Original subtitles

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Augenstein: The way he saw her, turned, and followed,

I understand what he's thinking.

He's thinking, "I have a victim here."

He's sizing her up.

At some point, he realizes, "Yes, this is the one."

??

Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

The 2014 disappearance of student Hannah Graham

sent shock waves through the close-knit community

of Charlottesville, Virginia,

in part because it felt all too familiar.

Five years earlier,

another college student had vanished nearby

under similar circumstances,

and DNA later found on her discarded shirt

was linked to a third brutal attack four years earlier.

With so much time passing between attacks,

investigators can't help but wonder,

"Are there other victims yet to be discovered?"

This is part 2 of "The Back-to-School Killer."

Hannah Graham is a second-year student

at the University of Virginia.

She is out having fun with friends.

French: So, Hannah started the night on September 13, 2014,

out to dinner, and from that restaurant,

they went to a few parties that evening.

Augenstein: And then she decides to meet some other friends

and starts walking down Market Street

towards the downtown mall.

The last text that Hannah sends to her friends is at 1:20 a.m.

She tells friends that she's lost.

Longo: That was the last time

that anyone saw Hannah Graham alive.

I can't imagine what her parents are going through.

I mean, they drop their daughter off at college.

And now they're waking up every morning wondering,

"Am I ever gonna see my daughter again?"

The Hannah Graham case was huge

because this was part of a larger picture

of a serial predator.

Hannah Graham's disappearance was an eerie reminder

of the disappearance of Morgan Harrington.

Tonight, where is 20-year-old Morgan Harrington?

Gil Harrington: Morgan had 20 fantastic years,

and she had one hell of a bad night.

It's the night of October 17, 2009.

Henderson: Morgan told me she was going to the concert,

and she was really excited for a fun night out

in Charlottesville.

Vance: The question of what happened to Morgan

is something we don't know exactly.

At some point, during the show,

Morgan has to go to the bathroom.

And she'd fallen.

She was disoriented.

Somehow, she ends up outside.

Morgan is outside the venue, and they have a rule

that you can't go back in if you leave.

The roommates called Morgan and said,

"Morgan, where are you?"

And Morgan said, "I'm outside the building.

I can't get back in."

And she told her friends that she would find a way home.

So, right next to the John Paul Jones Arena,

there is a section where taxicabs can park

and wait for people to come outside of the venue.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility

that a cabdriver would see a pretty blonde

with her thumb up in the air, needing a ride,

and swing by and offer her a lift.

Stuart: There was something incredibly terrifying,

that Morgan could disappear like this,

just vanish into thin air.

It really left the community terrorized.

I think the most vivid image I have in my head

is of her being alive in the field

and being cold ... it's dark ... with this monster.

A frantic search is under way for a beautiful, young woman

who vanished during a packed rock concert.

Bryan-Campos: Thirty days after Morgan disappeared,

her black Pantera T-shirt was found on top of a bush

outside of an apartment building in the UVA campus.

Investigators tested that Pantera T-shirt,

and the DNA on that shirt matched an attempted rape

of a woman in Fairfax, Virginia,

that had happened several years earlier.

It's Fairfax, Virginia, September 2005.

Stuart: A woman that we'll call R.G.

was walking home with her groceries

when a man came up behind her and grabbed her.

Augenstein: He throws this woman down on the ground.

He's ripping at her. He's taking off her clothes.

He's punching her. He's threatening her.

Stuart: R.G.'s life was likely saved by the fact

that a car went by with lights

and caused the assailant to stop the attack and leave her.

She sits down with police, and she is able to provide

to police a sketch composite of her assailant.

??

The search for Hannah Graham was one of the most extensive

and largest searches in Virginia history.

Augenstein: The public was watching this like it's a ...

you know, a Hollywood thriller.

And that creates a sense of urgency in you

as an investigator.

Bryan-Campos: We received surveillance footage

within days of the announcement that she was missing.

Police have already gathered

all of the security footage from the mall,

and they're trying to put together a timeline

of where Hannah had been on that evening.

They are able to trace her steps.

I think I'd seen the video several times,

and I'd seen the guy in the big white outfit walking by.

I didn't realize, at first, that he turned around

and was walking behind Hannah.

