Search Captions & Ask AI

Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode

July 29, 2022 / 41:54

This episode covers the abduction and murder of Morgan Harrington, the investigation into her case, and the crimes of Jesse Matthew. Key discussions include the timeline of events surrounding Morgan's disappearance, the profile of Jesse Matthew, and the impact on Morgan's family.

Jill Harrington, Morgan's mother, recounts the day Morgan went missing after attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2009. Morgan's purse was found, leading to a frantic search by her family and volunteers.

The episode details Jesse Matthew's background, including his history of sexual offenses and his life as a taxi driver. It highlights how he was able to evade justice despite multiple accusations and how he ultimately became linked to Morgan's case.

After 101 days of searching, Morgan's body was discovered, and evidence connected Jesse Matthew to her murder. The episode also discusses the subsequent investigation into the disappearance of another student, Hannah Graham, and how Matthew was apprehended.

Jesse Matthew was sentenced to multiple life sentences after pleading guilty to the murders of Morgan and Hannah. The episode concludes with reflections on the nature of evil and the lasting impact of these tragedies on the victims' families.

TLDR

The episode details Morgan Harrington's murder and Jesse Matthew's crimes, highlighting the investigation and its impact on families.

Episode

41:54
00:00:04
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] There's only one word to describe what he did to those girls.
00:00:28
It's just one word. He breaks bones with his bare hands. Who can do that. I knew we-- we were against an apex predator
00:00:45
who was comfortable, uh, abducting, raping, and murdering a girl. And I didn't want him to get another one.
00:00:53
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [DRAMATIC MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I'm Jill Harrington, and I'm Morgan Harrington's mom.
00:01:59
Morgan's not here anymore because she was abducted and murdered in 2009. I mean, who would think our precious little Morgan would
00:02:12
interface with this serial murderer in a nice town like Charlottesville, Virginia,
00:02:18
and be taken down? [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC] NARRATOR: October 17, 2009, Virginia Tech student
00:02:36
Morgan Harrington left home to see one of her favorite bands. Morgan had a wide eclectic, um, taste in music,
00:02:47
everything here from Barry Manilow, to The Beatles, to Metallica. She's got a wall covered with albums.
00:02:55
We would take her to concerts, and she was actually at a Metallica concert. [UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC]
00:03:00
[FANS CHEERING] She went to go to the concert. And, you know, I-- I always have believed in leave taking.
00:03:14
I don't just sit on the couch and say, bye-bye. I get up and go see them out. And she got in her car and, you know, put down her mirror,
00:03:23
fixed her lipstick, and leaned out and said, two, four, one, mama. And she drove away and never came back.
00:03:35
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] She had wanted to be at that concert, uh, for about six months before.
00:03:50
And, you know, it's a concert and the lights are crazy, and she hit her head. So by the time she got to the bathroom,
00:03:58
she was bleeding from an open gash. And she went outside in the cold. Morgan steps out of the concert venue,
00:04:11
and when she goes back inside, she realizes she can't get in. They won't let her back in.
00:04:17
So she called her friends and let them know that she couldn't get back into the venue, and that she was going to see
00:04:23
about finding a ride home. And she realizes that she doesn't have enough money for the fare.
00:04:29
She almost has enough, but she just doesn't quite have the full fare. October 17th began the nightmare for Morgan's parents.
00:04:41
Their daughter never returned home from that concert. They never heard from her.
00:04:46
NARRATOR: Witnesses would say they'd seen Morgan hitchhiking on a nearby bridge.
00:04:51
The morning after the concert, the Harringtons get a phone call. When we got the call, uh, that Morgan's purse had been found
00:05:03
in Charlottesville, uh, outside John Paul Jones Arena, and I came in. Uh, Dan was sitting here, and I came in from church.
00:05:11
We were waiting for her. She was supposed to look at some math and go over her checkbook with her papa.
00:05:16
And, you know, I came in and he said, oh, you know, Charlottesville Police called.
00:05:22
They found Morgan's purse. And that was like the elevator plummeted from the top floor
00:05:28
into the basement because you knew no woman-- If-- if her purse was gone, she would
00:05:34
