48 Hours - Hannah Graham: Deadly Connections - Encore

Episode Date: June 14, 2016

48 Hours goes inside the investigation of the death of the UVA student.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. We're going to continue to work relentlessly until we find Hannah Graham. Somebody's got to know where she is. Because it's been a week and we can't find her.

My Facebook feed was just waterlogged with, you know, Hannah Graham missing, missing, missing, missing. My initial reaction was, how could this be? The reaction on Twitter is a pretty good barometer of the way people care. Neil Orgenstein, WTOP News. The disappearance of Hannah Graham brought us down here to Charlottesville for what was the most extensive search in Virginia history, and it left the audience across the country hungry for every detail on Twitter.

Everyone had an idea about what police could do to find her. She's our only daughter, and she's enormously precious to us all. You know, immediately I contacted the police department and said, what do we have here? You know, do you feel like this person went missing on her own? They said, no, this was out of character. This is being seen as suspicious. This was out of character. This is being seen as suspicious. You've got different women within that area who had gone missing.

You had Morgan Harrington, Alexis Murphy, you know, Hannah Graham was the latest one. You know, all these names, you go down the list. Continuing coverage now for the search for Alexis Murphy. Five years since Morgan Harrington was last seen alive. The search is on for a missing University of Virginia student. Your heart squeezes and you say, oh no, not another one. I received a call from the University of Virginia police who informed me that Morgan's purse had been found in a parking lot. I knew that minute something terrible had happened.

I knew that minute something terrible had happened. We still haven't found Alexis, but the tapes in and of themselves are haunting. What happened, what transpired in those minutes that we don't have her on camera that caused her to disappear literally into thin air? We are part of a club. We're part of an ugly little club. The surveillance tapes really were the turning point in this case. She's coming from the direction you were coming from the University of Virginia. In one of those images, she's walking with a man. We do have tape here that supposedly shows them together.

We do have tape here that supposedly shows them together. After the Hannah Graham case broke, my chief deputy said, you know, that looks just like our composite. He looks like the assailant in our case. In my mind, this was not a first-timer. We had these missing girls, and of course their families were looking for answers. DNA science is ultimately what connected three separate cases. I'm Susan Spencer. Tonight on 48 Hours, Hannah Graham, Deadly Connections. royalty, her specialty, representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.

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Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it.

It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they

can get away with. In the Pitcairn trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely, Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Charlottesville is beautiful. Beautiful downtown mall, great restaurants,

it's a college town. Charlottesville, Virginia. Historic. Quaint. Home to the prestigious University of Virginia. 18-year-old Hannah Elizabeth Graham loved it here. When she went missing on September 13, 2014, she had just started her second year. A few days later, her distraught parents, Sue and John Graham, appealed for help.

This is every parent's worst nightmare. I'm certain that everybody knows that what happened to Hannah could happen to their child. Please, please help us. The disappearance outraged the entire community, from fellow students... You make things good, Hannah Graham. ...to the police chief, Tim Longo. We're going to continue our work. We're going to continue to work relentlessly until we find Hannah Graham.

We knew at that time that she had gone out to dinner with friends that night, and that, you know, like most college students, she had gone out to dinner with friends that night and that you know like most college students she had gone to a couple parties. WTVR reporter Laura French a 48 hours consultant has followed this story from day one. We know that after she left that party no one had heard from her other than a couple text messages and that text at 1.06 a.m. was, you know, I'm trying to get to a party, I believe, and I'm lost.

I'm lost? It wasn't completely out of character that she'd be lost. Here she moved into off-campus housing. School had just started. We were just a few weeks into the school year. And, you know, you can lose your bearings, especially in and out of that downtown mall area. So this is the mall in Charlottesville.

This is the last place, really, where we see Hannah Graham. That's right. This is known as the downtown Charlottesville pedestrian mall. And it is the last known image that we have of Hannah Graham on this mall. Popular place with the kids? You definitely see kids down here, but this is not what we would call the hangout. British-born Hannah Graham moved with her parents to Virginia when she was just five years old. Her friend, Lila Nasser, remembers her as super smart, musically gifted, and with a dry sense of humor.

She's one of those people who just knew who she was. Very much a go-getter. She was very confident and driven. Hannah is witty and much smarter than any coach that was on the field. Just shy of six feet, Hannah was a standout on the softball field. High school coach Craig Maniglia. As time went on, she moved herself up to her senior year when she became captain of the team. Vivacious, popular, talented.

