Metallica, the FBI and Virginia police agencies are partnering in a new multimedia campaign to find the man who killed college student Morgan Harrington in 2009, and raped a Fairfax woman in 2005.
The campaign, launched Wednesday, includes sketches featured on D.C. bus shelters, digital billboards along the East Coast, social media alerts and a public service announcement from Metallica lead guitarist James Hetfield.
Harrington, a student at Virginia Tech, was last seen while leaving a Metallica concert on Oct. 17, 2009; her body was later found in an Albemarle County field. DNA evidence linked her slaying to a September 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax City.
“Any information, no matter how small you might think it is, could be that crucial piece investigators need to help solve the case,” Hetfield says in the video.
| To report a tip |
| Tipsters can call Virginia State Police at 434-352-3467, Fairfax City police at 703-385-7959 or the FBI at 800-CALL-FBI (225-5324) or submit information online at tips.fbi.gov. |
In the past year and a half, similar media campaigns have led to an arrest in the East Coast Rapist case and helped the FBI track down fugitive gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.
“We’ve seen them work,” FBI spokesman Andrew Ames said.
The website for the Harrington case features a photo gallery that includes images of a suspect, the student’s jewelry and the crime scene. There are also videos and podcasts about the case, and contact information for law enforcement agencies.
Authorities said sketches of the suspect will be plastered on billboards in the District, Richmond, Roanoke and 23 other states.
“We have good composites, and we don’t know where this person is,” Ames said. “So we are trying to reach out to the largest swath of the public that we can.”
Harrington went missing after she left a Metallica concert at the University of Virginia early and couldn’t re-enter; she was seen hitchhiking near the venue. A T-shirt she was wearing was found in Charlottesville the next month, and her body was found near a farm off Route 29 in January 2010.
Jefferson Area Crime Stoppers is offering a $100,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction; Metallica is offering another $50,000.
The suspect is described as a black man who was between 25 and 35 years old at the time of the 2005 Fairfax assault. He was 5 feet 9 inches to 6 feet tall, weighed 180 to 220 pounds and had a beard and mustache.