have been on the phone crying. She would-- we would have heard from her. So I said, where-- where is she?
00:05:42
NARRATOR: Leaflets were plastered all over the university town. Hundreds of volunteers turned out to search for Morgan.
00:05:49
As they did, they shared the city streets with Jesse Matthew, a local taxi driver,
00:05:54
someone whose name meant nothing to Morgan Harrington's parents. Uh, he attended high school here in-- in this
00:06:01
Charlottesville area. A lot of people knew Jesse. A lot of people knew him from high school,
00:06:08
they knew him from his, uh, participation in sports, they knew him from his frequenting of, uh,
00:06:14
of places on our pedestrian mall. His mother actually moved him out of Charlottesville when he was at the beginning
00:06:22
of teenage years. He lived in what's called the North Garden area of Charlottesville.
00:06:27
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Jesse was a massive figure. He was a large man. And I suspect in those days when he was engaged actively
00:06:40
in athletics, I would suspect he was a very intimidating figure on the field, if you will.
00:06:47
Jesse Matthew had the physical physique of a quintessential American football player.
00:06:54
He had the large enough physique to be offered to play at the college level. NARRATOR: Jesse's father was frequently absent or drunk,
00:07:03
and he had a history of sexual offending. With the man that we know, his father,
00:07:09
was convicted in 2006 of indecent exposure. My guess is that that probably wasn't his father's
00:07:16
first indecent exposure. This was when he got caught. And I would imagine that, um, the young Matthew
00:07:24
would have known about this behavior in his father. Certainly might have been there when his father had perpetrated
00:07:31
this type of behavior and then developed a sense of shame around it. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:07:57
I think Jesse Matthew always thought himself as a special person. But obviously, in his childhood, he
00:08:03
was more getting in trouble for some of those special and unique qualities. As he got older and found football,
00:08:11
he found this very pro-social way to gain positive attention. NARRATOR: Positive attention on the field, but on campus,
00:08:20
there were soon signs that Jesse Matthew had not left his problematic teenage behavior behind.
00:08:27
With the new semester in autumn, 2002 came an influx of students and a grave accusation against him.
00:08:39
There was an accused rape there that no one prosecuted. He says it's consensual.
00:08:47
And he says that he didn't do anything, never forced anything on her. That this was somebody that he had a relationship
00:08:54
and it was consensual on both sides. I suspect he projected a public image of a playful, uh,
00:09:03
um, gentle giant. I guess there's no other way to describe it. He-- he kind of had that image in people's minds
00:09:14
that he is not the kind of person, the kind of spirit that's capable of something
00:09:20
this horrific. I think that's what people felt. He also wasn't under the confines of his household rules
00:09:27
anymore. He can do whatever he wants in college. There's nobody that's necessarily
00:09:31
watching you come and go. And even when he was being watched, people were usually watching with admiration because he was
00:09:39
such a good football player. And so I think in many ways, it contributed to him thinking that he could do whatever the heck he wanted.
00:09:48
These guys left family of origin where there was some kind of control and expectations
00:09:54
and were now living, um, on their own independently. And so they could rage. So there-- that's-- that's a perfect storm
00:10:06
that you have predators who are now, um, not censored by parents. And then you have a crop of young students
00:10:16
who don't yet have a peer group and don't really know the town where they are in college.
00:10:22
And that's a very, um, dangerous time of year on college campuses. And Jesse Matthew knew that, and he was banking on that.
00:10:33
NARRATOR: Jesse was asked to leave Liberty University. Matthew then moved 200 miles east
00:10:39
to Christopher Newport College. He left school. He went to, um, uh, Christopher Newport.
00:10:49
There was a rape there. He leaves his first university, he's disappeared, he's off the radar screen,
00:10:56
and suddenly shows up on yet another football team, another college, in an area, in a town,
00:11:03
in a region where suddenly, two women go missing. Going to a new campus just gave him a fresh start.
00:11:13
And we do find also in research when we look at people who commit violent crimes, that they tend
00:11:18
to float from city to city, from community to community to commit these crimes. And generally, you can't pin them down.
00:11:25
They don't stay in one community for very long, and that's what allows them to be
00:11:28