Watching that deliberate crossing of the mall

and then following right behind her,

that was chilling.

It still gives me chills, thinking about that video.

Anchor: Police believe that Jesse Matthew

is the man seen in this video, following Hannah that night,

the last person to perhaps have been seen with Hannah,

and they want to speak with him.

Longo: We knew intuitively that was Jesse Matthew.

This was someone very well-known,

and we had an internal source that was familiar with him

and was able to look and say, "Oh, I know that person."

There were people who felt very strongly

that this was not behavior that this individual

could be capable of, that this wasn't who he was.

It was contrary to the person they knew him to be.

French: I think there's a disconnect on what you'll hear

about Jesse Matthew.

His friends never wanted to go on camera,

but the conversations I had with them were so powerful.

His friends knew Jesse Matthew as the godfather

that would take care of their kids without them present.

They trusted Jesse Matthew with their children.

And then you have the reports like you did on the night

that Hannah Graham disappeared of this individual

that was abrasive and that touched women

when they didn't want to be touched

and that would just walk up to them and grab them.

So, you know, who is Jesse Matthew?

He could be a person who is everyone's favorite son,

favorite teacher, favorite mentor,

and, at the same time,

have a dark side from the demons that he's dealing with.

??

Jesse Matthew is a local guy.

He grew up in this community.

He had some learning disabilities growing up,

some difficulties with literacy,

and he suffered some abuse in his childhood.

He grew up with a father who was a convicted sex abuser.

It was reported that Jesse Matthew

was also a victim of sexual assault.

Titus: The fact that Jesse Matthew

was a victim of sexual abuse at a young age,

the fact that he was bullied, had a severe stutter as a child,

all of these things compiled created Jesse Matthew.

And the impulses that he acted out throughout his life

were a result of those things happening

and not being addressed at a younger age

and festering it and then getting to the point

where he could no longer hold it in.

French: Despite his troubled home life, at times,

he made the most of different situations.

Stuart: Certainly football was a ticket for him

to get out of Charlottesville.

He left Charlottesville to go to college.

Augenstein: Jesse Matthew wasn't at Liberty University

for very long.

There were pretty quickly some allegations

of a sexual assault.

Bryan-Campos: So, no charges were ever filed

at Liberty University,

and he goes to Christopher Newport University.

And a couple months into the school year,

there are more allegations

that Jesse has committed a sexual crime.

Gil Harrington: If you looked at R.G.'s case,

if you looked at Morgan's case,

at Hannah's case, the rapes that he did at Liberty,

at Christopher Newport, I was trying to think,

"Why are all these things

happening at the same time of the year?"

You have new female students

who don't really have a cadre of friends yet.

They don't really know where the kind of not-safe places

to go in a town.

So, they're vulnerable for that very reason.

Augenstein: In the four years between 2005,

when R.G. was attacked,

and 2009, when Morgan was attacked,

Jesse Matthew was never charged with any other crime.

There's been a lot of missing-girl cases in Virginia

in the past 20 years,

and I think that it's safe to say

that almost every one has been checked to see

whether Jesse Matthew could have possibly been involved in them.

Bryan-Campos: So, there are women who went missing

the same time that Jesse Matthew was at Liberty University

and at Christopher Newport University.

Those cases have never been solved.

Stuart: There were questions about what Jesse Matthew

was doing between Morgan Harrington's disappearance

and Hannah Graham's disappearance.

He was in a relationship, and it's been speculated

that that is perhaps what prevented him

from committing other crimes in the intervening years.

When there is a large gap between serial killings,

it shows one of two things ...

either there are other cases that have occurred

that we have not been able to tie to the serial killer,

or something crucial in the perpetrator's life

happened that allowed him to move away from this behavior.

Jesse's relationship ended, and Hannah Graham disappeared.

So, it seems that perhaps the end of that relationship

may have been a trigger for him to resume his violent behavior.

With the needs that Jesse Matthew has,

it's just a matter of time before he acts out again.

French: A hundred and one days after Morgan's disappearance,

during the dead of winter,

Dan and Gil get a call that no parent should ever get.

Gil Harrington: A farmer was checking his fence lines

and came upon what he thought initially

was a deer carcass in his field.

But he quickly saw that there was a human skull there.

And it was our Morgan.

