This week, Jesse Matthew Jr., the principal suspect in the murder and abduction of two female college students in 2009 and 2014, respectively, pled guilty to all charges he faced. This case is part of an investigation that has spanned the past several years; a month-long search took place for the second victim after the crime was first reported in late 2014, and Virginia police were searching for the suspect at the same time.
Stories of the two young women, Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham, began to receive immense amounts of media attention after the second disappearance took place. The subsequent investigation swept Virginia and national news platforms, and was ranked among The Huffington Post’s Top 10 Crime Stories of 2014.
Harrington, 20, was a student at Virginia Tech when her abduction took place in October of 2009; Graham, 18, was a student at the University of Virginia at the time of her disappearance in September of 2014. Matthew additionally pled guilty to charges of “intent to defile,” meaning police evidence demonstrated that, at the time the crimes were committed, Matthew intended to sexually molest the victims.
Matthew himself, according to a former girlfriend, was “sexually abused by at least three different people” as a child. Now, after pleading guilty, Matthew faces four sentences to life in prison.
Part of the successful conviction of Matthew had to do with a sexual assault crime he committed in 2005. Using DNA evidence from this past crime, investigators were able to link Matthew to the 2009 and 2014 cases. As stated in court by Graham’s mother, her daughter “enabled police to capture a predator who had been ‘hiding in plain sight in Charlottesville for years.’”