No surprise that Hannah Graham's disappearance exploded on social media. Prosecutors say that will happen. WTOP radio reporter Neil Augenstein, who worked with 48 Hours on this investigation, was tweeting details almost by the minute. We've been able to tell it as it's developing. With Twitter, you can tell the little bits that caught your attention and do add color and perspective and context to a story. Tomorrow County Sergeant testified today. And the story became even more intriguing as video began to surface. Here is Hannah at a UVA event only 10 days before she went missing.

An eerie contrast to the grainy images of her caught on tape by surveillance cameras the night she disappeared. caught on tape by surveillance cameras the night she disappeared. Well, the Hannah Graham case resonated so much more with Charlottesville because she was living here in Charlottesville. Attorney and longtime Charlottesville resident Lloyd Snook has been following the case closely. Her disappearance was reported within a day. They could track through the various video cameras where she had gone. She had been downtown and then the trail goes cold. Then she just vanished. He walked us through the videos of Hannah's last known hours, starting as she leaves her apartment,

a normal kid, out on a Friday night. This is McGrady's. This was a restaurant, and you'll see Hannah Graham coming in from the left, the lower left. She's highlighted. I'm going to stop that because, you know, that stumble, to some people who watch this,

is very telling. She seems a little unsteady on her feet, both here and later on in the video. She's coming from the direction that you would come from if you were coming from the University of Virginia. And then after a few minutes, we see her. She reemerges. And what do you think this was all about?

My guess, purely a guess, is that she went by McGrady's to see if a friend was in there who might buy her a drink or something like that. Police believe Hannah had been drinking that night. She's next seen on video from a nearby gas station. And this time, I mean, she is running. Who knows what that means? You know, it's really hard to say. It's not a particularly dangerous neighborhood. It's a well-lit area.

And I think that the cops have looked at this, and there doesn't appear to be anybody running after her. Right. So she's running now. She's going toward the mall. Just seconds before Hannah next surfaces on security footage near a local pizzeria, its camera catches a man walking on the downtown mall. You'll notice he's a pretty distinctive looking guy. He's a big man. He's got dreads. It's kind of obvious why people would notice him over the course of the next half hour. He disappears here

briefly, and then we're about to see Hannah here. She's by herself. By herself. But soon the man makes a U-turn and then reappears, now walking in Hannah's direction. So you see a pretty big guy there. Yeah. Keeping behind several other people. And at that point, he's probably 20, 30 yards behind Hannah. The last video from a jewelry store camera shows Hannah and the unidentified man now walking side by side. And they seem to be walking in sync together. By enhancing the picture, police note that his arm is around her waist.

Very strange to watch two people on videotape and realize how much their lives are going to change. You can only imagine what was going on in her mind. You can only imagine what was going on in his mind. There is no video from her last known stop. So this is the tempo bar. This is the last place that she was seen in public. In public. No images of her, but the police say that several eyewitnesses put her inside that bar with the suspect. If that young lady's touched your life in any way, you have the responsibility to help us find her. Somebody knows what happened to Hannah. We don't know who that is, but somebody knows what happened to Hannah.

That somebody, police think, may well be that man on tape. that man on tape who made the odd U-turn to walk in Hannah's direction. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. But did you know that the movie Candyman

was partly inspired by an actual murder It was called Candyman. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing the best idea yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk takers who brought them to life.

Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your

podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet. I want to split them up, a couple guys on the right, a couple guys on the left. Yeah, sounds good. News of Hannah Graham's disappearance put normally peaceful Charlottesville on high alert. I was terrified when I found out just because I know it could have easily been me because I've walked home alone. I definitely thought differently walking to my car at night having worked in that area. You know, I want to make sure, you know, when I was leaving after a newscast at 1130 at night,

that there was someone watching me walk to my car. It was definitely on the back of everyone's minds. Also on the back of everyone's mind, events of five years earlier, when another young woman simply vanished off these streets. 2009, you have this Virginia Tech student, Morgan Harrington, who is last seen at a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena. It was Saturday, October 17, 2009. 20-year-old Morgan Harrington drove from her parents' home in Roanoke, Virginia to the UVA campus arena to see one of her favorite bands.

Morgan had come to spend the weekend with us, which was not unusual, and was really excited about the Metallica concert. It was the last time her parents, Jill and Dan Harrington, would see their daughter alive. How long was it before you were aware that anything at all was wrong? On Sunday morning, about 11 o'clock, I received a call from the University of Virginia police who informed me that Morgan's purse had been found in a parking lot. I knew that minute something terrible had happened. And Morgan, you knew, was gone.