Dan Harrington: Gil and I drive to Charlottesville,

and we demand to go to the place where Morgan's body is.

The helicopters from Richmond,

from the state police headquarters,

came and picked us up and took us to the site.

We did not land, but we were able to see sort of

where Morgan's body was, which was very isolated.

It was miraculous that she had been found.

It was such a big place, and she was such a small girl.

I really believe that Morgan wanted to be found.

Morgan's autopsy is done, and what it tells investigators

is that Morgan fought her killer till the very end.

She has fractures in her wrist, her ribs, head injuries.

Her teeth are knocked out.

And in interviewing investigators,

I was told that, you know, her killer may not have set out

to kill his victims on the night that he attacked,

but he was going to sexually assault them,

and if that meant killing them, he would do it.

The killer was likely a large person,

somebody who could have overpowered Morgan,

who was not large.

She was 5'6" and I believe about 120 pounds.

I know that when Morgan realized that she was in over her head

and that she was with a killer, she fought.

And I remember a time when her mother learned

that it wasn't hair or semen on the shirt,

it was blood, his blood, and Gil Harrington said,

"Good girl, Morgan. You fought.

You had so much to fight and live for."

French: Now the next chapter starts.

Now they want to know who did it,

and they want to start finding justice for their daughter.

Gil Harrington: I just wanted to stop him.

That was a huge motivator.

Help save the next girl,

because there was inevitably going to be another victim

for him if he wasn't stopped.

If you're an apex predator, if you have already

done abduction, rape, and murder,

it's unlikely you go and steal Chiclets

from 7-Eleven as your next crime.

I think that those crimes tend to escalate

and become either more savage or more frequent.

I was very worried.

??

We want to talk to Jesse Matthew.

We want to talk to him.

We want to talk about his interaction

with a sweet, young girl that we can't find,

'cause he was with her.

It was only a couple of days after his name

had been put out in the public

that Jesse Matthew surprised police

by showing up at the police station.

He came, and he walked into the police station.

As soon as he got there,

he asked to be represented by a lawyer.

He was not in custody.

He was free to walk out of that building.

He was not under arrest.

That attorney came out of the room, and he said,

"He doesn't have anything to say."

And he left.

And Jesse Matthew left with him.

He was followed when he left the police station,

and then he took off at a high rate of speed,

but his driving behavior was so incredibly reckless

that the trooper who made the observations

secured an arrest warrant,

charging him with those driving offenses,

and that was the first charging document

that would exist for Jesse Matthew.

French: When investigators went to charge Jesse Matthew Jr.

with reckless driving,

they were able to get a search warrant on his apartment,

and they were able to look inside.

So, police search Jesse Matthew's home.

They take enough items from his apartment

and from his car to run DNA.

Augenstein: Police were tailing him surreptitiously,

but, believe it or not, one night,

they're watching him leave a family member's house,

and they lose him.

He speeds away, and they don't know where he is.

This afternoon, we reached that point

where the Commonwealth felt we had sufficient probable cause

to seek an arrest warrant for Jesse LeRoy Matthew Jr.

of Charlottesville.

There's a nationwide manhunt for him at this point.

Dan Harrington: One morning, it was a Saturday morning,

I got up, and I got on Facebook.

And this person from Charlottesville

put a picture of Jesse Matthew.

And then they put up the composite picture

that the police had put together.

And it was the same person,

and so I immediately texted the investigator

who was working with the Virginia state police,

and I said, "We have the person who killed our daughter,"

and he said, "I know."

Stuart: Jesse, just like Hannah,

and just like Morgan years before, has now vanished,

and investigators don't know where he is.

??

??

Anchor: The FBI now joining the search

for missing Hannah Graham ...

the investigation focusing on this man, Jesse Matthew,

who police believe is the last person to be seen

with the University of Virginia sophomore

before she vanished over a week ago.

This was a national manhunt at this point.

And the national media was all over it.

Blitzer: Police today put out a "wanted" poster

for a man they're describing as the last person seen

with missing University of Virginia

sophomore Hannah Graham.

French: Two days, 1,300 miles away,

a lady is on a beach, walking her dog,

and her name is Karen Monk.

??

The weather was beautiful. The water was calm.

So, it was a nice day to be there.

She pulled her car up on the sand,

which you're allowed to do.

And this guy in a vehicle drives by.

The individual that was in the car looked directly at me,

which was about 10 feet from me.

And I thought I recognized this person from a newscast

that I'd been following.

Time stands still.

You're holding your breath,

and you just hope they just keep going.

It was very, very scary.

Luckily this person keeps driving.

She just remembered, like, seeing his eyes on TV

and it was a face ... it was a face you can't forget.

I was shaking.

I was scared because no one ... there was no one else around me.

I did call my family to see my description of him,

if I was correct, and they sent me a picture

from the local news, and it was him.

French: So she calls Crime Stoppers.

And she's like, "This is the guy from ...

that they're looking for in Virginia."

And they didn't believe her.

Monk: Crime Stoppers told me that he is

not being looked for in Texas,

and I assured them that "Yes, he is.

He is here on the beach in Texas."

French: So, she looked up the local sheriff's office,

and she reports that there is a wanted criminal

on the same beach as her.

They're like, "Okay. We don't know where you are.

Meet us at the local fruit stand."

Monk: While I was sitting at the fruit stand,

waiting on the sheriff's department to arrive,

it was about 45 minutes.

It did seem like forever, and they did show up,

and the officer asked me several questions like,

who I saw, who I thought it was.

I gave him the description of the car

and the description of Jesse Matthew.

Sheriff's deputy goes, and they arrest him.

In other breaking news tonight, authorities have arrested

the man they have been looking for in connection

with missing college student Hannah Graham.

Stuart: When Jesse Matthew was arrested in Texas

and then extradited,

that was the first time I had seen or heard his voice

and seen sort of ... seen video of him,

other than the grainy surveillance video

where you couldn't really make out much

of the night that Hannah Graham disappeared.

Sir, I got a question for you.

Okay.

Like, they took all my clothes

and they got me sleeping on a hard thing.

I feel like I ...

I should be able to have some kind of clothes.

It was really jarring to see him

because although he's a very large man,

he actually has sort of a youthful-looking face.

And to imagine looking at this person

and realizing this is likely the person that has committed

these vile, horrific acts of violence was striking

and, you know, kind of sickening.

Welcome back.

More breaking news tonight, what Virginia state police

say there is a significant break in the disappearance

of University of Virginia Hannah Graham ...

a new forensic link, they call it,

to another Virginia woman, Morgan Harrington,

who vanished nearby five years ago.

French: The DNA taken

from Jesse Matthew Jr.'s apartment

was a match to the Pantera T-shirt,

was a match to the 2005 rape.

It was a match to everything.

??

Longo: It was a Saturday morning,

and about 10:00 that morning,

we received a call at the command post

from some sheriff's deputies,

that they thought they had discovered human remains.

Detective Sergeant James Mooney

of the Charlottesville Police Department

made a very difficult phone call

and reached out to John and Susan Graham

to share with them this discovery.

Chief Tim Longo got very emotional

delivering the news to us in the media.

But he made a promise to John and Susan

that he would not give up until he could bring

their daughter home one way or another.

Stuart: Morgan and Hannah's remains were both found

in the same area of Charlottesville,

about five miles or so apart from each other,

both rural areas.

Morgan's was on this farm,

and Hannah's remains were found in a creek bed.

They did perform an autopsy on Hannah's body.

And, like Morgan, Hannah fought ...

fought hard until the very end.

To say that it brought finality to the task at hand

would be accurate.

And now there's an equally heavy lift

and that is a criminal prosecution.

And so we go from one phase to the next.

Reporter: The cases build against the prime suspect,

Jesse Matthew.

It was hard to imagine how Jesse was going to be able

to get out of the legal ramifications of his crimes.

Even though police and prosecutors did suspect

Jesse Matthew in connection with Morgan Harrington

and Hannah Graham's murders, they decided to go forward first

with the rape of the woman R.G. in Fairfax County.

The reason was that was an easier case to make.

They had DNA evidence.

They had a good witness who was willing to testify

who was alive.

This was the first time Jesse Matthew

was physically in a Virginia court room,

and his only two words today ... "Not guilty."

I've done a lot of thinking about why Jesse Matthew

didn't plead guilty to the R.G. attack.

I think he was willing to roll the dice

and willing to bet that R.G. wouldn't show up

and testify against him.

Porcher: I genuinely believe that the defense

looked at the discovery,

meaning the evidence against the defense,

and they saw an area that they were able to exploit.

This trial would hinge on R.G.'s testimony.

??

??

Welcome back to "Very Scary People."

Even though Jesse Matthew had been conclusively linked

to the murders of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington,

the first case to go to trial would be for the 2005 rape

and attempted murder in Fairfax, Virginia,

of the woman known publicly as R.G.

Now, a decade after that harrowing night,

she'll make a dramatic return from halfway around the world

to testify against the man who shattered her life.

Stuart: For some of the court proceedings,

the hearings were held in a very, very small courtroom.

And Jesse Matthew had to be led in, and in so doing,

he literally had to brush up against Gil and Dan Harrington.

And he stopped, and he looked down at them,

and I will never forget seeing Gil Harrington look up

and not look away.

Gil Harrington: And that one time, as he came by,

Dan and I could have been incinerated

with his eye contact.

And it was not a moment of remorse

that I could see from Jesse Matthew.

It was almost an act of intimidation.

Bryan-Campos: I became very uncomfortable every time

I posted a picture of Jesse Matthew on our website

because of how dead and cold his eyes were.

There wasn't much there to see

because it was just the cold eyes of a hunter.

Augenstein: R.G. made the decision

to come back to this country

to testify against Jesse Matthew.

She had been embarrassed to tell her family

that she had been assaulted, but she did.

She knew that her name would be given in the courtroom,

but she decided to testify against Jesse Matthew.

Bryan-Campos: R.G. knows the stakes.

Not only does she get to have this personal closure,

but I think she understands how this conviction

also sets into motion other convictions.

Vance: She was tiny ...

she must have weighed 95 pounds ...

but not soft-spoken.

She was powerful.

And her insistence to tell her story?

She came back and she said,

"This is what my attempted murder looked like.

This is what a serial killer does.

This is how he bent my legs backwards

and rearranged my face and broke my ribs and bloodied me."

He almost killed her, as well.

He was interrupted in the assault by a passerby

and that probably is the only reason that she survived.

He did strangle her and told her,

"Don't move, or I'm going to snap your neck."

And we assume that Morgan was also strangled in the same way.

The fact that R.G. was so compelling, so narrative,

so specific about his violence and his lack of humanity

gave us what really is a rare portrait of a predator

in action destroying.

I mean, he had no more compassion

than a trash compactor.

And he was doing that much damage.

The prosecution rested,

and it was now up to the defense.

??

Jesse Matthew is being tried in Fairfax County, Virginia,

for a 2005 rape.

Reporter: The victim, now in her 30s,

came all the way from India to testify in this case.

Augenstein: R.G. was willing to re-create

and tell the very intimate,

very horrifying story about what happened

the night that Jesse Matthew attacked her.

And she was willing to put herself through the agony

of re-creating that evening

to make sure that Jesse Matthew was held accountable.

At that point I had no idea what defense they might use.

And the decision stretched on and on.

In fact, the judge called a recess.

The recess stretched on and on.

French: Two days into the trial, Jesse takes the Alford plea,

which means that he is not admitting guilt,

but he realizes that there is enough evidence to convict him.

Gil Harrington: After Jesse pled guilty,

his mother did break down.

And I'm sure that was a hideous experience,

to see your son admit to such a crime

and to hear that he had been sentenced

to multiple life sentences in jail.

And she lost it. I did feel badly for her.

It's March 2016, and Jesse LeRoy Matthew Jr.

pleads guilty to the murders

of Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington.

Longo: I was in the courtroom that day when Judge Higgins

qualified the plea.

And there's a series of questions

that are asked during that qualification.

And one of those questions is something along the lines is,

"And are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?"

That's a very different plea

than the previous plea in Fairfax city,

the Alford plea, where he's, "Nah, I'm not saying I did it.

I'm just saying you've got enough

to prove that I did it" ... a very different plea.

It's a plea without accepting responsibility.

To hear him say in response to Judge Higgins' question,

"Yes.

Yes, I'm pleading guilty because I am guilty,"

it was incredibly powerful.

Man: Guilty to the first-degree murder of Hannah Graham.

Guilty to the abduction with intent

to defile Hannah Graham.

Guilty to the first-degree murder of Morgan Harrington.

And guilty to the abduction with intent

to defile Morgan Harrington.

Reporter: Jesse Matthew Jr.'s plea deal

sends him to prison for life

with no possibility of ever being released.

French: Through all of this, Gil has always said

they're all part of this horrible club,

and everyone that has been involved in this is a victim.

And even Jesse's family, Gil has said, is a victim.

Gil Harrington: After Jesse had pled guilty

and received his sentencing,

his family came from the defendant side of the courtroom

and came up to me and Dan and all shook our hands

and said, you know, "We are so sorry.

We are so sorry. We are so sorry."

And his mother came last, and we just hugged each other.

And his mom said, "Will you always pray for me?"

And I said, "Yes, I will, if you will always pray for me, Debra."

And she said, "Yes, I will."

Stuart: And it was an act of grace.

Mother to mother ... I think Gil understood

that for Jesse's mother,

this is also an enormous, devastating loss.

And it was a generosity of spirit that you don't see often.

Gil Harrington: Justice is a very abstract thing.

When the case comes to an end

and even with multiple life sentences,

I mostly was seeking a stop to his rampages.

And so, he's in jail.

He's never going to hurt anyone again.

But just because there's been a trial

and he's in jail doesn't make us whole again.

At one point we created a map of Virginia

with all the missing persons, almost all girls,

since R.G. was abducted,

and it's like a scatter pattern of bodies,

and I wonder if Jesse is responsible

for some of those missing girls,

many of whom still have not been recovered.

French: I think there's still so much to learn

from Jesse Matthew Jr.,

and that's why I reached out to him in prison.

??

??

French: In 2020, I spoke to Jesse Matthew in prison.

I wanted to speak to him because I made a promise

to the Harringtons that I would try to find out

why he did what he did.

Before we learned the name Jesse Matthew, who were you?

So, you're a religious man?

I said, "People think you're a monster."

He definitely did not accept the responsibility.

He doesn't see himself the way other people see him.

The other part of the interview that was very powerful,

sometimes when someone doesn't say anything ...

when I asked him, "You struck in the fall.

Was there a reason for that?"

And he sighed and took a moment.

To me, that was admitting that, yes, there was a trigger.

There was a reason why he struck in the fall,

that there was some trigger.

He was not forthcoming.

To this day, he does not seem to have any sort of remorse.

Gil Harrington: I would've loved to see how Morgan turned out.

Morgan was just so full of potential.

And all I've got is this box of ashes

sitting on my coffee table.

That's all I've got.

Longo: I never had the privilege of meeting Hannah Graham,

but I remember thinking at her memorial service,

every person that got up and talked about her

talked about how Hannah Graham made them better ...

better softball coach, better friend.

She added to everyone she met in some way, shape, or form.

That was the Hannah Graham

that I came to know out of this tragedy.

Dan Harrington: As time went on, we had to figure out,

how do we deal with grief?

And for Gil and me,

the way that we dealt with our grief with Morgan's death

was to find something good.

??

Gil Harrington: I did indulge in some self-pity

for a short while, and then, I said, "You know what?

If we've got ashes, with ashes, you can make cinder blocks,

and with cinder blocks, you build."

And I did take some of those ashes with me to Africa

and mixed them in the foundation of Morgan's school.

Morgan was going to school for a degree in education.

She wanted to teach.

? We are happy to see you here ?

Gil Harrington: Morgan never made it to Zambia.

But more students are being educated

in the Morgan Harrington Educational Wing

at Omni Village in Ndola, Zambia,

than Morgan would ever have taught

if she lived to be 200 years old,

and that is how we choose to neutralize evil.

Jesse Matthew Jr.

is currently serving seven life sentences.

Having never honestly spoken openly

about the crimes he committed,

the true extent of his reign of terror may never be known.

Hannah Graham's parents don't speak publicly

about their daughter's murder.

Morgan's parents, Gil and Dan Harrington,

have channeled their grief

into a nonprofit called Help Save the Next Girl.

Their mission is to educate young women and girls

about predatory danger on college campuses.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thank you for watching.

Good night.

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