The investigation, one that has always considered the possibility that Harrington’s disappearance was related to a crime, will quickly move into a new phase. Twenty-year-old Harrington was last seen at the University of Virginia (UVA), Charlottesville, on October 17, 2009.

Harrington and a group of friends had long before that date purchased tickets for the UVA Metallica concert and had looked forward to that date. The small group of friends drove to the concert in Harrington’s car with one young woman retaining the car keys for the drive home. Some time before Metallica took to the stage, Harrington left the group, reportedly to go to the rest room. She somehow wound up outside of the concert hall and was refused re-entry into the venue. Harrington called her friends from her cel phone, informing them of her plight and indicated that she would find her own way home. Her friends let her do this.

She was allegedly seen outside of the arena by a number of witnesses, some who suggested she was “wobbling” as she walked, while others thought she had been injured, perhaps with blood on her chin. Yet other witnesses suggest seeing her with a group of four men, perhaps the same four men other witnesses saw with her in the nearby RV parking lot, the location where her purse and her broken cel phone were later found. Members of the UVA basketball team also saw her as did yet other witnesses who said someone resembling Harrington was hitchhiking on or near a local bridge close to the concert hall. While police have since received hundreds of tips and alleged sightings of Harrington, and have recovered three unrelated bodies along the way, Harrington has not been located, until today that is.

A cattle farmer in Albermarle County, near Charlottesville, reported to police that he had found the decomposed body of a blond-haired woman, wearing black clothing (like that worn by Harrington the night she disappeared), on his 500-700 acre farm. The skeletized remains were located at 8:30 am today by the owner of Anchorage Farm, David Bass, on a remote part of the farm (10 miles south of the arena) that he had not been to since last cutting hay last August. While not providing the media with the exact location of the body, Bass stated it was “nowhere near a highway,” suggesting, perhaps, that the person or persons disposing of the body perhaps knew their way around the area and had the means to get to that remote location over 1 1/2 miles from the nearest road. Harrington’s parents, who previously provided investigators with their missing daughter’s dental records and presumably samples for DNA comparison, were enroute to the body recovery site to assist in the identification of the remains.

The entire area surrounding the body disposal site will be handled like an ancient archeological dig. The body will be carefully removed and the surrounding soil will be sifted through ever smaller strainers as investigators look for any type of evidence related to the crime scene. Like a real-life episode of “CSI,” investigators will be looking for evidence that could link the victim to her suspected assailant(s), to include DNA, hairs and fibers and any other possible evidence nearby the body. A stray cigarette butt could contain the DNA of a suspect, a tire track could relate to an assailant’s vehicle, and any evidence found will be processed in an attempt to find some small link to the victim’s assumed killer.

The body will be taken by the local medical examiner to verify the victim’s identification and to determine the cause and method of her death. Blunt force trauma and stabbing could be evidenced by damage to the victim’s skeletal structure, although weather and even animal activity could complicate this examination. Damage or injury to the victim’s hyoid bone could suggest that she had been chocked to death, but again, sometimes cause of death can be difficult to determine in such cases.

Some will recall the 2005 disappearance of 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl. Her remains were found in a shallow grave in rural section of Virginia. A 38-year-old man she had met on the Internet was later convicted for her death. Virginia has recently experienced large amounts of snow and rain, and should the victim’s remains have been buried or covered over, the actions of weather may have actually helped uncover the remains so that they could be seen by Mr. Bass. Police now have potentially their most important piece of evidence, the victim’s body, as well as a crime scene. With over 600 leads and tips called in to authorities to date, each may now need to be re-reviewed to determine its value, this as investigators now know they have a murderer to find.

In discussing the disappearance of her daughter, Mrs. Harrington acknowledged the presence of evil in this world but also suggested the trick is to choose not to let it (evil) defeat you, letting the pain you feel open you to the pain of others and to allow you to make connections rather than pull away from the world. She said that her daughter’s disappearance (and now death) should not ruin the lives of others, otherwise evil and the person she believed had kidnapped (and now perhaps murdered) her daughter would win. While she acknowledged the picture she had long held of her daughter’s life had been fractured, she still felt the shards could be re-arranged into a mosaic; different and abstract, but still beautiful and precious. I hope she and her husband can hold onto those words and remember Morgan as she was, and not, unfortunately, as she now is.

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For more information on escaping a kidnapper or other matters of personal and family safety, to include a free copy of our DVD “Protecting Children from Predators,” see www.LiveSecure.org.

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