Morgan was like the moon. She was reflecting the light that was in the world. Lindsey Crisp grew up with Morgan, friends since elementary school. Wherever she walked in, there was a shift in the energy. Morgan was a lot of fun, you know? She had finally reached that point in life where we had an adult relationship with her and it was really an exciting, very gratifying

point in time. She was someone who loved art and music, did not like math and science, which is, we are math and science people. Lindsay was in Europe when Morgan went missing, only to come home to a terrible shock. My parents stood me in the den and they said, we need to let you know Morgan's gone. She's been missing for 10 days. It felt like there was no hope in that moment. So I ran upstairs and just cried. Investigators had little to work with. At one point, Morgan had left her friends, something had happened, and she ended up outside the arena.

Morgan left to go to the restroom, and we have a witness that Morgan was bleeding from an injury on her face. So we assume that at some point between the seat and the restroom, Morgan fell. And then the next thing we heard was that Morgan had left the building and they wouldn't let her back in. There was a report that she was seen hitchhiking. Does that make sense to you? It does now. She was reported to be confused and how's Morgan going to get home? Morgan Harrington was last seen on this bridge, alone, on foot, and possibly injured. Unable to get back into the concert, she may have simply decided to find her own way to her friend's apartment, a casual decision that likely cost her her life.

I think Morgan was impaired. I think she was injured. She was not thinking clearly. I think that someone driving a taxi cab stopped, and Morgan felt safe and got in, and I think the rest is history. But this is your theory about the cab? That's my theory.

Nobody actually saw a cab or saw her get into a cab? No, no, no. This weekend's search for Morgan Harrington will start here, where she was last seen on this bridge. Within days, Morgan's disappearance was dominating the local news and social media. Family members, volunteers, and friends will scour the Charlottesville area looking for clues, looking for anything that could lead them to Morgan. And as with Hannah Graham, years later, the community responded. We had 2,000 people searching for Morgan over a weekend.

Morgan's case was one of the first cases that used social media to solicit information and tips and as a crime-solving tool. Just passing out flyers. We felt that the only way that we could help Morgan was to not let Morgan's case be swept under the rug. If Morgan is out there and hears us, please come home. We are trying to find you. We will never stop.

We are trying, honey. Hang on. Even Metallica tried to help. Any information, no matter how small you might think it is, could be that crucial piece investigators need to help solve the case. Somewhere out there lies the answers, or lies the vital link of information that we need. Help us bring Morgan home for Christmas. You are basically

swinging on a pendulum between hope and despair. It becomes pretty clear after a couple days that, you know, it's probably not going to turn out good. Tragically, Morgan's father was right. Breaking news this afternoon out of Albemarle County. In January 2010, three months after Morgan disappeared, human remains were found on a farm just 10 miles from the UVA campus. We're fairly confident at this time that the remains are those of Morgan Dana Harrington. She was found by a farmer who was checking his fences

and saw what he thought initially was, you know, a deer carcass. But it was not. It was our daughter. But a forensic exam of the remains apparently yielded no clues as to who her assailant was. That would come from a T-shirt. The T-shirt, I believe, was found in November, a couple weeks after Morgan was killed. Found one day draped over a bush near the UVA campus. The most disturbing to me was that it had been put out like a trophy.

And just the nerve and cockiness of a perpetrator who would leave a trophy like that in the middle of a campus. They were able to actually pick up some of Morgan's DNA in the T-shirt. Even more importantly, testing picked up unknown DNA. And when police ran it through their database, they got a hit, not to a person, but to another crime, four years earlier and 100 miles away.

They had foreign DNA in their case, which was matched to my foreign DNA in my case. In the fall of 2005, a man attacked, beat, and sexually assaulted a young woman in Fairfax, Virginia. Detective Michael Boone was the lead investigator. This is just an aerial of the general area. It is. It's a 2005 aerial. The woman who asked to be identified only as RG was walking home from her local supermarket sometime after 8 30 p.m. She's captured here on a security camera. She felt somebody behind her and she turned and was face-to-face with the suspect

and asked him if she could help him, and he stated something to the effect that he was waiting for a friend or something. And she felt uncomfortable. She had a vibe and just kept moving, and when she reached the front of her residence, she said she heard footsteps coming quickly behind her, and then she was picked up off the ground.

