In the early hours of Saturday, September 13, 2014, an 18-year-old University of Virginia student named Hannah Graham sent a text message to a friend saying she was lost. Security cameras along Charlottesville's Downtown Mall recorded her walking unsteadily, at times running. Later video showed a large man with his arm around her. Within a week the police had named that man, Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., a 32-year-old operating room technician at the University of Virginia Medical Center, and within two weeks he had fled to the Texas coast and been arrested on a beach.
His arrest answered a question that had been open in Virginia for five years. In October 2009 a Virginia Tech student, Morgan Harrington, had disappeared outside a concert at the University of Virginia's arena. DNA connected her killer to a man who had attacked a woman in Fairfax in 2005, but no one knew his name. After Matthew was taken into custody, his DNA matched both cases. In 2015 he was convicted of the Fairfax attack, and in 2016 he pleaded guilty to murdering both Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham. Allegations from his college years, which had never led to charges, became part of a public argument about how universities handle sexual assault, and Virginia changed its laws.
Jesse Matthew grew up in Charlottesville. Police Chief Timothy Longo said in 2014 that Matthew had gone to school in the city, had family there, went to church there and worked there. Friends from Monticello High School described him to WTVR as "the big man on campus" and "a teddy bear." He was 6 feet 2 inches tall and about 270 pounds. His father, Jesse Matthew Sr., told the station that his son was "as gentle as they come." A former assistant pastor who knew him said, "I always thought he was a gentle giant, just a nice guy."
A sentencing memorandum filed by his defense in Fairfax in 2015 described a harder childhood: bullying, money problems and an alcoholic father. His defense attorney there, Robert Frank, cited childhood poverty, racism and victimization that was never treated. A former girlfriend wrote to the Fairfax judge that Matthew had been sexually abused as a child. That claim was not tested in court.
Matthew attended Liberty University in Lynchburg from 2000 to 2002 and was listed as a defensive lineman on its football team. In January 2003 he enrolled at Christopher Newport University in Newport News and joined that football team for about a month in the fall. He left both schools shortly after a woman reported a sexual assault, as described below. He was never charged in either case.
Back in Charlottesville he held a Virginia taxi permit from 2007 to 2010 and drove a cab. From August 12, 2012, he worked at the University of Virginia Medical Center as a patient technician in the operating room. In August 2014 he began volunteering with the football program at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in the city, which said it had run normal background and reference checks. His court record was minor: a 2010 trespassing conviction after he refused four requests to leave a closed auto repair shop, several traffic infractions, and 2009 charges of assault and attempted grand larceny, which were not prosecuted. In that 2009 incident a driver said Matthew followed him after a traffic dispute, punched him twice and took his phone.
These two incidents are allegations only. Matthew was never charged, tried or convicted in either one, and he told investigators in the Liberty case that the encounter was consensual.
According to the Washington Post, as reported by Fox News in October 2014, a woman accused Matthew of raping her on the Liberty University campus on October 17, 2002. Lynchburg police investigated and referred the case to the prosecutor. Lynchburg Commonwealth's Attorney Michael Doucette told NBC News that Matthew was questioned, and said no charges were filed because the woman did not want to proceed and investigators found no independent corroborating witnesses. Liberty's general counsel said the allegation was reported early that morning and that Matthew's last day at the school was the same day. A former teammate, William Haith, told CBS that Matthew was dismissed for breaking the Christian university's rule against sex, and that rumors the sex was aggressive were "not verified at all."
Christopher Newport University confirmed that a sexual assault was reported on its campus on September 7, 2003, and that Matthew was accused. Campus police investigated. Matthew left the football team on September 12 and the university in October 2003. A university spokeswoman, Lori Jacobs, said, "Students don't usually leave in the second month of the semester or leave the football team within a month," and that federal student privacy law limited what the school could say. Newport News police said the university had its own police department and that Matthew's name was not in their system. How the CNU complaint was resolved has not been reported.
Neither school's transcript showed anything about these investigations when Matthew moved on. That gap became the basis for one of the laws Virginia passed in 2015.
On the night of September 24, 2005, a 26-year-old woman identified in court only as R.G. was walking home from a Giant grocery store to her townhouse on Rock Garden Drive in Fairfax. She had come to the United States from India to study. A man grabbed her from behind steps from her front door, carried her to a grassy area, beat her, choked her until she lost consciousness and sexually assaulted her. A passerby heard her screaming and the attacker ran. Investigators collected DNA from under her fingernail. The case went cold.