able to repeat these crimes that they do over and over again. NARRATOR: No link was ever made between Matthew
00:11:33
and the missing women. But a year after the first rape accusation in the fall semester
00:11:38
of 2003, another traumatized young woman came forward to the college authorities.
00:11:44
Jesse Matthew suddenly disappears, while at the same time, yet another investigation,
00:11:51
yet another alleged claim of a sexual assault. They can't disclose the information for the sake
00:11:58
and the privacy of the students that may or may not be involved. NARRATOR: Once again, Jesse Matthew
00:12:03
walked away from his college without a stain on his reputation or a criminal record.
00:12:10
Matthew, no longer a budding football star, resurfaces in Fairfax City, Virginia, another town
00:12:16
with a large student population. He became a taxi driver, cruising the neighborhood
00:12:23
in a brown minivan. In Fairfax City, there was yet another sexual assault victim,
00:12:29
but she was a survivor. And in her cooperation with law enforcement, she was able to provide a composite sketch
00:12:37
of who her attacker was. And the police were able to obtain a DNA sample. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:12:50
[ENCHANTED MUSIC] NARRATOR: The rapist Jesse Matthew was the cab driver who approached the missing Morgan Harrington
00:12:58
as she left the John Paul Jones Arena in the fall of 2009. [ENCHANTED MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:13:16
Morgan was missing for 101 days before her body was discovered. And that period of time, that 101 days,
00:13:26
was by far, um, the most anguishing for our family. Um, it-- it's much worse to have a missing
00:13:35
daughter than a dead daughter, because when missing is limbo. You're-- you're swinging on a pendulum between bracing
00:13:44
for the worst news ever and trying to maintain hope at the same time, which is really
00:13:49
debilitating to have emotions on both sides of the spectrum constantly. You know, you're peering into the woods, you know,
00:13:58
could she be there? Could she be there? There are no rituals for the missing, no hallmark
00:14:05
cards for the missing. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: During the time Morgan was missing,
00:14:13
a student walking by the corner of 15th Street and Grady Avenue made a grim discovery.
00:14:22
Morgan's, um, shirt had been found, and there had been blood on it. And the blood actually, um, was, uh,
00:14:32
associated with a rape that had occurred in Fairfax five years earlier. The blood that was found on Morgan's shirt
00:14:44
provided a DNA profile, a link to yet another case. And that case is the Fairfax City case, the case that
00:14:52
provided the sketch, the case that provided the original DNA profile. At that time when they showed us the--
00:15:01
the composite, I-- I was stunned because there was this person who-- I-- I said, Morgan wouldn't have gotten
00:15:10
into the car with this person, you know, voluntarily. I mean, it just stunned me because it's
00:15:17
not what I imagined. I'm not sure what I imagined, but it wasn't what I imagined.
00:15:23
NARRATOR: The blood discovered on Morgan's shirt didn't match any of the 14 million profiles on CODIS,
00:15:28
a national DNA database. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It was a terrible winter in Charlottesville.
00:15:45
And-- and, um, uh, the man who owned the big farm, the 800-acre farm, went out looking at his fences,
00:15:53
and he saw, you know, this pile of bones and thought it was probably a deer. And, um, it was-- fortunately, you know,
00:16:01
the snow had melted a little bit then over that period of time. And, you know, we're just so lucky that he found them.
00:16:09
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] He breaks bones with his bare hands. Who can do that? How is that somehow real, that a human could be a bone breaker?
00:16:40
But that's exactly what he did. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] You know, Jill said, there is someone out here who
00:16:54
knows something about Morgan. And they know something because they knew where to put a body.
00:17:01
It wasn't just someone passing through town. This person is in this town. He's a local boy.
00:17:11
This is homegrown talent. He-- he is comfortable here, and predators stay where they're comfortable.
00:17:17
He knew the area. He would not have known the-- the farm as a place to just dump a body.
00:17:23
He had been on that farm. I mean, we're talking about a remote part of the farm.
00:17:27
And you had to drive by the front door of the house and open a gate and go down into the fields to do this.
00:17:37
NARRATOR: Whoever had been described as the Fairfax City rapist had not been found.
00:17:42
There was no named suspect. Meanwhile, Jesse Matthew continued to walk and drive
00:17:48