And how violent an attack was this? You know, you call it a blitzkrieg type of attack. A blitzkrieg type of attack? Yeah, comes out of nowhere. Very fast, very violent. He takes her and carries her across the parking lot into the wooded area down where this large tree is. I parked roughly where that green truck is over there.

It was just blind luck that Mark Castro came along when he did. What was the reason that you were even here that night? I was here to see a boxing match at my friend's house. Just stop by and see the boxing match? That's right. When Mr. Castro pulled in and parked in this general area, the lights from his car would have been shining into the area where they were. Those lights may have saved the woman's life.

The suspect stood up, looked up, and looked towards the parking lot, which is where Mr. Castro was standing, and she said he took off running. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure standing roughly in front of that trash can. I was just shocked, and I'm, you know, am I believing what I'm seeing right now? What were you seeing? I was seeing a lady that was beaten nearly to death, and she was covered in mud and covered with blood, and she was walking towards me. Did she say anything about what had happened?

She told me that, you know, there's a guy back there. Just back there, meaning back in the woods? And after that, I sprinted back there, screaming at the top of my voice, telling whoever it was to come out. But the attacker was gone. I turned around and come back to her and then made sure to get her to safety. I knocked on each and every house until someone answered the door. She went to Fairbanks Hospital, the emergency room, where we bring in a forensic nurse who does the sexual assault exam.

They scraped the underside of the fingernails. And there was DNA evidence? Yes. The next day, the victim, R.G., was able to describe her assailant to a sketch artist who produced a composite. Approximately 6'2", maybe 200 pounds, short hair with a mustache and beard. But a description of the suspect, a sketch, even his DNA did not answer the central question. Who was he? It would take another tragedy and another lost life to

answer that. The DNA evidence had been found in the Morgan Harrington case, and I just had a feeling on the Hannah Graham. Where are you? We want you back where you belong. The days go by with no trace of second-year UVA student Hannah Graham, despite what would become the largest search in Virginia's history. Members of the Charlottesville community have turned out in force to help. Armies of Hannah's university friends have been helping. Each day, hundreds of volunteers show up,

including one who has lived through this all before. I read that Alexis Murphy's aunt Trina was helping. Thank you, ma'am. When my niece was missing, I wanted the whole world looking for her. When they had the big search for Hannah, I went out to help look for her. It just, it's just heartbreaking. Like the Grahams and the Harringtons, Trina Murphy knows the pain of having a child go missing. She knows it all too well. The FBI is in day three of its search for Alexis Murphy, and there's still no sign of her. If anybody knows anything, please, please let us know.

They have expanded their search for Murphy. The more people that are looking, the better chance we have of finding her. On August 3rd, 2013, four years after Morgan's murder, a year before Hannah Graham went missing, Trina's niece, 17-year-old Alexis Murphy, left her home in Shipman, Virginia on a routine errand. Shipman's less than 40 miles from Charlottesville. She was planning to go to Lynchburg to buy hair extensions because she was getting her hair done for her senior pictures. Her last tweet was birdbound. Alexis's mother, Laura Murphy. And this is a kid who tweets and calls all the time, right? All the time, yeah.

She's constantly trying to stay in touch. Right. She was a very happy child. Alexis loved making people laugh. Go. We had videos where she danced, and she could dance. Her mother and aunt knew something was seriously wrong when they heard nothing from Alexis for hours.

There was not a single tweet, not a single text message, not a single phone call, no activity on her cell phone once she left Liberty. That's the Liberty gas station where Alexis was last seen. Like Hannah Graham, her movements caught on tape. What did you think then when you saw that tape? You know, how could she go missing from the Liberty gas station? What happened? What transpired in those minutes that we don't have her on camera? In surveillance video not yet released to the public, Alexis's car is seen leaving this gas station, apparently following an SUV.

Investigators identify its owner as one Randy Taylor, and witnesses say he often would just hang around the gas station watching people. I just think that he had been stalking her. He knew her routine. It didn't take much time to link him to her disappearance. They found her hair extensions in his trailer. She had a Monroe piercing. She had a nose piercing. She had false fingernails. They were found in there.

And her blood on the shirt he was wearing that day, seen in the video. Police find her car in a movie theater parking lot in Charlottesville. Inside the car, they find DNA they can't identify from several sources, but none of it matches the unknown DNA from the Harrington murder and the Fairfax rape. Even without finding Alexis, they arrest Randy Taylor and charge him with her murder. His trial is attended by someone who truly understands what the Murphys are going through. Well, Jill reached out to us probably about three weeks after Alexis was abducted. Jill Harrington makes the three-and-a-half-hour round trip every day.

