Thursday, January 28, 2010
Parents: Morgan Harrington likely died quickly
Morgan Harrington's parents say police think their daughter died the night she disappeared. Her parents believe the perpetrator is local to Charlottesville. The investigation is focusing on the cause and time of her death.
Photos by Megan Lovett | The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress
Dan Harrington, father of Morgan Harrington, talks Wednesday during a news conference on the Copeley Road bridge in Charlottesville, where Morgan Harrington was last seen in October. Her body was found Tuesday.
Alex Harrington arranges flowers at a memorial for his sister, Morgan Harrington, in Charlottesville.
Investigators excavate the site at Anchorage Farm where Morgan Harrington's remains were found.
UPDATED JAN. 28: In a statement posted Wednesday on Metallica's Web site, the band said it was "profoundly saddened" by the discovery of Harrington's remains and said its thoughts are with her parents, Gil and Dan Harrington.
CHARLOTTESVILLE -- For 101 days the parents of Morgan Harrington agonized over the unknown, tormented by thoughts of the "unspeakable things" a predator might be visiting upon their young, missing daughter. Wednesday, the day after her skeletal remains were found in a hayfield, Dan and Gil Harrington said their minds are, at last, at peace.
The Roanoke County couple now believe their daughter was killed the night she disappeared.
And for the first time since Morgan's disappearance on Oct. 17, said Gil Harrington, she is not imagining her daughter as a captive a frightened captive brutalized by a predator, day after day.
"I'm not thinking every minute, 'What is he doing to my daughter right now? What is she having to endure right now?' "
Such is the slender solace offered by Tuesday's discovery. State police said Wednesday the medical examiner's office in Richmond had used dental records to confirm that the decomposed body found on a sprawling Albemarle County farm 10 miles south of Charlottesville were all that remain of the pretty, blond Virginia Tech student.
While police said nothing more -- except to note that investigators are still trying to determine the cause and time of death -- Gil and Dan Harrington said they gather from conversations with investigators that their fears of captivity were never reality, that their daughter was killed the night she disappeared from a rock concert in Charlottesville, that the time she spent with her killer was, mercifully, short.
"We are very happy to know that Morgan very likely did not live through the time of the concert," said Gil Harrington, who with her husband spoke with reporters in Charlottesville while their son Alex stood by their side. "She was a long time in that field. I'm happy to know she was not alive long enduring unspeakable things."
Morgan Harrington, 20, vanished Oct. 17 after leaving the John Paul Jones Arena, where she had gone with friends to see the band Metallica play. She was last seen south of the arena, trying to hitch a ride on the Copeley Road bridge.
Press conference: Officials "fairly confident" body of Morgan Harrington found on farm
Video by Chris Zaluski | The Roanoke Times
After three months of searches and nationwide publicity, a farmer found Harrington's remains Tuesday in a remote hayfield on his 742-acre farm on U.S. 29. State police put the Harringtons on a helicopter so they could view the field, which is not accessible from public roads.
The Harringtons said the placement of the body in such a rural, out-of-the-way area leads them to believe their daughter's killer is someone who lives in the rolling, wooded section of Albemarle County, someone who might know the intricate back roads.
"The area where Morgan was found is not a random place that someone came upon accidentally," said Dan Harrington. "Even though Morgan has been found and she has been murdered, we now need to find the person who did this and we will not stop until that person is brought to justice."
Related
Timeline
Matt Chittum | The Roanoke Times
Ongoing coverage
The Harringtons said they will continue talking with the media and encouraging people to call the state police tip line -- (434) 352-3467.
They added that they expect to receive Morgan's body from the medical examiner's office in five or six days, after which they will hold a public memorial service for their daughter.
And they said they will learn to live again, consoled by the knowledge that their daughter is not lost in the world and suffering.
"We had hoped to find Morgan alive," Dan Harrington said, "but at least now we have some peace and some closure today."
"We will move on, we will find a way to be a family of three," Gil Harrington said, addressing television news crews. "You all have these tripods and they are not as stable as a table, but we can make a tripod work. We don't know how yet, but we will figure it out."
Stringer Sharon C. Fitzgerald contributed to this report.