the streets of Charlottesville. I was told early in the investigation that it was most likely, most likely
00:17:56
that Morgan's killer would be found from DNA on another body. And I understood logically that that was likely to happen,
00:18:06
but I was bound and determined. I was not just going to sit and wait for it. They do not give up the fight.
00:18:14
They are posting not just flyers, which would be in the traditional sense. They're not just appealing to local media.
00:18:23
For the first time in modern history, they're using social media, they are using the internet,
00:18:29
they are using the ways that-- that university students communicate with each other.
00:18:34
They're getting her face out there. They're keeping this story at the front of the pack.
00:18:40
I said, it's too late for Morgan, but please, let's work together and save the next girl.
00:18:47
Because I knew we-- we were against an apex predator who was comfortable, uh, abducting, raping, and murdering a girl,
00:18:58
and I didn't want him to get another one. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Hi, I'm James with Metallica.
00:19:18
Back in 2010, our band offered $50,000 to help catch the person responsible for murdering
00:19:24
Morgan Harrington. Since that time, authorities uncovered new evidence linking her killer to a similar assault on a woman in Virginia.
00:19:33
If you've seen the person in this sketch or have any information about this case or any others,
00:19:38
please contact your local police or submit your information online. [SMOOTH MUSIC]
00:19:53
He helped coach football in one of the private schools in Charlottesville. Uh, he was a-- a frequently seen figure,
00:20:00
uh, on our Downtown pedestrian mall. He was well known. Jesse Matthew himself, he didn't
00:20:07
have cloven feet or horns. If it hadn't been in the circumstance and he had smiled,
00:20:14
he would have been a gorgeous young man. He's got a-- you know, there's nothing unusual or physically
00:20:21
ugly about Jesse Matthew. There just isn't. He's not a demon. He-- he doesn't come as a brutal marauder,
00:20:30
except when he's hiding and he's hunted. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] There-- there is such a thing as a predator.
00:20:41
And maybe it's the same thing as evil. I think predators are different stuff, but predators have to pass in the environment
00:20:53
where the prey is because that's what they do, is they hunt prey. NARRATOR: In September, 2014, as a new semester
00:21:01
began in Charlottesville, Virginia, another young woman went missing. This was when Detective Tim Longo first became part
00:21:09
of the Jesse Matthew story. I was in Texas. And I got up one morning, and there was a-- an email from a mother from Northern Virginia.
00:21:18
And I'll paraphrase the email. It basically said, Chief Longo, help find my daughter's friend.
00:21:26
So I quickly called home to find out that, um, a 19-year-old University of Virginia student,
00:21:31
uh, had gone missing over the weekend. So I-- I told the captain that I was speaking to her on the phone.
00:21:37
I said, please keep me up to date. Hannah Graham, a University of Virginia student,
00:21:43
volunteered for numerous organizations, had a whole plethora of friends. This one particular night, she went out with her friends.
00:21:51
She was celebrating. She had a few drinks. Hannah Graham never makes it home. I always called him the back to school killer
00:22:02
because his offenses are all at the same time of year. You know, several of the-- in fact,
00:22:09
one of the rapes, um, that he did at Liberty University was this-- a different year, but the same day that Morgan was abducted.
00:22:19
NARRATOR: Second year student Hannah had moved to America from the UK with her family
00:22:23
as a young child. When her parents could not get hold of her, they knew straight away that something was wrong.
00:22:30
By the end of the day, I'd made a decision I needed to come home. I needed to come home and-- and meet, um, two people
00:22:37
that I would come to know and-- uh, John and Susan Graham. And I met with them about two hours
00:22:45
after landing in Richmond International Airport not-- not far from here. And I made a promise that I'd--
00:22:53
I'd find their daughter. Um, I-- I had no idea that some 40 days later, um, the circumstances would be such that, uh, their daughter
00:23:03
wouldn't be coming home. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] We need to find out what happened to Hannah and make sure that it doesn't happen to anybody else.
00:23:12
NARRATOR: Jesse Matthew knew what had happened to Hannah. He was keeping a low profile.
00:23:23
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] We were able to have that video evidence not just in one, but several cameras throughout that Downtown pedestrian mall,
00:23:52
uh, that depicted him and-- and-- and Hannah Graham together. NARRATOR: Images from a camera captured at a fuel station