Morgan Dana Harrington was 20, a student at Virginia Tech from Roanoke, the daughter of Dan and Gil Harrington and the sister of Alex. On Saturday, October 17, 2009, she traveled to Charlottesville with friends from James Madison University to see Metallica at John Paul Jones Arena. Sometime after 8 p.m. she went outside. Because she did not have her ticket stub she was refused reentry between about 8:20 and 8:30. Her friends inside were holding her car keys. At 8:48 she called a friend and said she would find another way home.
Witnesses later reported a woman matching her description in the University Hall parking lot between 9 and 9:10 p.m., and in the Lannigan Field lot between 9:20 and 9:30. The last reported sighting was of a young woman trying to hitchhike on the Copeley Road bridge near Ivy Road at about 9:30. Her purse and cell phone were found by a passerby in a grassy area of the Lannigan Field lot.
Her parents filed a missing person report. Posters and billboards with her face went up across Virginia. In November 2009 the family and the Laura Recovery Center organized a three-day search in which 1,667 registered volunteers covered about 2,600 acres, without result. A reward grew to $150,000, including $50,000 from Metallica.
On the morning of Tuesday, January 26, 2010, David Bass, who had owned the 700-acre Anchorage Farm in southern Albemarle County since 1985, was on his tractor in a hayfield and saw what he first took for a dead deer. It was a human skull. Dental records confirmed the next day that the remains were Morgan's. The field was about 10 miles from the arena and about 200 yards from a public road. It had not been searched. "Morgan went missing in October," Bass said in 2014. "It took me till January to find her. Most of southern Albemarle is like my farm."
Dan Harrington said the remote location pointed to someone local. Gil Harrington said, "We need to change the social framework that uses women as prey." The family said in 2010 that Morgan had been raped and murdered; court documents later recorded broken ribs and a fractured arm. A black Pantera T-shirt she had been wearing was found about three weeks after she disappeared.
In 2010 a DNA match linked Morgan Harrington's case to the unknown man in the 2005 Fairfax attack. The two crimes were now known to be the work of one person, but his profile was not in any database. In June 2012 the FBI released enhanced composite sketches of the Fairfax suspect and a public service announcement in which Metallica's James Hetfield asked anyone with information to come forward. "Any information, no matter how small you might think it is," he said, "could be that crucial piece investigators need to help solve the case."
The Harringtons kept the case in public view. In January 2011, on the anniversary of the discovery, they walked Morgan's route from the arena to the Copeley Road bridge and to the Anchorage Farm field with Virginia State Police Special Agent Dino Capuzzo, the lead investigator. "Please spit out this evil criminal," Gil Harrington said, "and let us have him arrested and save another young woman." A plaque was placed on the bridge. The family formed Help Save the Next Girl, a nonprofit based in Roanoke that teaches young women and girls about predatory danger, supports victims' families and lobbies for safety laws.
Hannah Graham moved to Virginia from England with her family when she was in kindergarten. Her parents, John and Sue Graham, lived in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County, and her father worked at the World Bank. At West Potomac High School she had straight A's for six years, played softball, skied and played alto saxophone in the band, though, her band teacher recalled, she complained about clarinet against saxophone and loved Elvis songs. Teachers remembered her gently correcting their word choices in the hallway. A friend recalled her bringing her own British chocolate to campfires "because Hershey's was not up to her standards." "Hannah was always able to steal the show," her father said. In September 2014 she was beginning her second year at the University of Virginia.
On the evening of Friday, September 12, she had dinner with friends and went to two off-campus parties. She left the second party alone. At about 1:20 a.m. she texted friends that she was lost. Cameras recorded her walking past a pub and a service station and onto the Downtown Mall.
Matthew had been out that night at several bars, where, according to the prosecutors' later statement of facts, several women told investigators he made them uncomfortable. Video showed him following Graham, then the two of them leaving Tempo Restaurant together with his arm around her. A witness saw them stop at Matthew's orange 1998 Chrysler Sebring as he unlocked the passenger door, and heard Graham say she was not getting in the car. The witness said she sounded frightened. Matthew's phone could not be tracked for the rest of the night, which investigators believed meant it was in airplane mode. Coworkers later said he came to work late, said he was "not okay" and had a swollen jaw.
