down, and arrested. He was charged with abduction with intent to defile. That was a big relief for people here in Charlottesville, but it was only part of the story because there was still no sign of Hannah Graham and no indication that Jesse Matthew was willing to share any information about where she was. Hoss Spencer, you've been covering Charlottesville for 25 years.

Were there some people who thought that Hannah Graham would never be found? It was a strange time. The disappearance of Hannah Graham really captured the attention of this whole community. Charlottesville is the kind of place where people really want to help out, and people were being told that Jesse Matthew was an avid fisherman, and so there was emphasis on fishing holes and lakes and ponds that people were told to go out and search. There were people who not only walked their own properties, but were volunteering to go out with

search parties. Everybody seemed to know that this mystery was hovering over the community. I remember every time I drove to and from Charlottesville during the time, up and down Route 29, I was wondering if it was possible that she was somewhere nearby. Yeah, yeah. Charlottesville is a cool, hip urban center in the city limits. But as soon as you start heading out into the countryside, it becomes a very different place where the income level falls off and the population density drops dramatically. We're talking about Albemarle County, and it's a very rural county. Lots of little houses separated by big woods and big empty spaces. It was probably no more than a 15-minute drive from the center of town, but it felt like a world away.

15-minute drive from the center of town, but it felt like a world away. As police and the community searched for Hannah Graham, at least one family could partially comprehend the agony that Hannah Graham's family was going through, the family of Morgan Harrington. She was a 20-year-old student at Virginia Tech. She disappeared after attending a Metallica concert at UVA. Morgan was murdered in 2009 on October 17th after a concert at John Paul Jones Arena. Morgan's mother, Jill Harrington, says back then in 2009, even as the search continued for her daughter's remains and her killer, Even as the search continued for her daughter's remains and her killer, investigators were gathering evidence that the same person was attacking young women.

It was a couple months after Morgan was killed that we were told that there was a forensic link to an unknown suspect who had committed an assault and rape in Fairfax, Virginia. That gave us some hope because we didn't know who was involved with our daughter's murder, but we knew when we found him that we would know it was him. DNA did link the murder of Morgan Harrington to that Fairfax, Virginia rape, which happened four years earlier as a woman walked home with two bags of groceries. Investigators knew the same man committed both attacks, but they didn't have a name to go with that DNA. And that not knowing was a constant for Jill and Dan Harrington for five years. But they tell 48 Hours' Susan Spencer the day that all changed. One morning on a Saturday morning, I go to the gym and I turn my phone on

and I had a message on Facebook from a woman who said, please look at the picture of the person who had been accused of abduction in the case of Hannah Graham and look at the sketch picture. And I said, oh, my God, they're the same people. And so immediately I sent that to our investigator with the Virginia State Police, and he said, yes, I know. And so, you know, it just sort of all came together, you know, with thinking of Morgan's case being, you know, very similar to the Hannah Graham case and potentially the same person being the perpetrator for both of those. And then the unthinkable.

Morgan's family, already offering sympathy and support to Hannah's family, found that their daughter's cases were tied more closely than either family could imagine. They did call us and tell us that there was forensic link also now to Hannah's case as well as the Fairfax case. Now though we actually had an arrest and had a suspect. You know part of us we were happy that we had an answer and that the person was apprehended, but it came at a hideous cost. You know, I've been working, we have been working. Many people who have helped us have been working frantically since Morgan was killed to try and prevent another murder

by the same top-tier predator. And I was told early on it was likely Morgan's case would be solved from forensics from another body. And, you know, something in me reared up, and I realized logically that is indeed what may happen and what did happen. Jill and Dan Harrington have formed a non-profit group called Help Save the Next Girl in honor of their daughter to keep other young women safe. In 2009, Blaine Eichner was a UVA student who lived in downtown Charlottesville. Police had given a description of what Morgan Harrington was wearing,

a black t-shirt with a band name Pantera on it, the night she disappeared. I passed by the shirt. It was just obviously spread out across the bush where I saw it. And at first I didn't think much of it because it was not rare for people to hang their clothes out on their balcony to let them dry. And our building didn't have a very good washer and dryer. It wasn't uncommon to see clothes hanging on banisters and such. I did it myself often, and I didn't think much of it until later that evening. I was driving to Richmond and remembered they'd given the description of the shirt. I called my roommate who was still at the apartment.

