Various witnesses reported awkward encounters with a blonde woman near the Arena.
GRAPHIC BY ALLISON SOMMERS

Amid a new police report that the woman who disappeared during the October 17 Metallica concert was seen hitchhiking shortly before she vanished, various witnesses in and around John Paul Jones Arena say a young, blond woman was causing concern before they ever heard that 20-year-old Morgan Harrington was missing.

Among the several witnesses who reported seeing Morgan injured both inside and outside the Arena, one Metallica fan inside says she seemed “upset” with blood on her chin but declined his offer to help.

Outside the Arena, another concertgoer says, he was on the southeast side of the building waiting for late-arriving friends to meet him around 9pm when he heard a “commotion” at an entrance.

“It was some shouting,” says the 44-year-old man (more)

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Morgan Harrington is a 20-year-old junior majoring in education at Virginia Tech.
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

The young woman who disappeared after leaving a Metallica concert on October 17, was last seen seeking a ride on the Copeley Road bridge, according to Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller, who also released an image of a necklace Morgan Harrington was wearing the night she disappeared.

“We now can confirm that she was hitchhiking,” says Geller, noting that Harrington, who had been stuck outside the John Paul Jones Arena after she was denied reentry and had told friends by cellphone that she’d find her own way home, was allegedly seen by multiple witnesses on both sides of the bridge.

In a massive three-day search last weekend, approximately 1,600 volunteers scoured woods, roads, and fields in a radius around the bridge searching for clues. Despite locating (more)

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Charlottesville resident Carlos Wilfredo Garcia Sanchez, 38, already is trouble for allegedly possessing a half-kilo of cocaine, but getting busted within 1,000 feet of UVA property tacks on another felony charge.
MUGSHOT FROM JADE

Of the eight alleged drug dealers arrested by the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force recently, three of the suspects picked up additional felony charges for allegedly plying their trade within a legal buffer zone around a school– in one case, the University of Virginia.

An October 20 press release from JADE indicates that 26-year-olds Jose N. Cano of Woodridge and Jorge Saul Rosales-Garcia of Fredericksburg were attempting to sell 4.5 ounces of cocaine around 11am October 20 in the 1800 block of Seminole Trail. The two men picked up an additional felony charge because the alleged transaction occurred within 1,000 feet of a school, a violation of 18.2-255.2 in the Virginia Code.

JADE’s Lieutenant Don Campbell would not release the exact location at which the out-of-towners were arrested, but he says the proximate school is Woodbrook Elementary and that JADE knew the distance was less than 1,000-feet because Albemarle police told them.

“We wouldn’t have charged it if it wasn’t right,” says Campbell.

According to Google maps, the Crutchfield electronics store lies (more)

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Ponzi-schemer John M. Donnelly will serve seven and a half years for running a Ponzi scheme.
FILE FAMILY PHOTO

John M. Donnelly walked out of federal court Friday morning a free man— but not for much longer.

The  man who pleaded guilty last spring to running a decade-long multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme from his Charlottesville office was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison November 6. Judge Norman K. Moon expressed disgust for the crime that bilked 30 of John M. Donnelly’s friends and motorcycle racing teammates of more than $5 million.

“This defendant knew these victims were making life decisions,” said Moon, who referred to Donnelly as “evil” at one point and scoffed when defense attorney John Davidson suggested Donnelly was sorry for the pain he’d caused.

“If they hadn’t caught you, you’d (more)

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A major search effort to find Morgan Harrington launches Friday morning, November 6, and continues through the weekend.
PHOTO FROM STATE POLICE

The Jefferson Room at the Cavalier Inn at the corner of Emmet Street and Ivy Road was filled to capacity tonight— and then some—  as hundreds of Charlottesville residents and out-of-towners registered for a weekend search for Morgan Harrington, missing since an October 17 Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena.

The search is being organized by the Laura Recovery Center, a nonprofit search agency founded by the parents of Laura Kate Smithers, a 12-year-old Texas girl who was kidnapped while jogging and murdered in 1997. In addition to Morgan’s parents, Dan and Gil Harrington, various law enforcement agencies are helping coordinate the search.

This weekend’s searches will  begin Friday morning, November 6, at 9am. Interested volunteers, who do not need to have attended the pre-search presentation, should meet at the Forestry Center at 900 Natural Resources Drive behind the Fontaine Research Park. Would-be searchers must be 18 or over and have valid identification.

Laura Recovery Center founder Bob Smither, father of Laura, spoke at the hotel, just blocks from where Morgan was last seen on Copeley Bridge, to the hundreds of assembled volunteers– so many the presentation had to be given twice.

While most of those gathered will spend some portion of the next three days tromping through brush looking for any sign of Morgan, some made the trip just to show support.

“We were away and just found out what happened,” said Ray Mayberry, whose wife, Carole, worked with Dan Harrington at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke. The retired pair said they are unable to participate in the rigors of a ground search, but drove from Roanoke to show support.

“We want to do what we can to help,” Mayberry explained.

Starting Friday morning, groups of 10 will be assigned as-yet-to-be-determined search areas, Smither explained; any possible evidence discovered should not be touched. Volunteers are invited to show up throughout the day, as their schedules allow. The last groups will likely be sent out no later than 3pm.

“Our only priority,” said Smither, “is finding Morgan.’

Anyone with questions about this weekend’s searches can call (434) 960-0401.
Last updated Friday, November 6 at 3:27pm. Correction: Cavalier Inn is not a Best Western.—ed
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Minor: “I am taking on these guys because I’m the only one who can.”
FILE PHOTO BY JAY KUHLMANN

He has just lost another lawsuit— this time a $21.6 million judgment for Merrill Lynch— but Halsey Minor vows that legal setbacks won’t deter his quest to complete the Landmark Hotel, an incomplete eyesore that holds the promise of topping the Omni as the most luxurious lodging on the Downtown Mall.

In a recent series of telephone interviews, the man who founded internet giant CNet and whose riches soared to $355 million around the turn of the century alleges that everything the public has been told about him in recent days is wrong.

Minor says he’s not to blame for the Landmark mess, he’s not broke, and he’s not going to let go of the hotel without (more)

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Smart brought a message of hope to Morgan’s parents, Gil and Dan Harrington.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

“We will stop at nothing until she is found,” says the father of missing Morgan Harrington, as he and his wife were joined in Charlottesville Wednesday by the father of once-abducted but miraculously recovered Utah resident Elizabeth Smart.

But before the November 4 press conference announcing that the public would be invited to join the search, new information suggests that the injured 20-year-old Virginia Tech student’s efforts to regain entry to the John Paul Jones Arena after she somehow ended up outside during an October 17 Metallica concert were more intense than previously reported.

“She did make a few attempts to (more)

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Six months before she died, Justine danced with her father at her wedding to Eric Abshire.
FILE PHOTO COURTESY SWARTZ FAMILY

While national attention focuses on the Charlottesville disappearance of Metallica concert fan Morgan Harrington, the parents of another young woman are quietly marking the third anniversary of their daughter’s death and hoping this will be the last time they pass the date without an arrest.

“We believe police are making progress,” says Steve Swartz of the investigation into the death of his daughter, Justine Swartz Abshire, who was found dead or dying on a dark country road in Barboursville on November 3, 2006.

While the death was initially called a hit-and-run, evidence mounted over subsequent months that Justine might not have been hit by a car at all. Although her body showed signs of massive trauma— more than 100 blunt force injuries— there was (more)

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A motorist gets out of the way of the chase near Madison House on Rugby Road.
PHOTO BY CHARLOTTESVILLE P.D.

There has been an arrest in the case of the 85mph chase that resulted in a stolen car scalping a house on Rugby Road. About two months after the summertime incident, a 17-year-old city student was arrested, according to Charlottesville spokesperson Ric Barrick, who also— in response to a reporter’s request— released a tape of the chase, a 112-second video in which even the police car hits 85mph on the residential road.

In a related development, a work crew installed a guardrail Friday at the spot where the vehicle left the roadway to prevent such future dangerous aerobatics, but in so doing, the crew cut an underground gas line, causing a road detour lasting much of the morning.

Meanwhile, Friday, October 30 is also move-back day for (more)

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Unlike the rest of “the nine,” Morgan opted for a red dress on prom night. (Others: Amy Melvin, Maggie Herrick, and Jenna Testerman.)
PHOTO COURTESY HARRINGTON FAMILY

The parents of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington urge would-be sleuths not to blame the 20-year old woman’s friends for failing to report her disappearance during an October 17 heavy metal concert in Charlottesville.

“They’re not to blame,” says father Dan Harrington. “Everyone wants to make them out to be the bad guy, but they’re not the bad guy.”

The woman’s disappearance didn’t get reported to authorities until the next day when her father called police after she failed to show for a pre-arranged visit home to study math and balance her checkbook.

But should the friends at the concert have reported her missing?

“I wish they had,” says her dad, “but I don’t know that (more)

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Harrington’s dad holds Kirby while mom gives the family’s “I love you 2 much” signal Saturday.
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

It’s been hell on earth for the parents of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Dana Harrington.

“God, this has been a long week,” says her father, Daniel “Dan” Harrington, who last saw his daughter around noon on Saturday, October 17, just hours before her disappearance from a concert in Charlottesville. “This,” says mother Gilbert “Gil” Harrington, “has been physically, emotionally, quite a hit.”

During a recent interview at their home in Roanoke, the couple speak fondly of the 20-year-old daughter they eagerly hope to see again; yet throughout an hour-long conversation, they occasionally refer to her, seven days gone at that point, in the past tense.

“You have a choice,” says Gil, pronounced JILL, “you can dissolve in the corner or become hard and bitter– or forge a way to find something positive because that’s what Morgan is, or was.”

“She always called me Papa,” says Dan. “She said (more)

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Morgan Harrington, center, with her father at left and her mother at right, on a recent family vacation.
PHOTO COURTESY HARRINGTON FAMILY

The father of Morgan Dana Harrington believes that the person responsible for abducting her outside the October 17 Metallica concert is someone from the Charlottesville area.

“If I had to bet my guess,” says Dan Harrington, “this is someone local.”

He expressed his theory Saturday morning in a living room interview, sandwiched between visits from the top television network morning news programs and a visit from two members of the Virginia State Police. While investigators continue (more)

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“This case is about right and wrong,” says RSWA director Tom Frederick in a recent memo, accusing recycler Peter Van der Linde of “defrauding” the RSWA out of more than “a million dollars in tipping fees.”
FILE PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER

After nearly two years of silence, the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority has finally responded in detail to public comments and media coverage of its $20 million RICO lawsuit against trash recycler Peter Van der Linde. Authority director Tom Frederick released a memo ahead of the RSWA Board’s October 27 meeting that includes some of the “substantial evidence” that Van der Linde “defrauded the RSWA in excess of a million dollars in tipping fees.”

According to Frederick, after the RSWA’s  “service contribution fee” was implemented in 2005, Authority officials began noticing sharp drops in the amount of area trash that Van der Linde was hauling, as reported to them by BFI, a development that Frederick characterizes as a smoking gun.

“During one twelve-month period from September 2006 through August 2007, Mr. Van der Linde’s companies declared zero tons from Albemarle/Charlottesville,” says Frederick, “a period within which there are multiple photographic records” of Van der Linde’s orange dumpsters in the area.

At the time, Frederick had his recycling manager, Bruce Edmonds, tracking and photographing Van der Linde’s containers. In the county, development director Mark Graham had instructed his building inspectors to keep track of the distinctive orange containers.

“They might think I’m a criminal, but do they think I’m stupid?” responds Van der Linde, who plans to issue his own memo to refute Frederick’s comments, point by point, at the Authority’s Tuesday meeting. “Do they really think (more)

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