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]