Anatomy of Murder - Save the Next Girl - Part 2 (Morgan Harrington, RG, Hannah Graham)

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

Three young women forever linked by a predator - 2 murdered and 1 who survived, her life forever changed. Video might be the key to finally identifying their attacker, and bringing him to justice. For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/ Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

Previously on Anatomy of Murder. We knew there was an apex predator in Charlottesville, Virginia. Back in 2010, our band offered $50,000 to help catch the person responsible for murdering Morgan Harrington. It's too late for Morgan. Let's help save the next girl. Authorities uncovered new evidence linking her killer to a similar assault on a woman in Virginia. We hear the gut-wrenching news that there's yet another vibrant, athletic, smart co-ed is missing from Charlottesville. She's 18 years old and had just begun enjoying her second year at UVA.

Her name is Hannah Graham. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murph. A quick reminder for all of our listeners, this is the second episode in a two-part story. So if you haven't already heard that episode one, go back and listen. Now on to the show. Today's story begins at the University of Virginia in the fall of 2014. Five years before, Morgan Harrington had disappeared in Charlottesville after leaving a Metallica concert.

Her body was found a bit more than three months later. The DNA from Morgan's shirt had linked to another attack, the sexual assault of a young woman identified to us by the initials R.G. She had managed to escape. So did her attacker. For years, this predator had remained unidentified and on the loose. And then in 2014, news began to spread of another young woman who had gone missing. On the campus of UVA, the night of September 12, 2014, started out like a typical Friday night. Students getting ready to go out, looking to get their weekend started.

And that included UVA sophomore Hannah Graham. Hannah was a British-born American student at UVA with a tight-knit group of friends. She had a wide smile, long brown hair, and by all accounts was thriving in her second year of college. That Friday night, after attending a few parties, Hannah said she wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home. A friend offered to walk her, but she said she was fine and she would do it on her own. But Hannah never made it home. The next day, friends alerted police that Hannah was missing. Search parties were organized, press conferences held, and statements made asking people to come forward with any information.

And that included a statement by Hannah's parents, Sue and John Graham. 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. The news of the disappearance of another student had a frightening similarity to another college student who went missing years earlier, Morgan Harrington. And for Morgan's mother, Jill, Hannah's disappearance was all too familiar. When you're part of this club of abducted and murdered girls, you have your antenna out for any of them that happen because you can really feel the pain that has been wrought upon the other families. When Jill learned about the details of Hannah's disappearance, it reopened everything she felt when her own daughter went missing. It takes you down the rabbit hole somewhat

to think everything that is in front of that family and what they'll experience. It makes you relive some of the shock and the sharpness of your own story. Hannah's story was also similar to Morgan's. They were close in age when they went missing. They were both walking alone after dark in the same area of Charlottesville during the same time of year. The time of year was always the fall.

It is pretty apparent that predators go where prey is. And college campuses in the fall, when there's a new crop of freshmen that don't know their way around, that have not been living, you know, independently from their parents' oversight before. There are opportunities for predators, and they flock to those places. While she didn't have any proof yet, Jill had a hunch that Hannah's disappearance was connected to her daughter's unsolved homicide. Now, years later, Jill wanted to help. She knew what needed to be done. We go into high gear. We did stuff on the bridge for Hannah to get attention because she was missing. They didn't know where she was. I helped go and encourage searches. I went back to

the concert venue for the first time since Morgan was killed, because that's where they were instructing a search party to go out and look for Hannah. Police were working to gather various pieces of information to try to piece together Hannah's night. You know, Scott, can you just talk a bit to how police were going to do that in a case like this, certainly where time was not their friend? It's true. I mean, there is definitely community interest in the story, and that's when the media normally will get involved and start to ask questions, enough questions that police would decide to hold a press conference. Police want to take advantage of that attention because they needed information themselves. And the family also wanted to get the message out about their daughter.