00:24:01
and others from the Downtown area proved vital as the hunt for Hannah continued.
00:24:08
What do we know? We know Hannah was downtown early Saturday morning. We know Hannah was distinctively dressed.
00:24:18
Did you see Hannah? Did anybody see Hannah? Did you see Hannah? Did you see Hannah?
00:24:21
Who saw Hannah? Jesse Matthew, he is also out, and he is also bar hopping. He went to at least three different bars.
00:24:29
At each bar, every bartender, all the employees still remember Jesse Matthew, why he was a nuisance.
00:24:38
He was hitting on women. He was making inappropriate comments and advances towards numerous women that they complained to the bartenders
00:24:46
and the waitresses. Jesse Matthew, what was his reply? That he was out to pick up women.
00:24:57
Hannah Graham, unbeknownst to her, her path would cross with Jesse Matthew. Her friends had previously offered to give Hannah a ride.
00:25:05
And she didn't want to be a trouble to anyone, so she said she would walk. But Hannah was confused.
00:25:11
She got lost and even texted that she was disorientated, and that she didn't know where she was,
00:25:17
somewhere around 14th Street. He was very openly, um, interested in-- in Hannah Graham.
00:25:25
That was clear by that video that depicted him walking one way and her walking another.
00:25:31
And very quickly thereafter, the image of the two of them together. They also noticed that he has his arm
00:25:36
around Hannah Graham, which would have been confusing for the detectives. Was this another situation where he
00:25:44
would claim that this was some kind of consensual relationship? But the detectives, as a result of viewing this video,
00:25:51
were able to find some witnesses. And these witnesses even were able to confront Jesse
00:25:57
and told him they didn't think that she was willing to go with Jesse. And Jesse basically brushed them off.
00:26:07
We want to talk to him. We want to talk about his interaction with the sweet young girl that we can't find.
00:26:17
NARRATOR: Aware of detectives' interest in him, Matthew attended the local police station voluntarily a week
00:26:23
or so into the search for Hannah. He requested a public defender, then refused to talk.
00:26:30
The lawyer came, and, uh, he spent what seemed to be about an hour behind closed doors
00:26:35
with Jesse Matthew. Um, and then the two of them left. And as I said then, I-- I-- I didn't know any more about what happened to Hannah Graham
00:26:45
than, uh, than the moment he walked inside the police station. He's not stony. He's glib and happy about what he's done,
00:26:55
I'm sorry to tell you. And it's really, um, disconcerting to try to figure out someone because what you're really
00:27:04
doing is trying to turn them into someone who couldn't murder. But here is someone who can murder.
00:27:10
And when I say to law enforcement, I can't understand, they say, thank God because if you could,
00:27:18
you would be capable of something that is unthinkable. NARRATOR: Needing to gather evidence to charge Matthew
00:27:26
and wary of what he might do in the meantime, Tim Longo's team put him under surveillance.
00:27:32
During the course of following him, there was a state police officer in the vehicle and I believe
00:27:36
a city detective, uh, he, uh, engaged in some pretty reckless driving behavior, sufficient enough to obtain
00:27:44
a-- a warrant charging him with reckless driving, and so we did that. I've made no mistake about it.
00:27:53
We want to talk to Jesse Matthew. We want to talk to him. We want to talk about his interaction
00:28:03
with a sweet young girl that we can't find because he was with her. When the police searched Jesse Matthew's car, his vehicle,
00:28:14
it reveals gloves, it reveals antiseptics, it reveals a cell phone with a sim card that's been removed.
00:28:26
These are all little building blocks. It's enough to get that warrant to go look at Jesse Matthew
00:28:34
and to look at the inside of his apartment. Once the warrant is obtained, when they go inside the apartment, they find a pair of shorts.
00:28:46
And on those shorts also with semen that belonged to Jesse Matthew. The combination of that physical evidence and certainly
00:28:54
that forensic evidence not only, um, only connected Jesse Matthew to Hannah Graham's death,
00:29:03
but, uh, to the death of Morgan Harrington and to the violent sexual assault of a, uh,
00:29:08
a woman in Fairfax City, uh, many years before. But it takes over a week for those results to come back.
00:29:15
In the meantime, the detectives have spoken to Jesse Matthew. He has not given his DNA.
00:29:22
He has already shown a propensity to flee. He's fled every city where he's ever been a suspect.
00:29:27
And-- and this time, when the noose was really tightening around him, he fled all the way to the Gulf Coast.
