State police say they are “fairly confident” skeletal remains found this morning are 20-year old Morgan Harrington. In a news conference late Tuesday afternoon, State Police Superintendent Steven Flaherty delivered the news with what he described as “a heavy heart.”

The skeletal remains were found in a hayfield on the Anchorage Farm in Albemarle County this morning. State police say they are “confident” the remains are hers, but have sent the body to the medical examiner in Richmond for further tests and autopsy. A farmer found the body Tuesday morning while he was driving a tractor in his field.

While State Police did not name the landowner, News7 has confirmed that the farmer, Dave Bass, found her body along a fence line. Bass said the body was very badly decomposed. Bass said he first thought it was a deer, until he got closer and realized they were human remains.

The body was sent to the medical examiner for further testing, but investigators say significant items found at the scene lead them to be fairly certain the body is the 20-year-old Virginia Tech student who went missing during a Metallica concert last October in Charlottesville. Investigators say they can’t release details about the items found, but believe the scientific evidence will confirm with certainty that the body is Harrington’s.

State police said the body was found in a very remote area of the farm without easy access to the location. They say the area can only be reached by tractor or 4-wheel drive vehicle and there is no public access to the field. Reporters were not permitted to visit the crime scene.
State police are treating Harrington’s disappearance as a homicide. Lt. Joe Rader says the case now moved to a new level. Rader says he doesn’t see this event as a warning to residents of Charlotteville or for students at the University of Virginia.

Rader says Harrington’s parents, Dan and Gil Harrington, are in Charlottesville and were briefed by state police.

Harrington was an education major at Virginia Tech. As the news conference was underway, Virginia Tech president Charles Steger issued a letter to the Virginia Tech community saying that “we find our strength and resilience tested in the face of profound grief and loss.” He urged students and faculty to take advantage of campus counseling services as needed.

– Video: http://www.wdbj7.com/global/Category…&partnerclipid=

Three months and three days.

That’s how long it has been since Gil and Dan Harrington’s life changed. On Oct. 17, their daughter Morgan, 20, went missing outside a Metallica Concert in Charlottesville.

My colleague Anna Uhls and I spoke with the Roanoke couple today when they visited The Post as part of a two-day trip to the District. They had meetings lined up on Capitol Hill with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Tom Perriello; they had already seen Sen. Jim Webb.

It was all part of their campaign to keep the search for Morgan going. “It is a hellish path to be on,” Dan Harrington said.

Morgan, a Virginia Tech junior, was excited the afternoon she headed to the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena with friends. At one point, however, the willowy blonde ended up outside the arena and couldn’t get back in. She talked to a friend by cellphone, saying she’d get home on her own.

She never returned.

Gil and Dan and their son, Alex, have been looking and praying ever since. The couple held hands nearly the whole time we talked, comforting each other. Gil explained that each day they face each other and wonder what more they can do to bring Morgan home.

“This has been our life,” she said. “We don’t want to take time to have fun. Time before Morgan was taken and time after is profoundly different.”

Dan, an associate dean at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, has gone back to work. But he said he is often overwhelmed with thoughts of his daughter.

The couple said they are urging lawmakers to make sure the Virginia State Police have the resources they need to keep the investigation alive. But they are also in town to advocate for other families with missing loved ones: The Harringtons are asking lawmakers to reauthorize Kristen’s Act, which creates a national database to search for missing adults.

The 2002 law was named for Kristen Modafferi, an 18-year-old Charlotte, N.C., woman who vanished in June 1997. U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (N.C.) explained in a press release that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children couldn’t help the search because Modafferi was an adult.

The House voted to reauthorize the law in February, and it’s pending before the Senate.

For the Harringtons, the search for Morgan continues. They’ve set up a web page to update their progress. A group of women who call themselves Morgan’s Warriors check out possible sightings. The non-profit CUE Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington, N.C., is planning to re-scour the area where Morgan was last spotted.

There is a $150,000 reward for her safe return or information that leads to those responsible. Dan and Gil are convinced someone has information that can help the police.

“This is a very big secret to keep for this long,” Gil said. “People have girlfriends, people have work associates. People talk.”

“If you know someone who has had a behavior change in the past three months, call the tip line,” Dan urged. It may not mean that person did anything wrong, but police can check it out, he said.

Family images of Morgan Harrington. (Anna Uhls/Post)

Morgan, an education major who said she wanted to be a teacher, was last seen on Copley Bridge near the arena. The Harringtons go there often to visit a shrine to their daughter. People leave cards and messages for Morgan. The Harringtons visited around Christmas, leaving a wreath atop a snow bank.

“Every day we look at each other and say ‘Can we do this anymore?’” Gil said. “We say we can’t quit on Morgan.’”

Virginia State Police ask that anyone with information about Morgan Harrington call the tip line at 434-352-3467 or e-mail them.

– Maria Glod

January 14, 2010

Are we not sophisticated enough as a society that women do not need to walk the streets and be regarded as, treated as, prey?  How is this tolerated as the price of being female in America?  This phenomenon of snatching people is not as common in other civilized countries.  Why here?  Perhaps because we prize the rights of individuals so much, that the collective allegiance that is fundamental to a group, respect and reciprocity are missing here.  So it is each man for himself, do what you want, take what you want – including women and children. They are only stuff after all.  This attitude must change.  It changes only through cultivating connections and relationships and creating community with expectations of integrity.

We are all learning and attempting to do this even in the face of the crime against Morgan.  This is a watershed event for our family.  Everything that has and will happen to us will be placed in time before or after Morgan was stolen.  We will be defined by it – BUT not by the loss and the pain, but by the love we received and gave and the strength we found to continue unceasingly, relentlessly searching for Morgan.  2 4 1

We sincerely thank DVS Artist Management for volunteering their time to organize yesterday’s benefit concert, which was held at the Hat Factory in Richmond in honor of our beloved daughter, Morgan. Morgan is a dedicated fan of rock music and we are deeply touched that the community came together to remember her in this way. We also thank those who attended the event and contributed to the Find Morgan Fund. It is your support that makes it possible for us to continue our search for Morgan each day in hopes of soon bringing her home safely.

Members of the Roanoke community and employees of the Carilion Clinic have organized a benefit basketball game and event, “Docs for Morgan to be held at Northside High School at 7:00 p.m. on February 1st. This event aims to increase awareness of Morgan’s disappearance, raise donations for the Find Morgan Fund, and offer support to the Harrington family. The Harrington family extends their appreciation to those who have generously come together to organize and participate in this event.

CHARLOTTESVILLE — A North Carolina-based group is joining the search for a Virginia Tech student who vanished after attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville.

Morgan Harrington’s parents announced the participation of Community United Effort – Center for Missing Persons at a news conference Tuesday.

Founder Monica Caison says the organization relies on professional search and rescue teams that volunteer to look for missing persons and works closely with police and community search teams.

Harrington disappeared on Oct. 17. Police say the 20-year-old Roanoke woman became separated from friends after she left the concert arena and was denied re-entry.

The parents of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington have invited a North Carolina-based search organization to help locate their daughter and warned Tuesday that the 20-year-old’s Oct. 17 disappearance means the Charlottesville area is not as safe as residents may believe.

Dan Harrington, Morgan Harrington’s father, gave the warning during a news conference to announce that the CUE Center for Missing Persons has agreed to help in the search for his daughter.

The nonprofit center will review previous police and community searches to determine target areas for future efforts.

“People don’t just vanish,” Harrington said. “We believe someone saw Morgan. We believe someone took our daughter. Someone in this community was directly involved in her disappearance. It’s important to realize that whoever took Morgan is still in this community and, because of that, Charlottesville and Albemarle County are not as safe as they were before Oct. 17.”

http://www2.wsls.com/sls/news/local/article/nc_group_joins_search_for_morgan_harrington/74316/

January 1, 2010

A new year – a new beginning, I try to reevaluate our quest for finding Morgan.  Are we doing enough or are we doing the right things to find Morgan?  It is hard to know because we are so enmeshed in the process and so determined and desperate to find Morgan that objectivity is long gone.

Please God let this be a year full of revelations and discovery for our family.  We need Morgan back. Without her we are pretty broken.  I can see it clearly on Alex and Dan’s faces – they look caved in.  Like someone has just knocked the stuffing out of there… and I guess someone has done just that – by stealing our precious girl. 

I am not always sure we will be able to overcome this challenge.  Can we be strong enough to keep moving ahead while keeping the pain and self-pity at bay?  That really is the crux of the faith piece.  I don’t have enough strength – but if I can turn it over to a higher power it will work out.  The thing is, I thought I had already done that – already turned it over, but in our human uncertainty and doubt we keep pulling back, mistakenly thinking we can do better if we are in charge.  I have to remember to surrender over and over.  It should be so easy, clearly the control we imagine ourselves having is merely an illusion.

Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech junior, disappeared from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville on October 17.

Her mother, Gil, helped Morgan pick out her outfit that night. Her father, Dan, was supposed to help her with schoolwork the next day. She never came home.

Her disappearance was the top story of 2009, according to a vote taken by the News7 staff.

Harrington’s purse and cell phone were found in the parking lot of John Paul Jones Arena at the University of Virginia.

Police conducted searches, friends passed out flyers and held vigils all hoping to find some trace of Harrington.

A timeline was released and more information about where she was last seen came to light. More than two months later and police know little more than that she was last seen near the Copely road bridge near the arena.

The night of the concert she left the arena and was not allowed back inside. She told her friends by cell phone that she would find a ride home.

Her parents say they’re holding out hope.

“You feel like you’re quitting on Morgan if you start that mourning process,” Gil Harrington said.

“How do you mourn but not only hold out hope?” Dan Harrington said.

Each day the Harrington’s struggle with not knowing.

http://www.wdbj7.com/global/story.asp?s=11757635