And hopefully all of that, Anastasia, is going to light up the tip lines. A bouncer outside one of the bars had seen Hannah sometime after midnight in the downtown area of Charlottesville. She appeared to have been drinking to the point that he thought she was somewhat out of sorts, which prompted him to ask if she needed help. They were able to determine that she was texting with her friends until a little bit after one in the morning. And they described her texting as being a bit confusing. And I think we do need to talk about the drinking element here, but just for a moment, obviously not in any sort of, you know, shouldn't

have, wouldn't have, or anything like that, quite the opposite, only to show that because of it, there definitely was at least that appearance of vulnerability. And, you know, Scott, you know, we've talked about this before, you know, different people have thoughts about drinking, right? And that's all good no matter where you fall. But one thing it never means is that if someone does drink to excess, in no way does that ever make them that in any way that they should be a target or anything like that. Unfortunately, there are those that choose to look at it just like that. When you're trying to develop victimology, you're also trying to determine that anything about the victim that could have been a signal to the attacker that they may have been in

a state of vulnerability. And I think that's really where we need to leave it. I mean, there's no way for us to tell exactly what her condition was, but it's something that as an investigator, I would look into to see on the profile of the attacker. Could that be something that they were looking for? Were they in an area of the city where people who are consuming alcohol may be at that very time? And Scott, I think you got it right there, right? It's important to discuss only when we're trying to figure out the who and put the pieces together.

Is it someone who is looking to take advantage of someone for whatever reason? And in this case, is that at least perceived vulnerability factoring in? And like you said, I think that's it. It's covered and we leave it right there. But let's go back to the Friday night where Hannah went missing because her last known message was to a friend, as I mentioned, just shortly after 1 a.m. And she said she was heading to a party but was lost. So police needed more information. They asked businesses to look at surveillance footage to try to see if they could spot Hannah. Videos did come in and it gave police the information they needed, but it was

nothing anyone wanted to see. Because one of the videos was from the downtown mall and it gave police the information they needed, but it was nothing anyone wanted to see because one of the videos was from the downtown mall, and it showed Hannah walking with pedestrian traffic around 1 a.m. There is then a man in the same shot walking in the opposite direction from her, but in the very next frame, the man loops around and appears to head right towards Hannah. You see him. He's walking one way, she's walking the other way. He turns around and his whole demeanor, his posture, his everything changes. So here we have some digital forensics that's giving us sort of an indication,

a peek into a potential timeline of where Hannah may have been. But the next video from that night was especially troubling. It showed Hannah and that same man walking together closely. His arm is around her arm and her steps are quite unsteady, almost like she was being pulled along by that man. There were also various people that came forward to help fill in the details. Two different individuals told police that they too had encountered what they believed was that same man on the same night. He had tried to give each of them a high five and had made what they described as uncomfortable advances at the bar. Now that witness saw the man catch up and put his arms around someone who looked like Hannah, and one of them recalled telling him, you don't even know her, to which he told that witness to hush. The pair

weren't the only ones who saw Hannah with the man from the video. Another person passed Hannah in what was now being described as this mystery man outside of what appeared to be his car. This person said that Hannah sounded frightened, like she didn't know the person, and said that she wasn't getting in his car. But that person who had seen this exchange kept walking. You know, Anastasia, I think it's natural for everyone to be asking the question is, if someone saw this man sort of dragging Hannah along, why wouldn't they get involved? Why wouldn't they step in? In a sense, for me, I think in most cases, people tend to mind their own business, which clearly in this case could have made a difference if they got involved, but it's really hard to tell. It's one of those things that it's just, of course, we all

know the answer is that if you see something, say something that we would all hope that we are there to help one another, certainly someone in need. But again, there is various factors. Remember, this is late, late at night. We don't know exactly the location. Who knows if this person was afraid for themselves or something else. It really gets so tricky. But of course, as you said, in hindsight, appears very clear that we all wish that someone had gotten involved. So investigators are hyper-focused on this videotape. And one thing seemed extremely clear.

That man in the video may have been the last person to be seen with Hannah before she went missing. So the question really now is, who is he? And how were they going to move forward to identify him? So what police did was release the surveillance footage to the public. And it didn't take long before a person contacted police and said that they believed they knew who the man in the video was, because it was one of his co-workers.