00:29:36
TIM LONGO: On a beach in Galveston, Texas, a woman saw his image, saw his face and recognized him from, uh, national media, which, uh,
00:29:45
had pushed his image and his name, uh, and the story behind why we wanted so desperately to speak with him.
00:29:51
It became a national story and-- and this lady was paying attention to that story.
00:29:56
And so when she saw the image of Jesse Matthew, she called the Galveston Sheriff's Office and she said,
00:30:00
I think I know this guy. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I believe that he really did see life as a game.
00:30:06
What can I get away with? What can I do to make people respect me? How can I feel more power?
00:30:11
And how do I feel happier every day on my own, even if I'm hurting and possibly even killing other people?
00:30:17
So Jesse is the ultimate selfish person, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants in life
00:30:22
for himself. Are you Jesse Matthew Junior? Yeah. Mr. Matthew, my name is Judge Henry.
00:30:31
You have two charges this morning. You have got a fugitive from justice warrant out of Virginia
00:30:35
for abduction of a person with intent to defile. You have got a Galveston County charge of false information
00:30:41
to a peace officer. It was a major breakthrough, uh, for those-- for those investigators and, uh,
00:30:47
one that was long overdue. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Hannah Graham is still missing. She hadn't been found.
00:30:59
Over 1,000 people have looked for her. We spent, uh, many, many days, um, first in the city of Charlottesville, which is about 10 square miles,
00:31:09
and then in concentric circles began moving outward, uh, into Albemarle County, which is our neighboring, uh,
00:31:17
jurisdiction, some 700 square miles here. And it was about 10 miles out where we discovered the remains
00:31:23
of Hannah Graham behind a-- a house that actually had been for sale for some period of time.
00:31:32
Matthew disposed of his victims, uh, in an area of land that he knew well from his childhood
00:31:38
that wasn't relatively far from where he lived, about 17 miles. This is within that sort of geographic,
00:31:43
um, centrality that we associate with serial killers, uh, and the disposal of their victims.
00:31:49
[CHEERFUL MUSIC] NARRATOR: The medical examiner's report into Hannah Graham's death was kept under wraps.
00:32:06
Police revealed only that Hannah Graham had died of homicidal violence. All the evidence pointed to one man.
00:32:14
Finally, uh, after several months, they charged Jessie with Morgan's death, and--
00:32:21
and we went to an arraignment in Charlottesville. There's this room, very small, and, um, you get three people
00:32:29
on each side of the aisle. And so as Jesse Matthew was being taken away, I was on the inside next to the aisle
00:32:40
and was this far from him. And he looked down at Jill and me and just stared us down as he passed us by.
00:32:49
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] Matthew doesn't face a jury. Um, and we can infer from that that there
00:33:06
was some sort of plea bargain that he had negotiated with the district attorney to avoid capital punishment,
00:33:12
like the death penalty. To hear Jesse Matthew say when asked the question, and are you pleading guilty because you are, in fact,
00:33:19
guilty, to hear him say yes, clearly admitting to the murder of these two women was, um, an incredible moment, I think,
00:33:29
for their family, uh, and-- and certainly for this community to hear him accept responsibility
00:33:35
for those horrific acts. JANE VANCE: Jesse Matthew got seven life sentences to be served consecutively,
00:33:46
not concurrently. And he yielded any chance for parole or geriatric release, any reason for early release, good behavior
00:33:58
or whatever that might mean at a supermax prison. We were glad that he wouldn't be able to hurt anybody else.
00:34:06
You know, that's what we were glad about. You know, he-- he had seven life sentences.
00:34:10
He's never going to get out. NARRATOR: Matthew admitted two murders, but law enforcement suspected he may
00:34:17
be responsible for more, indicating a possible serial killer. [ENCHANTED MUSIC] We know what happened to Morgan
00:34:26
and Hannah as a-- the result of Jesse Matthew. But there are dozens, that's plural, dozens of women who are
00:34:35
still missing out there who were in the general area in the life of Jesse Matthew.
00:34:41
There had been a number of missing persons, uh, in, uh, in this region over the past several years.
00:34:49
Um, it begs the logical question whether he may have been responsible for others.
00:34:59
Certainly, if he had not been apprehended, he would have gone on. How much more do you need?
00:35:05
Will he ever tell? Will he ever reveal? One can only hope that there would be a seed of goodness