Graham was reported missing, and police studied the surveillance video and interviewed witnesses. More than 1,000 volunteers searched in the first week, and the search eventually covered most of the city. Police identified Matthew as the man in the video and searched his car and, on the morning of September 19, his apartment at Hessian Hills. They seized 26 items, including bedding, clothing, a hair tie with long, light-colored hair, a phone with its battery and SIM card removed, his wallet and a cigar tip from inside it. A television in his room was playing the surveillance video of him with Graham. "I want to speak to him again," Detective Jim Mooney said at a news conference.
Matthew went to a police station with relatives to ask about a lawyer and then sped away, which led to two reckless driving charges. His aunt, Alice Fletcher, later told investigators the family urged him to "do the right thing" and tell police what happened so Graham's family could find her, reminding him she was "someone's child." The family planned to meet on Sunday, September 21. That morning, his mother told police, he took the keys to his sister's car and left. License plate readers caught the car on Interstate 59 near Slidell, Louisiana, at 10:20 that night and on Interstate 10 near Lake Charles the next day. He called his father on September 22 through Louisiana cell towers.
Charlottesville police obtained a warrant charging him with abduction with intent to defile on Tuesday, September 23. The next afternoon a Galveston County sheriff's deputy answered a call about a suspicious person at Gilchrist, a small community on the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas, and found a man camping in a tent on the beach with a car parked nearby. A check of the plates showed it was the car Virginia was looking for. Matthew was arrested on September 24, about 1,300 miles from Charlottesville, and returned to Virginia two days later. "This case is nowhere near over," Longo said. "We have a person in custody but there's a long road ahead of us."
On September 29, Virginia State Police said in a written statement that Matthew's arrest "provided a significant break" in the Harrington case "with a new forensic link for state police investigators to pursue." A search warrant later showed that the DNA profile developed from the cigar tip in his wallet could not be excluded as matching the stain on Morgan Harrington's T-shirt, which in turn matched the Fairfax attacker.
On Saturday, October 18, 2014, human remains were found on an abandoned property off Old Lynchburg Road in southern Albemarle County, about five weeks after Graham disappeared. On October 24 authorities confirmed through DNA and dental records that they were hers. The property was about 12 miles from the university and about six miles from the hayfield where Morgan Harrington had been found. The medical examiner initially recorded the cause of death as homicidal violence of undetermined etiology; documents filed at the plea hearing gave the likely cause as strangulation or suffocation. Her parents said they were devastated. Nearly 1,000 people attended a celebration of her life at West Potomac High School on November 15, and her remains were taken to England for her funeral that December.
Matthew was later charged with first-degree murder in Graham's death. In Fairfax he was indicted for the 2005 attack on charges of attempted capital murder, abduction with intent to defile and object sexual penetration. On May 5, 2015, prosecutors in Albemarle County said new forensic evidence had led to a capital murder charge in the Graham case, and that they would seek the death penalty if the case went to trial. His Charlottesville lawyers were Douglas Ramseur and Michael Hemenway.
The Fairfax trial began on June 8, 2015. R.G., who by then lived in India, returned to testify. A DNA analyst testified that Matthew's DNA matched the DNA from her fingernail, with a probability of about one in 7.2 billion that it came from someone else. A few days into the trial, on June 10, Matthew entered an Alford plea: he did not admit guilt but conceded that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. The court treats an Alford plea as a conviction. He also waived his right to appeal. Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh said he had been surprised but relieved, because a mistrial would have meant bringing the victim back from India again.
At sentencing in Fairfax County Circuit Court on October 2, 2015, Judge David Schell called the attack "vicious and brutal." In a victim impact statement R.G. wrote that she had felt as though she died that night, that she had "basically stopped living," and that she had lived with what happened for ten years. Morrogh called her "the hero," because without her testimony there would have been no prosecution. He described Matthew as a "modern-day Jekyll and Hyde," noted that he had refused to cooperate with the presentence report, and said of the childhood abuse claim, "The two have nothing to do with each other." Matthew declined to speak. Schell imposed the maximum, three life sentences. As the sentence was read, Matthew's mother shouted at the judge and was led out by relatives. Gil Harrington, who was in the courtroom, said there were no winners, only loss.