I asked him to go outside and see if the shirt was still there. And it was. And he then called the authorities. But Jill Harrington believes the shirt draped over a bush in the middle of downtown Charlottesville wasn't just an accident, but a deliberate act by her daughter's killer. The man she now believes is Jesse Matthew. I really thought that it was a really kind of a thumb in the eye to law enforcement. I thought it showed a lot of bravado. It really was displayed like a trophy. Morgan's shirt was the most identifiable

piece of clothing that she wore that night. It was a vintage t-shirt and you can't buy them and that was something, an item that police were looking for and asking for people to try and remember if they had seen a girl wearing that shirt. It took more than three months until January 2010 before a farmer on his tractor found Morgan Harrington's remains in a remote hayfield on his 700-acre farm in Albemarle County, south of Charlottesville. And four years later, with the Morgan Harrington murder still unsolved, members of the same community were now searching for Hannah Graham, who'd been missing for three weeks. Then just five miles from where Morgan's remains were found,

landscaper Bobby Pugh notices something out of the ordinary. Headed to work one day, had been in the area a while working. Knew the residents. Happened to look over and notice something odd. Noticed there was quite a few buzzards on the roof as well as in the trees in the backyard. Not a normal amount of buzzards. More than normal. Can you describe how many you think you saw?

I'm going to guess 20 to 30. It was that noticeable. Went to work, worked a couple hours, and on the way back I noticed they were still there. Thought it was odd. It wasn't cold that morning. They wouldn't have been on the roof to warm themselves. They were definitely there scavenging for something.

So what did you do with your information? I thought about it and I drove back to town and I kept working that day. In the back of my mind, I was like, you know, maybe I should call just the tip line, just to say what I saw. I would feel bad if something came about and I didn't make the call. So I called later that day and talked to the lady on the other line and told her what I saw. And the house had been for sale for a few years or a couple years. And I had thought about stopping in and checking it out, but the for sale sign was gone now. So in my head, I was thinking, well, maybe someone purchased it. I don't want to be a trespasser on a property. That's the reason I didn't stop. Bobby Pugh didn't get a call back from detectives, but he knew they were busy.

And on October 18th, just over a month since Hannah Graham was last seen, Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo made an announcement. I want to thank you in advance for your patience and your respect and your consideration of the fact that there's very little information that we're going to be able to share with you this evening. I know you'll have lots of questions. You'll want to know more facts, and those will be facts that we're not in a position to share right now. So at the conclusion of our remarks, we will not be taking any of your questions. There may be in the days to come opportunities for that, but we wanted to let you

know that in advance. And again, thank you in advance for your respect and your patience. It was some 35 days ago, some five weeks since 18-year-old University of Virginia student Hannah Graham disappeared from our downtown pedestrian mall. Since that time, the Charlottesville Police Department, in cooperation with the County of Albemarle and jurisdictions throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, engaged in an unprecedented search in an effort to find her and return her to her family. in an effort to find her and return her to her family. Thousands of hours have been spent by literally hundreds of law enforcement and civilian volunteers in an effort to find Hannah.

We think perhaps today proved their worth. Sometime before noon today, a search team from the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Department was searching an abandoned property along Old Lynchburg Road in southern Albemarle County when they discovered what appears to be human remains. Now, fairly shortly after that discovery at a time that was most appropriate, Detective Sergeant James Mooney of the Charlottesville Police Department made a very difficult phone call and reached out to John and Susan Graham to share with them this preliminary discovery. Again, these are human remains and forensic tests need to be conducted to determine the identification of those remains. But nonetheless, we wanted to be quick and timely to share that information with the Graham family.

This investigation is complicated. It's a complex criminal investigation and it's unlikely that we'll have any information in the very near future and perhaps the days to come that we'll be able to share with you about what we learned today and what we'll likely learn in the days to come. But again, we know you'll be patient. We know you'll be respectful because there will come a time when we'll be able to tell you more, but that's not today. Has the search for Hannah Graham finally ended? And did police have enough evidence to charge Jesse Matthew for what police now believed was a case of murder? Tomorrow on the CBS News 48 Hours podcast, the Hannah Graham story.

And join us on Saturday, September 26th at 9 p.m. Eastern on the CBS television network for the special two-hour season premiere of 48 Hours on the Hannah Graham case. A look into her disappearance and the apparent connection with other unsolved attacks on young women. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand,

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