And he identified the man from that footage as Jesse Matthew. And people began to come forward with more information about Jesse Matthew. A few people told police that Matthew was known as a quiet guy. He was said to be a football player and volunteered as a coach at a private high school in Charlottesville. He even played on the football team of a few smaller colleges in Virginia. He presented himself as kind of like just a gentle giant, but he had another side to him. One thing they learned about Matthew was that he had a hidden past, and it was much darker than anyone could have imagined. 18-year-old Hannah Graham had been missing for days.

She was last seen in surveillance footage with a man who had been tentatively identified as Jesse Matthew. And it turned out that Matthew was a Virginia native who had a troubling past. He was on a football scholarship to Liberty University where he was kicked out for sexual misconduct. And then he went on to Christopher Newport University where he was kicked out for sexual misconduct. Matthew had been kicked out of school not once,

but twice for forcing himself on female students. However, neither incident resulted in charges against him. None of those incidents were put on his records as he moved from one school to the next. It's terrible education if you're a fourth grade teacher and you pass a kid who doesn't know how to read on to fifth grade just to get him out of your classroom. That's bad judgment. But it's bordering on criminal to pass off someone who you know as sexually abusing women on your campus to the next college just to get him off your campus. This man with a history of sexual misconduct was the last person seen with Hannah.

First stop for police, go out and find him. And find him they did. Six days after Hannah's disappearance, police showed up at Matthew's apartment armed with a warrant to search his car. They weren't ready to arrest him, but they had to act quickly and gather whatever information and potential evidence they could. Their aim was to look inside his car and also gauge his willingness to talk. If we just think about it from police perspective here, you know, they have this college student who's missing. They now have a tentative ID. They look at who this guy is and he has this really troubling history. And now they're going to go out and speak to him.

You know, Scott, what are you think some of the things that they are thinking potentially internally as they now knock on his door? So the approach really is they didn't have much except for the fact that he was likely the last person seen with Hannah. And at the moment, there's a lot still to be figured out here, the timeline of events. And they wanted to see if anything could line up, not only with Hannah. And at the moment, there's a lot still to be figured out here, the timeline of events. And they wanted to see if anything could line up, not only with Hannah, but they wanted to see if, you know, the video that captured him, was there more before or after that could give them information? You know, what areas they should search? Does he have a cell phone? Would he be willing for police to look at that cell phone? Remember, your cell phone captures a lot of critical data for an investigation just like this. So those are the steps they're trying to take with him, but do it in a way, in an open way, to get him to even cooperate.

And as far as that knock on the door, you would expect that they just want to keep it light, right? Because they don't really know where they're going to go based on what they get from these search warrants. So when they knock, Matthew did come to the door. He answered a few of their questions, but he basically kept quiet for a majority of the conversation. But even though he didn't say a whole lot, he did confirm something important, that he was at the downtown mall

the night that Hannah Graham went missing. He even went further. He claimed he was just too drunk to remember much from that night. But investigators, for them, he is corroborating something very big. He placed himself in the location on the very night that Hannah disappeared. This is the first real turn in the investigation outside of that all-important surveillance tape. And so while some officers were speaking with him,

others were searching his car. And inside his car, they found gloves and antiseptic. And the officers had brought a dog with them who was tracking Hannah's scent. Using a piece of an object that belonged to Hannah, in this case, it was a piece of her clothing, investigators deployed a canine handler with his dog, and they ran the dog in the area outside of Jesse Matthews' vehicle.

And just near the passenger door of that car, the dog alerted. And so now with that, police secure a search warrant for Matthews' apartment. They went back later that day and they left with bags of items, including his toothbrush, hair samples, and the clothes he appeared to be wearing in the videos. And here's where the case begins to take a few surprising turns. A day after his car and apartment was searched, Jesse Matthew voluntarily went to the police station because he wanted to talk to investigators, but he would only do it with his lawyer present, which obviously is his right.