In 2015, six years after Morgan Harrington disappeared, Matthew was charged in Albemarle County with her first-degree murder and her abduction with intent to defile. Gil Harrington had attended the Fairfax proceedings. Trials were set for July 5, 2016, in the Graham case and October 24, 2016, in the Harrington case.
In January 2016 Albemarle Circuit Judge Cheryl Higgins heard a defense motion to suppress seven of the items taken from Matthew's apartment, including the phone, the wallet and the cigar tip, which the defense argued required a separate warrant. Higgins found that the affidavit "went into extreme detail," that police had not misled the magistrate, and that officers had used reasonable discretion. She denied the motion on January 21.
At what had been scheduled as a pretrial hearing on March 2, 2016, Matthew pleaded guilty in Albemarle County Circuit Court to two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abduction with intent to defile, one of each for Hannah Graham and for Morgan Harrington. These were guilty pleas, not Alford pleas. In return, Albemarle Commonwealth's Attorney Robert N. Tracci dropped the capital murder charge, which carried a possible death sentence, and a remaining reckless driving charge. The Commonwealth kept the right to reindict on the capital charge if Matthew broke the terms. The court imposed four consecutive life sentences, the maximum for each offense, the same afternoon. Matthew waived his rights to appeal, to withdraw the plea, and to parole, conditional, early or geriatric release.
The statement of facts summarized what the Commonwealth would have proved at trial. In the Harrington case, four witnesses said they took cab rides to the arena that night in a van matching Matthew's, driven by a man matching his description. A witness would have testified to seeing a young woman matching Morgan's description, in a Pantera T-shirt, standing near the cab. DNA on the shirt matched the Fairfax attacker and the DNA later developed from Matthew's belongings. A dog hair on the shirt shared a mitochondrial DNA type with Matthew's dog, a type found in 13.3 percent of dogs in the United States. Matthew's phone, active in Charlottesville before and after, went quiet for about 90 minutes from around 9:30 p.m., and its next activity was on a tower in the direction of Anchorage Farm. In the Graham case, the statement described the surveillance video, the witness at the car, and testimony from a botany expert that plant material from the car's underside matched plant life where her remains were found.
Matthew did not address the court. Through Ramseur he said he was sorry and loved his family. Ramseur told reporters the plea was meant to give "some closure to all the people that were affected," and Matthew's lead counsel also said he took the deal to avoid the death penalty. "While no outcome will ever produce closure," Tracci said, "this agreement promotes resolution."
Both families supported the agreement. "Our overriding priority was that Matthew will never be able again to inflict his depravity on young women," John Graham said. He said Matthew had "mercilessly" cut short his daughter's life, and that Hannah's lasting gift was helping convict him. Sue Graham called the crime a wicked perversion and described her daughter as a heroine. "Morgan loved and was loved, she laughed, she danced, she was the world's best hugger, and she was so alive," Dan Harrington said. "There are no winners here," Gil Harrington said, and urged neighbors to look out for one another: "Together, we can help save the next girl." Virginia State Police Colonel W. Steven Flaherty credited Special Agent Capuzzo and the agencies that had worked the Harrington case for more than six years.
Matthew was taken to Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virginia's highest-security prison, in March 2016. In May 2019 he told WTVR in a phone interview that he had cancer. Gil Harrington said Tracci had told her it was stage 4 colon cancer; the Department of Corrections declined to discuss his medical records. He was moved to Sussex I State Prison for treatment on May 20, 2019, and later returned to Red Onion. "Whatever justice is, perhaps this is the next phase of his justice," Gil Harrington said.
The convictions are final; Matthew waived all appeals in both cases. According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, as reported by WTOP, WTVR and WSLS in April 2026, he was moved on March 6, 2026, from Red Onion, a Security Level 6 supermax, to Keen Mountain Correctional Center in Oakwood, a Level 4 maximum-security prison, where WTVR reported he is in protective custody. A department spokesman, Kyle Gibson, said the facility "meets the inmate's security needs" and did not say whether the move was related to his health. Ramseur said he had not known of the move and was pleased Matthew could move down one security level. Gil Harrington said the move gave her "some disquiet" and that she did not believe he could be rehabilitated. He was 44 at that time. This is his status as of the April 10, 2026 WSLS report; no later record was checked.
The cases came before the General Assembly in its 2015 session, at the same time as a wider debate about sexual assault on Virginia campuses. Delegate David Toscano of Charlottesville wrote in February 2015 that a bill requiring transcript notations "specifically addresses" Matthew, who had moved between two Virginia universities without his history following him.
