Authorities begin piecing together how missing student died

It's not yet for certain that Morgan D. Harrington was murdered.

Because the 20-year-old Virginia Tech student disappeared from an October concert at the John Paul Jones Arena, and because her skeletal remains were found in a pasture Tuesday, plenty of people are making the assumption that she was.

Much of the public is. Her parents are.

The police have said the case is "most likely" a homicide, and are investigating at full tilt.

The one source that can ultimately make her murder official, rather than widely presumed, is the medical examiner.

Police are eager to get their hands on information about cause and time of death. But they say they're also busy working with what they have.

Officers have wrapped up their search for evidence at the sprawling Albemarle County farm on which Harrington's remains were found, according to Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller.

That means that now they're interviewing people, waiting for scientific analysis of evidence they've gathered and combing through three months' worth of information they've gathered, looking for connections.

New tips have continued to come in from the public, and authorities are investigating them, Geller said. Depending on what police are up to, anywhere from a core team of a few investigators to dozens of officers could be working the case, Geller said.

"Since the remains were discovered, our investigators have been working around the clock, literally around the clock," she said.

A VITAL CLUE

Former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt says one of the strongest clues police likely have is the spot where Harrington's body was found.

Hundreds of yards from the nearest road, the pasture where farmer Dave Bass found Harrington's skeletal remains isn't a location anyone was likely to stumble across by accident, he said. It's a point others, including Harrington's father, have made.

Statistically, it's likely that Harrington was abducted, raped and murdered, Van Zandt said.

If that's the case, either someone came to Charlottesville knowing there was a Metallica concert and figuring there would be plenty of victims, or someone decided to commit a crime on the spur of the moment, he said.

"In this particular case, it's, I think, ... just wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything, and somebody took advantage of her," he said.

Criminal profiler Pat Brown outlined a similar scenario as likely.

The last reports police have of Harrington the night she disappeared had her hitchiking on the Copeley Road railroad bridge at about 9:30 p.m. Brown thinks she climbed willingly into someone's vehicle.

"That would lead me to believe that the person ... was not so creepy from looking at them that she would think" better of getting into the vehicle, Brown said.

THEORIES ON A KILLER

If Harrington was abducted and murdered, it's unlikely the killer was a first-time criminal, Van Zandt said.

"Either way, the disposal site appears to suggest somebody from the local area," he said.

He added, "The killer or killers were either very lucky or very comfortable with the area."

Brown reached a similar conclusion.

"In my experience, when you find somebody on the private property, then the person putting the body there knows it's private property," she said.

The farm is west of U.S. 29, near its intersection with Red Hill Road, about 5.5 miles south of Interstate 64. Bass, the farmer, has said that to access the site through his farm's front gate would risk notice from the two households on the property.

His neighbors have suggested that entering the area through Blandemar Farm Estates, a subdivision to the west of the site, might be easier, Bass has said.

Both profilers said the location is likely evidence of a very determined effort to keep Harrington's body from coming to light.

Bass has said that it was only a combination of heavy snow matting down the grass before melting and his seat atop a tractor that allowed him to notice the remains.

Brown said that if Harrngton was murdered, the crime itself might not have taken very long, but disposing of the body would have been an as-long-as-it-takes task.

"It doesn't have to be a picnic for a person who's trying to find a place to hide a body," she said.

SCARY POSSIBILITIES

If Harrington was killed the way Brown thinks she was, the person who did it will be disposed to do it again, she said.

Van Zandt said people should try to remember anyone who went away suddenly after Harrington's Oct. 17 disappearance, or who got rid of a vehicle or showed up muddy, disheveled or scratched on the hands or face. An excessive interest in the case is also cause for suspicion, he said.

Brown said that a killer would likely be someone who is a pathological liar, or has a bad attitude about women.

Virginia State Police are soliciting tips at 352-3467.

Brown also warned young women to be careful of sexual predators.

"Yes, it is true, we shouldn't have human lions out there, ... but the fact is, they're out there and they think of you as prey," she said