But the conversation was unproductive. He wouldn't answer any questions related to Hannah or where she can be. So Anasika, you'd have to think about what was he thinking? Why go down and volunteer to talk, but then not answer questions about the real reason why investigators wanted to talk to him in the first place? And again, who knows? We can't get inside his head. But for me, he's probably seeing what information he can get from them. Like, will they tip their hand about something that he now might be curious about? But from police perspective, well, that was a bit more clear. You know, they felt that they're building this case against him and that the pieces are making it stronger, but that it wasn't yet quite at the point where they

can make an arrest. Anastasia, I think you're right on point. He wanted to know what they knew. It was a fishing expedition. But at that point, investigators didn't have enough probable cause to make an arrest. So perhaps he also wanted to see if he could just walk out scot-free. And again, probable cause, it's very different than what prosecutors have to prove in the courtroom, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So basically for police to make that arrest, they need to have what we talk about as sufficient reason to believe that a crime was committed and they have linked it with evidence

that the person they're about to arrest committed it. But they just felt that while they were on that track, they weren't there just yet. Without volunteering any information, police allowed Matthew to leave the station. But they, of course, wanted to keep tabs on him because he was their person of interest. So they, of course, wanted to keep tabs on him because he was their person of interest. So they determined they would follow him. And then he got in his car and fled.

So according to reports, he's driving in such a way that he was eventually able to lose a surveillance car trailing him. So now there are two people missing, Hannah Graham and Jesse Matthew. So while this is all happening, police were taking a closer look at the items that they confiscated from Matthew's home. One item in particular did stand out, the shorts he was seen wearing in the videos. And with expedited testing, they found traces of Hannah's DNA on the shorts. And that was exactly what they needed to make the arrest. On September 23rd, 12 days after Hannah Graham went missing, charges were filed against Matthew for her abduction.

But before they could actually arrest him, they needed to find him. But find him, they did. A woman saw him on the beach in Texas and said, I've seen this face that is being broadcast as a perpetrator in this girl's missing case. The woman alerted police and Matthew was located and arrested and brought back to Virginia. But just like before, he refused to answer any questions related to Hannah or where she could be. So while Matthew was under arrest, the search for Hannah continued.

For her friends, for her family, for the police, this arrest in no way meant they were going to give up. As you are aware, an individual has been charged with the abduction of our beloved daughter Hannah. However, despite extensive search efforts, no trace of Hannah has been found since she disappeared in the early hours of Saturday, September the 13th, now more than three weeks ago. Please, please, please help end this nightmare for all of us. Please help us to bring Hannah home.

That is again Hannah's mother, Sue. While of course they wanted the person who took their child arrested and held accountable, what they needed so very much more was to find their child, in whatever condition she was now in. And while the search for Hannah continued, so many questions remained unanswered, and numerous people followed the case, including Jill. Jill had been following the entire saga of Matthew's arrest closely. So had others in the community, and they had the same question as Jill.

Was Matthew somehow connected to Morgan Harrington's murder? Now remember, we have been talking about two previous crimes. There is the abduction and murder of Morgan, but we also have the sexual assault survivor, R.G. And when that link between Morgan's homicide and R.G.' And when that link between Morgan's homicide and R.G.'s assault had been made all those years earlier, the Harringtons had the composite sketch that R.G. had helped produce about who the perpetrator could be.

They had worked for years to identify him, utilizing whatever sources they could. Someone online said, I think that this looks like the composite that you all are spreading on the internet. And when you overlaid the composite on the face of the actual photograph of Jesse Matthew, they lined up. So did Matthew just look a lot like the sketch of R.G.'s attacker, the one whose DNA linked as the same assailant as Morgan's? Or was he indeed one of the same? Forensic testing would hopefully answer that. But in the meantime,

so many unknowns remained. One question was soon answered, and that was on October 18th, five weeks after the night Hannah had gone missing. Hannah's body was located behind an abandoned home close to downtown Charlottesville. The location was just a few miles from where the remains of Morgan Harrington was found, four years earlier. When she was found, several items of Hannah's clothing were elevated to first-degree murder. For Jill, the similarities between what happened to Hannah and her daughter were too stark to ignore. She was more certain than ever that Matthew was the man police had been looking for. This was the face of the man who had taken Jill's daughter's life.