I also wanted to be there and shoulder and support them any way I could. It means a great deal to us. Jill has really, really helped me. Guilty on all counts. The jury convicts Randy Taylor. He is sentenced to life. Alexis never has been found. When we left court,

they said we're never going to give up searching for her. And now the Murphys and the Harringtons join the Grahams in the search for Hannah. Trina Murphy and I converged on Charlottesville to talk to the community, to ask for tips, to ask for participation in search, because the Grahams were unable to do that at that time, and we wanted to get as many people out there looking for Hannah as possible. Just to hold their hand, to hold her mother's hand and pray for their closure, you know, for them to find their daughter. We're part of an ugly little club that we have some knowledge and some understanding of how to proceed. and some understanding of how to proceed.

Once you know how bad it feels to have a murdered child, you want to do whatever you can to help anyone else who's in the same terrible spot that you're in. Police say they do have a person of interest in the disappearance of Hannah Graham. On day six of Hannah's disappearance, acting on a tip, police identify and locate the man seen on tape with her in the mall. They search his apartment. They seize his car.

They obtain something out of his wallet. It's a tip that's used for cigars. And they take that into evidence and they send it off to be analyzed. Within a day, the man's name leaks out. He is 32-year-old Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. And before police can even confirm it to reporters, he simply walks into the police station voluntarily. So Jesse Matthew arrived at the Charlottesville police station and he said he wanted to get a lawyer. Matthew didn't answer any questions, wasn't interested in telling police anything, and he left the police station. With no concrete evidence, they can't hold him, but that doesn't stop them from following him. Several hours later, while police were following Jesse Matthew, he took off from his grandmother's house.

Driving his sister's car, he suddenly floors it. And they lose him. Excuse me? They lose him. Astonishingly, the only suspect in Hannah Graham's disappearance leaves police in the dust. Police did not have the authority to chase him. They didn't have enough to arrest him really at that point, but they really thought they had their suspect. And he's gone.

When news broke that Jesse Matthew was on the lam, Twitter exploded. When news broke that Jesse Matthew was on the lam, Twitter exploded. We have all these people who are already deeply involved in this case, searching for answers, racking their brains. And they're coming up with ideas and saying, well, why aren't police doing that? Why can't police do this? Things don't work as quickly in real life as they do on a TV show. work as quickly in real life as they do on a TV show. I believe Jessie Matthew was the last person she was seen with before she vanished off the face of the earth. Because it's been a week and we can't find her. But somebody knows where she is.

Somebody's got to know where she is. So I hope and pray that we might have an opportunity to talk to Jesse Matthew again. Because I think he can help us find Hannah Graham. And just days after fleeing, Matthew, still on the run, is formally charged in Hannah's abduction. The Commonwealth felt we had sufficient probable cause to seek an arrest warrant for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. of Charlottesville, charging him with a Class 2 felony of abduction with the intent to defile. And for the first time, Hannah's mother speaks out. Somebody listening to me today either knows where Hannah is or knows someone who has that information. We appeal to you to come forward and tell us where Hannah can be found.

They only knew that Hannah was missing. They didn't know where she was. They didn't know if she was alive or dead. Everybody had their fears, but nobody knew. Now, police aren't just looking for one missing person. They are looking for two. Days are going by and we don't know where Jesse Matthew is. In Albemarle County, searches had become daily events. Searches for both UVA student Hannah Graham and for the only suspect in her disappearance, Jesse Matthew. Not only do we have each day that's ticking by

that the Graham family doesn't know where their daughter is, but we also have the person that they say was last seen with her. We don't know where he is. There's no clues being offered. It was tense. This press conference and every press conference hereafter is about one thing and one thing only, and that is finding Hannah. This was a very heated few days. I'm hoping that they're hearing my words

and seeing my frustration. Chief Longo was obviously very involved in this. And pick up the phone and tell us something, regardless of how insignificant you think it might be. He was speaking to the press and speaking directly to Jesse Matthew. I've made no mistake about it. We want to talk to Jesse Matthew. We want to talk about his interaction with a sweet young girl that we can't find, because he was with her. Surely someone had information about Jesse Matthew. After all, the then 32-year-old grew up in Charlottesville,

went to high school there, and was working at the university hospital, transporting patients. People have been trying to learn more about Jesse Matthew since they first heard his name. People who've known him had called him a gentle giant. This was a guy who was a football player. This was a guy who was working in Charlottesville with kids. He was a volunteer football coach. He was a quiet guy and mentored these high school students.