00:35:12
somewhere inside that evil persona of Jesse Matthew. NARRATOR: In mitigation, Jesse Matthew told the court
00:35:23
that he had grown up in poverty, the result of a broken home and an absent father.
00:35:28
He claimed that he himself had suffered abuse as a child. Morgan Harrington's parents cannot
00:35:34
accept this explanation for the brutality of Matthew's crimes. I'm sure he had some issues growing up,
00:35:45
but there are people who have endured terrible, um, family situations and have gone on to become wonderful people.
00:35:54
He-- he had many opportunities, but he still could not change the matrix of what he was.
00:36:02
I-- I do think predators are different stuff. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] DAN HARRINGTON: At the end of the trial,
00:36:13
um, and he had confessed, but wasn't sorry, his entire family came over and said they were sorry.
00:36:22
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] It shocks me that he couldn't say, I'm sorry. He could never express remorse.
00:36:33
But then again, I do agree with Jill that he is different stuff than we, and that he doesn't express remorse because he
00:36:41
doesn't feel remorse. In fact, possibly, he's most glad that he has those videos
00:36:48
to play in his mind. It's really just a pawn, um, for them to achieve a goal, and that goal is often very selfish, whether it's money
00:36:58
or just their own feeling of power and being able to dominate over somebody else.
00:37:06
[CHATTER] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] I put up my hand, and I had-- I hoped that just normal social discourse would take over
00:37:18
and she would reflexively take my hand back. And she did. And I looked in her eyes and I said, my condolences.
00:37:27
I know this is difficult for your family also. She said, thank you. Jill has always been very magnanimous, you know,
00:37:37
and forgiving. Um, I was more-- not that I believed it, but I think as a-- publicly when
00:37:44
we would be with the press, I-- I would take an opposite stance and say, you know-- you know,
00:37:49
he, you know, this is a guy who needs to go to the electric chair. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:37:57
There's only one word to describe what he did to those girls. There's just one word, evil.
00:38:08
There's just no other word to describe it. I-- I am not going to go into the-- the graphic detail of how
00:38:15
he took the lives of those two young ladies, but what he did was just pure evil.
00:38:21
And it underscores, I think, the reality that evil walks [INAUDIBLE]. There-- there's no place that is-- that's immune from it.
00:38:30
The fact that he's accepted life in prison without the possibility of parole, the fact
00:38:35
that he's been excused from any sort of death sentence means that we probably will never
00:38:40
find out if he was, in fact, related to those disappearances. NARRATOR: With two convictions for murder
00:38:46
and a strong suspicion he has killed at least two others, the questions remain. What had made Jesse Matthew a serial killer?
00:38:55
For experts in the field of criminology and psychology, his was the natural escalation to murder of a psychopath.
00:39:03
Matthew in the first instance, uh, was a serial rapist, um, who then moved on to become,
00:39:10
in my opinion, a serial killer. He had developed a taste for that level of power and the ability--
00:39:18
I mean, how much more power can you have when you take someone's life? Jesse is not somebody who had empathy for anyone.
00:39:24
Jesse is the kind of person who really cares about himself above all else. He has no value for human life except for his own,
00:39:34
and people are just pawns in his game. Being with Jesse Matthew was, um-- you know, it marks you forever to be in the presence
00:39:45
of someone who, if he weren't constrained, might reach out quickly and snap your neck,
00:39:55
and who almost certainly took his huge hands-- you know, he was a football player
00:40:01
and he was a big, big guy. Almost certainly took the front teeth out of more than one
00:40:07
young woman. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] People are not safe with Jesse Matthew's free and loose
00:40:16
in the world. NARRATOR: Eventually, Matthew accepted, too, that the state had enough evidence to convict
00:40:23
him of the Fairfax City rape. I got to think that one of the reasons why, uh, he took the Alford plea that he did, uh,
00:40:32
in Fairfax City was that it came a point in that trial, I suspect, that he realized that the government's evidence
00:40:39
against him was more than sufficient to-- uh, for a fact finder to return a verdict of guilty.
00:40:45
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [UPBEAT MUSIC]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
    Most intense
  • 85
    Most heartbreaking
  • 85
    Most surprising