My God, everything lines up. It's him. This is the face of the monster who killed Morgan. We are sure of it. I don't need to wait for the DNA. It's him. There's like a triptych of the sketch, the enhanced composite, the composite over Jesse Matthews' face

and then just his plain face. It's him. Jill wasn't the only one who had a hunch about Matthew. There was another person watching closely as news of Matthew's arrest made its way across Virginia. That was the detective from Archie's case. When RG was assaulted and nearly killed in 2005, the detective assigned to work her case always feared that the man would strike again and wanted to let RG know he would continue to work hard to bring that man to justice. And the professional relationship between them would last

for years. The detective who worked with her, she was in the hospital for some time, was quite moved by, she's a petite little woman, by her story. He had given her his card and he had made a point of once a year, and it was like 10 years of calling her and saying, you know, he was still working on it. RG's case and the composite sketch drawn from her memories never left the detective's mind. He had spent years chasing down leads without any success. But one day he's watching the news and it's 2014

when the story of Jesse Matthews' arrest breaks. So remembering the composite sketch that he'd kept in his memory all these years, and now the face that was being shown on the news to the detective putting two and two together, it was a match. And if you go back and look at it, it was pretty darn good. You can overlap it with photographs of Jesse Matthew. And it's close. Was Matthew the man he had spent the last 10 years looking for? He made that case to a judge who signed a warrant for the detective to collect Matthew's DNA.

And a week later, the detective had his answer. Matthew's DNA matched the DNA found under RG's fingernails after her brutal assault. It wasn't just a close match. The report said there was only a one in seven billion chance that the DNA under RG's nails was not from Matthew, literally the population of the entire world. Just weeks after he was arrested for Hannah's abduction, Matthew faced a new charge, the 2004 sexual assault of R.G. A trial was set for the following summer. R.G. had been finishing a degree in Virginia at the time she was attacked. She'd originally come from Asia, and soon after finishing her studies, she returned. Ten years after the assault, R.G. traveled once again from her home country to Virginia,

this time to face the man accused of assaulting her. In her wallet, she had the business card of the detective assigned to the case, the detective who she had spoken with every year and who was waiting for her when she arrived at the courthouse. Also there was Jill Harrington. While Matthew still hadn't been charged with Morgan's homicide, for Jill it didn't matter. She just knew that R.J.'s trial was so very much intertwined

with what happened to her daughter. R.G.'s story was a predicate to Morgan's story, and I wanted to be present for as much of Morgan's story as I could because I knew that her story had ended, but even those vestiges would be gone at some point in time, and I wanted to have experienced them. Matthew pleaded not guilty to attempted capital murder and sexual assault. The brutality of the attack on RG was made very clear during the trial.

Pictures of RG's bloodied and bruised body after the attack were shown to the jury as evidence what RG had endured. RG herself, having traveled back to Virginia, took the stand to confront the man who had attacked her and to tell the jury how her attacker had sat on her legs, choked her, threatened to kill her if she didn't do exactly what he wanted. On the third day of the trial, a critical piece of evidence was shown to the jury. The DNA evidence that was collected under RG's fingernails, which was traced back to Matthew. The court soon took a recess that lasted a bit longer than usual.

When they came back, Matthew's attorney approached the bench and gave the judge a document. It was an Alford plea. And what an Alford plea is, is basically this. It is a guilty plea, but in one in which the defendant maintains their innocence. So what they're really doing is admitting that the prosecution's evidence would likely result in a guilty verdict if brought to trial. So it's confusing. It is not satisfying to many, but the end result of that finality with the sentence is the reason for that plea. But the trial wasn't over yet. RG said, I have prepared, you know, my victim statement. And the judge was just fantastic because he said, you have prepared a victim statement. She said, yes, sir. And he said, all right, the court will reconvene tomorrow and everyone will be here to hear your victim statement.

We hear this in many of the cases that we cover when it comes to victim impact statements. The inner peace that comes by confronting the person who has taken so much from you, and you telling them in this statement that you haven't taken all of me. She never tells her side of it or how it has changed her life. And in so doing, she changed from a victim to a survivor at that moment. And when the trial was over, Jill approached RG. And we got to meet her and speak with her and thank her because her case was ready to prosecute. So that was a way to hold on to Jesse Matthew and to add weight to ourute. So that was a way to hold on to Jesse Matthew

and to add weight to our cases. R.G. had one more piece of business to settle before she left the courthouse. She walked up to the detective whose commitment to finding her attacker

had finally led to this moment. It was neat to see the detective who had worked with her. She gave him back the card that she still had. She had carried for 10 years his card in her wallet. And now finally, RG didn't need that detective's card anymore. Matthew was sentenced to three consecutive life terms for his assault on RG, and there was some

peace in knowing he would never be a free man again. But he still hadn't been charged in Morgan's murder. That day finally came a few months after Matthew's plea. On September 16, 2015, over six years since the night Morgan had disappeared, Matthew was charged with first-degree murder with the intent to defile Morgan Harrington. A trial date was set for the following year, and Matthew was already behind bars, and he was not talking, not about an Alford plea relating to his attack on RG, not about the charges of abducting and murdering Hannah, and not about the newest charge, the first-degree murder of Morgan. While it was

unlikely that Matthew would ever reveal what he had done and why, the Harringtons hoped the upcoming trial would finally give them the answers and the accountability they had been waiting for all these years. The trial for Morgan Harrington's murder was looming, and Jesse Matthew faced the death penalty if convicted. With no statements from the defendant, the prosecution would need to piece together the various pieces of evidence to present a clear picture of what had happened to try to prove guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. We often talk about means, motive, and opportunity. Well, Matthew's opportunity came from his work. In the fall of 2009, he was working as a cab driver.

And that was how he saw and came in contact with Morgan. But it was revealed that Morgan may not have been Matthew's only target in the days leading up to her disappearance. He had had some altercations with other people in his cab, like asking for sexual favors instead of payment and things like that. In fact, the night before the Metallica concert, a young woman who was a passenger in Matthew's cab testified that he had asked her for a sex act in lieu of paying her fare.

Four separate witnesses said they rode in Matthew's cab the night of the concert. One of the witnesses recalled getting out of the cab and seeing Morgan on the bridge looking for a ride. They remembered her because they commented on her Pantera t-shirt. Several people who were interviewed around the time of the concert said that they had seen Morgan there on that bridge. The police, you know, had several credible reports of that and that she hailed a cab and that was it. Dispatchers at the cab company testified Matthew was hard to reach for fares that night. Cell phone records showed that around 9.30 p.m. when Morgan had been last seen, that Matthew's phone started a period of inactivity, and after about an hour and a half, it became active again. Former co-workers remember seeing

news stories with the sketch of a suspect in RG's attack and Morgan's abduction. People who worked at the cab company with Jesse Matthew would say when they would see these things on TV, they would joke with him and say, yeah, it looks kind of like you. But they never called the police. And Jesse Matthew would get angry and storm out. Then there was the DNA evidence. If you recall, in episode one, we talked about one of the hairs from Morgan's shirt had come back to a dog. Well, now when it had been tested, it was consistent with the hair of a dog that Matthew had in 2009. And finally, there was the DNA from the bloodstain on Morgan's shirt. It came back as a match for Matthew.

The evidence was all there. The prosecution was ready to head into court, but there would never be a jury verdict in Morgan Harrington's case. A few months before the trial was set to begin, Matthew pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for both Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham. In exchange for the guilty plea, he was spared the death penalty. Matthew was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences with no option of ever being released or paroled. Even in the wake of such brutality and loss, there was empathy in ways you would likely not expect. It goes without saying that Jill spent a lot of time in courtrooms during this time. There was one person she noticed every time she was there, Jesse Matthews' mother.

I always felt bad seeing his mother talk about the walk of shame. You know, she would leave the courtroom with her head down and try and skirt through throngs of reporters. And I felt so badly for her because through no fault of her own was she in this position. And I knew that my community had and continues to this day to embrace me and hold me up. And I knew that she would be vilified in her community, the exact opposite of what I was lucky enough to have. Jill and Matthew's mom were both in the courtroom when his guilty plea was read. It was one of those moments out of time.

