By Brenda Winn – Staff Writer
Students at St. Lawrence generally feel very comfortable on campus. When asked if she ever feared for her safety late at night on the St. Lawrence campus, Sarah Evarts ’17 says, “I have walked alone and it doesn’t cross my mind.” Meghan O’Brien ’14 notes, “Because SLU is so small, I’m able to feel comfortable.” However, this is not always the case, especially at larger institutions.
University of Virginia Sophomore Hannah Graham met up with friends at a restaurant on Friday, September 12, as most of college students have all done before. After dinner, she and her friends stopped at two off-campus parties. Graham left the second party alone and later sent a text message to a friend saying she was lost. Surveillance videos captured Graham as she walked, and at some points ran, unaccompanied around Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Graham was seen last with Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., a university hospital technician, early in the morning of Saturday, September 13, and was reported missing Sunday, September 14.
The owner of the popular Tempo restaurant bar in the college town of Charlottesville, Va., said that Matthew was in the bar earlier in the night, while Graham was seen later leaving with him. The owner also said that Graham was clearly incapacitated when she walked away with Matthew. Surveillance footage shows Graham wandering disoriented when she encountered Matthew. He then went into the bar and bought what is thought to be two more beers before returning to rejoin Graham outside. The door monitor at the bar said that they then walked off, Graham, intoxicated, leaning on Matthew for support.
Matthew apparently was not a regular customer at the bar, and stood out because most of the patrons were dressed classier for the upscale restaurant than he was. While the bar owner says that Graham was not served, Charlottesville Police Chief, Tim Longo, said that there is at least one witness that saw Graham inside the bar with Matthew.
Authorities announced on Tuesday, September 23, after searching Matthew’s car once and his apartment twice, that they had probable cause to arrest Matthew on charges of abduction with intent to sexually molest Graham. Several items, including clothing, were sent to a state forensics lab for testing from Matthew’s apartment. Less than 24 hours later, Matthew as arrested on a beach in Galveston, Texas with a warrant charging him with the abduction. The Galveston County Police Department received a call about a suspicious man who had pitched a tent on the beach. The plates of the car parked nearby revealed it was the vehicle sought in connection to Graham’s case. He returned late Friday to Virginia and is being held without bond at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail, awaiting his first court appearance on Thursday, October 2.
Matthew has not provided any new information in the case and says he “Has no idea where she is,” according to Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo, who held a press conference last Thursday after Matthew’s capture. Longo says that an intensive search to find Graham is ongoing. Search and rescue coordinator for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management Mark Eggeman said that they have maintained a presence and have not stopped searching the scene every day since the event happened.
Eggeman’s team is trained to detect signs of human movement. The team is made of volunteers that are often called in to look for lost hunters, in addition to the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Office and multiple canine units. They are focusing on the more than 1,600 investigative leads and tips they have recieved, searching south of the city of Charlottesville into Albemarle County. The weekend of September 20, over 1,200 volunteers searched Charlottesville, and the area has now widened to the hills outside the city. Longo has encouraged the over 400,000 residents of his city, and beyond, to be aware for any signs of Graham, searching their own properties and having real estate agents searching any vacant properties.
Matthew has been employed at the University of Virginia Medical Center as a patient technician in the operating room since August 2012. He also served recently as a part-time volunteer for the football team at the Covenant School, a private Christian school in Charlottesville. He interviewed with the athletic director and football coach at the school, and underwent normal background and reference checks. They all said Matthew seemed like a nice, genuine guy in touch with his faith and spirituality. The school released a statement that he will no longer be working with the football program at the school.
Previously, Matthew had attended school at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., where he played football from 2000 to 2002. Matthew has had previous brushes with the law, but the cases are not clear. He was convicted of trespassing in 2010, with no details of the incident, and there are two other charges of assault, with no details, and attempted grand larceny in relation to a 2009 event, that were not prosecuted. He had several traffic infractions from 2007 to 2010 with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.
When asked if she thinks that there are people present in the Canton community that could be like Matthew, Evarts says, “there are some sketchy townies.”
While the hope of finding Graham dims the more time passes, Longo and other authorities remain hopeful. As long as there are leads to pursue, they will continue to search.