Episode Highlights

  • Jesse Matthew's Dark Past
    Jesse Matthew's history of troubling behavior raises alarms as he becomes a suspect in multiple cases.
    “He was a large man... intimidating on the field.”
    @ 06m 44s
    July 29, 2022
  • The Discovery of Morgan's Body
    Morgan's body was found 101 days after her disappearance, marking a devastating moment for her family.
    “It's much worse to have a missing daughter than a dead daughter.”
    @ 13m 32s
    July 29, 2022
  • The Abduction of Morgan Harrington
    Morgan Harrington was abducted after a Metallica concert in 2009, leading to a tragic search.
    “I didn't want him to get another one.”
    @ 18m 53s
    July 29, 2022
  • The Discovery of Evidence
    Police find crucial evidence linking Jesse Matthew to multiple crimes, including Hannah Graham's death.
    “These are all little building blocks.”
    @ 28m 26s
    July 29, 2022
  • Jesse Matthew's Arrest
    After fleeing to Texas, Jesse Matthew is recognized and arrested, marking a major breakthrough.
    “It became a national story.”
    @ 29m 51s
    July 29, 2022
  • Confession in Court
    Jesse Matthew admits guilt in court, providing a moment of closure for the victims' families.
    “To hear him say yes, clearly admitting to the murder... was an incredible moment.”
    @ 33m 17s
    July 29, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • He breaks bones with his bare hands.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode
  • It's much worse to have a missing daughter than a dead daughter.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode
  • He is comfortable here, and predators stay where they're comfortable.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode
  • I believe that he really did see life as a game.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode
  • He will stop at nothing to get what he wants in life.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode
  • There's just one word, evil.
    Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 2 - Jesse Matthew ... - Full Episode

Key Moments

  • Apex Predator00:40
  • Jesse's Arrest02:38
  • Discovery of Blood14:22
  • Reckless Driving27:36
  • Evidence Found28:20
  • Matthew Flees29:32
  • Confession33:17
  • Evil Defined38:01

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown