For nearly five years, a rock band t-shirt that mysteriously appeared near the University of Virginia has been one of the most connective yet perplexing clues in the death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.
The shirt.
Morgan Harrington's mother calls it "pivotal" because authorities said it connected her daughter's death-- which in turn was forensically linked to the recent disappearance of Hannah Graham-- back to a 2005 rape in the city of Fairfax.
But it was shirt's sudden appearance, unfurled across a bush three weeks after Harrington disappeared and two months before her body was found 10 miles away, that remains one of the most perplexing pieces of an already troubling mystery. Charlottesville journalist Courteney Stuart covered the case from its earliest days.
"So a few weeks after Morgan Harrington disappears from the Copeley Road Bridge, her shirt is found on a bush, spread out as though it were placed there. What does this mean, we're all wondering. Is it a taunt? Is it a tease?
To Gil Harrington, it was evidence that her daughter had encountered a cocky kind of criminal.
“He was so sure of himself that the most recognizable piece of evidence that police were asking for, that was unique to Morgan, he chose to flaunt."
The man who found the shirt was then a second-year UVA student. Blaine Eichner, now doing graduate study in Norfolk, remembers the impact of Harrington's disappearance.
"It was a really tense time around Charlottesville. It was so strange that something like this could happen in such a tight-knit community."
Eichner was living in the Venable neighborhood, a mix of fraternities and old houses, as well as the 21-unit apartment complex where he resided. He recalls returning from class one Wednesday in November when he saw a black shirt advertising the heavy metal band Pantera spread across the hedge. He says it hadn't been there earlier.
"Our building didn't have a very good washer and dryer, so it wasn't uncommon to see clothes hanging on banisters and such. I did it myself often, and I didn't think much of it until later that evening. I was driving to Richmond and remembered that they'd given the description of the shirt and that pretty much matched the description of the shirt I'd seen, not exactly, but it was enough for me to question that maybe the authorities needed to be alerted."
After the shirt's forensic links were announced in the spring of 2010, a police sketch of the alleged perpetrator that hadn't gone far beyond Fairfax suddenly found a worldwide audience. But still no known suspect.
That is until recently, when Jesse Matthew, who has not yet had a chance to enter a plea, was arrested for the abduction of Hannah Graham, who disappeared last month after being seen with Matthew.
"If this does lead to a conviction of the person who did it, then I'd be happy in that case because whoever did these terrible things to these women needs to be punished."
