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Arrest Warrant Issued in Hannah Graham Case

Charlottesville police have issued an arrest warrant for Jesse Matthew, a man seen on security videos with UVA student Hannah Graham before she went missing. 

Police Chief Tim Longo had a short announcement Tuesday – new charges have been filed against 32-year-old Jesse Matthew.

“This afternoon we reached that point where the Commonwealth felt we had sufficient probable cause to seek an arrest warrant for Jesse Leroy Matthew, Jr. of Charlottesville, charging him with a class two felony of abduction with the intent to defile.”

Longo said that would free up state and federal resources to assist in the search for Matthew who was under surveillance by state police Saturday, when he allegedly drove away at high speed, leaving his observers behind.

Longo would not cite specific evidence that persuaded the Commonwealth’s attorney to approve charges, but the state’s central crime lab says it’s still working on 28 samples taken from Matthew’s home and car.

Director Jeff Ban says his team has been on the job since Saturday, but DNA analysis takes time.

“You look at the evidence to see if there’s any stains that might be visible. You look for any hairs or fiber that might be on the clothes, any type of debris that might give us a sense for where the clothing might have been in the past, so in a situation where maybe you have clothing or maybe you have some bedding, there might be a lot of hairs on there. There might be a lot of little stains on it.”

And if one person was wearing an article of clothing, for example, an another person bled on it, the DNA could be mixed, further complicating the lab’s job. Ban says he’s well aware of how important this case is, but unlike CSI, real world lab work often requires days of testing.

In the absence of additional news on this case, the blogosphere has been buzzing. A security camera photograph of Alexis Murphy, a young Nelson County woman who went missing last summer, is all over the Internet. It shows her near a car that fits the description of Jesse Matthew’s vehicle – a burnt orange Chrysler coop. And some amateur detectives are talking about the man convicted of killing her. Randy Taylor claimed, in his defense, that prosecutors had the wrong guy.

“He said Alexis Murphy had been in his camper with a black man with corn rows who sold him some pot.”

That’s Lisa Province, who covered the trial for Cville Weekly. She says the man Taylor described was not Jesse Matthew.

“This guy testified at the trial, and he said he was with his girlfriend that night and also his girlfriend was a cousin of Alexis Murphy. Police never considered him a serious suspect, and he really looks very different from Matthew.”

There is also heavy speculation about possible links to the Morgan Harrington case, but Chief Longo, who is also an attorney, will not talk about that or any other aspect of the on-going investigation.

“Between now and the time that this matter goes to trial, we need to be very sensitive about the information we share – to respect and protect that process.

Police in Northern Virginia are equally quiet about a rape case from 2005. DNA from that case matched evidence found with the remains of Morgan Harrington. A detective in Fairfax did confirm that the case is active

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
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