The resulting law, Senate Bill 1193, became Chapter 771 of the 2015 Acts of Assembly and took effect on July 1, 2015. It requires public colleges, and private colleges that take part in state tuition grant or building finance programs, to place a prominent notation on the academic transcript of any student who is suspended for, permanently dismissed for, or withdraws while under investigation for an offense involving sexual violence under the school's conduct code. Students must be told that this will happen, and the notation must be removed if the student is later found not responsible, or, for a suspension, once the student completes it and returns to good standing. It does not apply to everyone under investigation, only to those suspended, dismissed or leaving during an investigation.
Two companion laws took effect the same day. House Bill 1930, which incorporated Toscano's reporting measure, set out how colleges must work with law enforcement and sexual assault agencies and report to police when community safety is at risk. House Bill 1785, Chapter 707, requires campus police to notify the local commonwealth's attorney within 48 hours of beginning an investigation into a felony sexual assault on or related to campus property. The same session passed a bill expanding the state DNA database to include certain misdemeanor convictions. Help Save the Next Girl continues to lobby on safety legislation in Morgan Harrington's name. The World Bank created an annual award in Hannah Graham's memory for work to reduce gender-based violence, and a softball scholarship in her name was set up in Northern Virginia in 2021.
Proven by conviction: the murders and abductions of Morgan Harrington and Hannah Graham, by guilty pleas in 2016, and the 2005 Fairfax abduction, sexual assault and attempted murder, by an Alford plea in 2015. An Alford plea is a conviction but not an admission; Matthew has never publicly described any of the crimes.
Not proven: the Liberty University and Christopher Newport University allegations. Both were investigated, neither was charged, and in the Liberty case Matthew said the woman consented. They are reported here as allegations.
Speculation only: in 2014 news reports listed other unsolved cases from the area, among them the disappearances of Samantha Clarke, 19, in Orange in 2010 and Dashad "Sage" Smith, 19, in Charlottesville in 2012. No source consulted for this page reports that Matthew was charged or forensically linked to either case, and he should not be described as a suspect in them.
2000 to 2002: Attends Liberty University and plays football.
October 17, 2002: A woman reports that Matthew raped her at Liberty. He leaves the university that day. No charges.
September 7, 2003: Sexual assault reported at Christopher Newport University, with Matthew accused. He leaves the football team on September 12 and the university in October. No charges.
September 24, 2005: R.G. is abducted, sexually assaulted and choked near her home in Fairfax and survives.
2007 to 2010: Holds a Charlottesville taxi permit.
October 17, 2009: Morgan Harrington disappears after leaving the Metallica concert at John Paul Jones Arena.
January 26, 2010: Her remains are found on Anchorage Farm, Albemarle County.
2010: DNA links the Harrington case to the Fairfax attack.
June 2012: The FBI releases enhanced sketches and a public service announcement by James Hetfield.
August 12, 2012: Matthew begins work at the University of Virginia Medical Center.
September 13, 2014: Hannah Graham is last seen with Matthew on the Downtown Mall.
September 19, 2014: Police search his apartment and seize a cigar tip from his wallet.
September 21, 2014: Matthew leaves Charlottesville in his sister's car.
September 23, 2014: Warrant for abduction with intent to defile.
September 24, 2014: Arrested at Gilchrist, Galveston County, Texas.
September 29, 2014: State police announce a forensic link to the Harrington case.
October 18, 2014: Graham's remains found off Old Lynchburg Road; identified October 24.
February 27, 2015: Campus sexual assault bills, including the transcript notation bill, pass the General Assembly.
May 5, 2015: Capital murder charge in the Graham case.
June 10, 2015: Alford plea in the Fairfax case.
July 1, 2015: Virginia's transcript notation and campus reporting laws take effect.
2015 (by October): Charged with Harrington's murder and abduction.
October 2, 2015: Three life sentences in Fairfax.
January 21, 2016: Judge Higgins denies the motion to suppress.
March 2, 2016: Guilty pleas to both murders; four consecutive life sentences.
May 20, 2019: Moved to Sussex I State Prison for cancer treatment.
March 6, 2026: Moved from Red Onion State Prison to Keen Mountain Correctional Center (status as of the April 10, 2026 WSLS report).