Photo courtesy of Harrington family

Morgan Harrington and her mother, Gil Harrington, are seen in a family photo from Europe. Morgan Harrington has been missing since Oct. 17, and her parents say they will continue to go before news cameras to keep her case in the public eye.

Map and timeline

Matt Chittum | The Roanoke Times

Click to see a map documenting the timeline of sightings of Harrington in the hour before she was last seen.

Ongoing coverage

• Follow the search for missing Va. Tech student Morgan Harrington of Roanoke County

Hoping to prompt witnesses to come forward, Virginia State Police said Wednesday that missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington was last seen on a bridge atop railroad tracks in Charlottesville, alone.

Now they want to know if anyone saw a car stop on the Copeley Road bridge to pick up the young woman.

"Investigators are asking for anyone who might have seen a young woman fitting Miss Harrington's description getting into a vehicle around this time or later to contact police," said State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller.

Harrington, 20, of Roanoke County, disappeared Oct. 17 during a Metallica rock concert at the John Paul Jones Arena. She had left her friends to go to a restroom but ended up outside the arena and could not get back in because she had no ticket stub.

Various people saw the blonde, who was wearing a black miniskirt and knee-high black boots; but police still do not have enough information to determine what happened to her, said Lt. Joe Rader of the state police.

"We know we do not have all the information ... that will help resolve this case," Rader said during a Wednesday morning news conference in Charlottesville.

Rader said witnesses have helped investigators plot Harrington's course from the arena south to the Copeley Road bridge. Copeley Road loops around the west side of the arena and runs south to Ivy Road, a well-traveled thoroughfare in Charlottesville.

Rader said investigators have developed the following timeline of Harrington's movements:

8:20-8:30 p.m. A woman matching Morgan Harrington's description was seen outside the arena at the main entrance. She was also possibly spotted outside the arena on its south side, closest to University Hall.

8:30-8:48 p.m. She was seen still outside the arena by people "who interacted with her, who conversed with her or who observed her."

8:48 p.m. Her friends called her cellphone from inside the arena. When she told them she couldn't get back in, they suggested alternative entrances. She told them she might find a ride home "from friends in Charlottesville."

8:48-9:00 p.m. She was seen again outside the arena.

9:00-9:10 p.m. She was seen walking through the parking area on the west side of University Hall. The hall is south of the arena. Harrington still had her black purse. "No one can confirm that she was actually with someone, but she was around various people in that vicinity who were walking in the same direction," Rader said.

9:10-9:20 p.m. She was seen in a grassy, overflow parking area adjacent to the Lannigan Field track, an area often used by RV drivers to park. She had "limited interaction" with the people who saw her. A passer-by found her purse and cellphone in the parking area the next day, a Sunday. The cellphone battery was gone.

9:20 p.m. People who encountered her in the area left in their own vehicles. There was "no indication that Morgan Harrington left with any of them," Rader said.

9:20-9:30 According to witnesses who called police after Harrington's disappearance, a woman matching her description was seen walking on the Copeley Road bridge.

Rader said state police decided to release the timeline in hopes that it might jog the memories of people who possibly saw Harrington, and he urged all potential witnesses to consider no detail too trivial.

"We believe that what happened between 8:30 and 9:30 is very relevant for us to go in the right direction," Rader said.

He declined to answer questions after the news conference and did not comment on why Harrington chose the route she did.

Harrington's mother, Gil Harrington, said investigators have told the family nothing about her daughter's state of mind after she left the arena. Meanwhile, Gil Harrington said she and her husband, Dan, will continue to go before news cameras in hopes of keeping the case in the public eye.

"We feel like we've been pulled through a knothole," Gil Harrington said. "We're trying to figure out how to stand here and take off a layer of our skin to show our vision of Morgan, to let our vision of our precious daughter shine through.

"We're both in the despair phase right now. The police are kind of chastising us, telling us you need to have hope."

Harrington, who has blue eyes and blond hair, stands 5-foot-6 and weighs 120 pounds. She was last seen wearing a black T-shirt with the name of mental band Pantera in tan letters across the front, black tights and black knee-high boots.

State police have set up a tip line at (434) 352-3467.