You know, a courtroom is split according to which side of the aisle you're on, the one being accused and you're the victim's family. When the hearing was over, Matthew's family approached the Harringtons. All of his family from the other side of the aisle came over and shook my hand and said, now that he has pled guilty, we are so sorry, you know, for your loss and for what has come to pass. The last person to approach was Matthew's mother. She could barely come across the aisle. And I went and hugged her. And again, I did that because I wanted people to see

that I had no hatred for her and hope that they would not vilify and direct hatred towards her on my behalf. Hannah's parents will never get their daughter back. The trauma that R.G. experienced can never be reversed. And Jill Harrington will never get her daughter Morgan back. But she could try and prevent this from happening to anyone else. And that's exactly what she did. The Harringtons founded an organization called Help Save the Next Girl,

which educates young people on how to protect themselves against predatory violence. So I think that parents of murdered kids always, they talk about legacy. And they don't want to create legacy for hubris. They want to create legacy because they don't want the potential that their beloved child had to be wasted, to be poured like water in the sand. And that's why things like Help Save the Next Girl are important. The group has lobbied for bills like the Safe Transfer Act, which requires school transcripts to indicate if a student had been expelled for sexual misconduct. Another bill requires the expanded use of DNA submission for people convicted of certain misdemeanors.

All of the legislation that we have worked on, if it had been in place in 2009, when Morgan went to that concert, Jesse Matthews would have been in jail already and would not have been able to kill Morgan or Hannah. And in doing those activities, I really feel like we have neutralized evil and neutralized bitterness that often accompanies murder as well. It's hard to think that this story has justice or closure for anyone involved. But Jill's perspective, in light of it all, that she's endured is something that will always stay with us. We experienced a tremendous loss, but we have also received, you know, an incredible tsunami of love from so many people. It's of equal weight as the loss that we had. And I think that's an important thing in processing a loss or a death. You cannot have what was, and you have to reconfigure and accept what is coming to you.

Because, you know, blessings abound, but they're not what we had. And in our humanness, we often tend to disregard or reject what is coming to us because we want what we had. And that's an important thing to soften around. The past can never be reversed. But even with that outlook, of course they still mourn the loss of Morgan. The daughter, the sister, they will never get to see who she would have, who she should have become. I wish we could have seen how she turned out. Morgan had so much potential.

She was just chock-a-block full of potential, and it would have been really fun to see it manifest. There are three separate and distinct stories in these last two episodes, but they are all interwoven by violence. R.G., the woman who bravely returned from her home country to testify, she went into that courtroom forever changed by what Matthew had done, but she also went in there with strength to show that she is a survivor.

For Hannah Graham, at the sentencing of Matthew, her mom said that their daughter was a heroine who accomplished great things, but in a way that people would never have imagined because she enabled police to apprehend a serial predator who had been hiding in plain sight for years. When I think about this case, it's important to mention just how critical

of a role that science played in bringing justice to three families. In general, cold cases once deemed unsolvable due to a lack of evidence are now being revisited and resolved, offering closure to many of the affected families. Today, DNA is considered one of the most potent tools in the forensic toolbox. Its role in homicide investigations signifies a real paradigm shift in criminal justice. The ability to retrieve, analyze, and interpret DNA has empowered investigators

in not only apprehending the offenders, but also exonerating the innocent. The value of DNA technology extends beyond its practicality, acting as a safeguard for justice itself, boundaries of what we can discover and by extension resolve. After speaking with Jill, she sent me a book that she had written, which really was a compilation of her journal entries through much of this ordeal. And it was written together with one of

Morgan's teachers. And there was this passage that she talked about in the years following Morgan's death, that they had been in the beach and they used that as their place to heal and recover. And there is a piece of it that she wrote directly to Morgan. She wrote to her daughter, living requires courage. Do not just bob along on the surface,

near the shore, afraid. Most of us live below our spiritual capacity. Dad and I have been pushed into deep waters and choose to be brave and to swim. Knowing that we are here for a purpose, we choose to show up and try to live at the highest level. This is what I learned from you, Morgan, and from the wisdom in these crashing waves. And I just really think that's a beautiful thought for all of us to live by. Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an Audiochuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Forseti Media. Ashley Flowers is the executive producer.

So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?