In fact, the night that Hannah Graham went missing, he was at the game that Friday night, helping these kids, cheering them on. So on the outside, nothing seemed suspect. I have talked to friends of his who said, I trusted him with my children. Nobody said, yeah, you know, Jesse always had trouble, and this is the kind of thing we would have expected. No. If anything, it was he was not capable of premeditating anything. He may have been awkward socially sometimes and quiet, but never, never could he be capable of this. He was a team player. He was always there and, you know, participating in team activities. William Haith knew Jesse Matthew when

both played football at Virginia's Liberty University, which Matthew attended from 2000 to 2002. He knew how to play football and he was actually great at it. I thought he had potential to do some some great things on the football field. But off the field, information began to circulate that cast Matthew, or LJ as his friends called him, in a much different light. My head coach let us know they were going to put LJ off the team because apparently he had forced himself on a female student. Did anybody ever say, hey, you know, what happened? Is this

true? Once he was kicked off the team, no one that I know of actually went out their way just to get more detail. His roommate said that he may not have known that he was going too far, but again, that's speculation, hearsay from his roommate. There were so many rumors going around, but no, there was no concrete evidence. Lynchburg police did confirm they conducted an investigation of an alleged rape that occurred around the same time, but no criminal charges were filed. Still, Matthew left, not just the football team, but the university. And teammates, says Haith, quickly put the incident and Jesse Matthew behind them. None of us came in defense of him. I mean, it lingered on for maybe a couple of days, but then we kept it moving.

After Liberty, Matthew attended Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. Again, he was on the football team, and again, he left after just a few months amid allegations of another sexual assault. What happened to these cases? It went under the radar. They didn't press charges. So the next university did not know what they were getting. There's no requirement that that be? There was no requirement that they needed to alert the other university of why he was transferring. So there's these allegations, and next thing you know, he's transferred.

They never had a determination by anybody that he was dangerous. Attorney Lloyd Snook. Looking back, you can't help but say, gosh, if there had been a requirement that the colleges make this public. Well, it's probably more to the point that when there is no actual prosecution, that's where the system fails. Not once, but twice. That's right. After leaving his second college, Matthew came back to Charlottesville, driving a cab for a few years. He had a few minor run-ins with police, traffic violations, and trespassing.

To kill or hurt somebody, that's not my son. Matthew's father, like many, was bewildered at the thought that Jesse could be involved in something as serious as Hannah Graham's abduction. I could see him maybe trying to give the girl a ride home or help her out. Mostly, I'm just really shocked. Frances Lee Vandell was Matthew's landlady. We don't know a thing yet. We don't know a thing. Everything seemed to be going well for Jesse. He'd had a promotion at the hospital. Charges are filed against a man authorities believe was the last person seen with a University of Virginia student before her disappearance more than one week ago.

I'm watching the news. I'm shocked. I'm like, wow, is this LJ that went to school with me? William Haith hadn't seen or heard from Matthew in years. When he learned that his former teammate was suspected in Hannah Graham's disappearance, his reaction was pure shock at first. And then next, you know, everything just started flashing through my head. The incident that happened at Liberty, like, wow, could LJ have done this? And how did you answer that? At first, you know, I'm like, no. He just seemed to be a caring person. But again, when you start looking at some of the other things, then I thought that possibly.

You almost get the impression of two Jesse Matthews. Who was the real Jesse Matthew? Maybe this guy was okay. People were trying to get in touch with the family, with his lawyer. I am Mr. Matthew's attorney. I was hired by him and his family on Saturday. That's the only comment I'll make at this time. Looking, asking, tell us a little bit about him. Let us at least paint a picture that's fair. I think that everyone was trying to maintain hope that maybe this was a mistake.

But as the days wore on, with no sign of Hannah Graham or Jesse Matthew, hope was scarce, with memories turning to those other young women for whom searches had failed. They may not have all been connected, but it definitely was on the minds of people living in and around Central Virginia, the Charlottesville area.

I think most people were beginning to think pretty bleak thoughts. You know, somebody give us some information about something. Soon, someone would, and the twisted trail of Jesse Matthew would take a surprising turn into the past. This car came in front of me and stopped, and the fellow that was sitting in the driver's seat kind of glares at me. I had seen his face on the news every morning. My heart literally probably stopped beating because I knew that was him. If you like this podcast,

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