Day 3:  The First Trial of Jesse Matthew

June 10, 2015
Fairfax, Virginia

Debris

When we had enjoyed our English muffins and cheddar omelettes, at least a few bites of them, on the morning of June 10th, 2015, Gil Harrington and I could not have known that five hours later, in the Fairfax County Courthouse Complex, in Room J (as in Justice), we would see the summit of the first massive mountain in this long and demanding chain to establish Justice for RG, for Hannah Graham, for Morgan Harrington, and for all victims of predatory violence.

The suspect who had testified he was not guilty, just two days earlier, confessed while standing before the magisterial Judge Schell, that he, Jesse Matthew, was, in fact, guilty of each charge in RG's case against him: of attempted capital murder, of abduction with the intent to defile, and of sexual penetration.

Gil and I sat across the aisle from Jesse's distraught but composed mother, his beleaguered father, his pretty and doubtless heartbroken sister, and we all heard from the mouth of 33-year-old Jesse Leroy Matthew, Jr., of Charlottesville, Virginia: GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.

Guilty of all three charges: attempted capital murder of RG, her abduction with intent to defile, and her sexual penetration.

But before his great capitulation, we were all, in that courtroom, tossed and shoved on a journey as harrowing as the protagonist's in The Life of Pi, with a lethal dreadlocked tiger at the other end of our boat, all of us parched and seasick in the violently beating sun of awful details sprayed like salt into our eyes and nerves.

Lead Defense attorney Dawn Budarac, I am sorry to report, seemed to be, like Avery Island off the coast of Louisiana, a salt island herself, arguing for example that when Jesse Matthew banged RG's head on the ground, almost fatally ("not that I'm conceding he did, but IF he did," she qualified, as if we were then all consoled), and when Jesse Matthew strangled her (RG on the stand recalled his exact words, during the horror, that if she didn't shut up and let him rape her, he would, and without difficulty, given that he is roughly the size of the beastly giant at the top of the Beanstalk, "snap her neck"), he wasn't really trying, specifically intending, to kill her.

Don't you see? He was just trying to enhance the chances, Budarac offered, that he could make RG comply with his strong desire and plan to sexually penetrate her. He was just an efficient guy, trying to be sure he could rape her, because you wouldn't want to be thwarted, yourself, would you, in something you really were trying to do? No? Well, neither did he. RG's strangulation was just a device to make RG comply, but not an intent to kill, so murder wasn't really Jesse's intent; it was just a collateral threat to help Jesse carry out his plan. See? Jesse was just doing an intelligent and creative job of rape. Don't you kinda maybe sorta respect him for it?

Also, by the way, said Defense attorney Budarac, brusquely: the Judge ought to strike and throw out the entire case against Jesse Matthew, all three of prosecuting Commonwealth Attorney Ray Morrough's, and his wonderful assistant prosecutors', Casey Lingan's, and Bob McLain's, charges. Why?

Well, of course, because, after all, Jesse Matthew wasn't found at the scene of the attempted murder and completed rape, was he, so really, what a weak, hearsay case this all is! Oh, and what about the convincing DNA? Budarac alluded to her assertion from the previous day, that Jesse Matthew's DNA had just kinda sorta floated up on the wings of some random breeze in this wide airy universe and happened to lodge deeply under RG's fingernail.

That was the Defense's rendering of how Jesse's blood got under under RG's fingernail.

Jesse's blood DNA under RG's fingernail was reminiscent of the gymnast in the old '30s song: his blood flew through the air with the greatest of ease, like the daring young man on the flying trapeze, and magically, pirouettingly, with dazzling inadvertence, lodged where it landed.

So, according to the Defense attorney, based on the fantastic random flight of Matthew's dancing blood which sky-rocketed through the air and skidded to a halt under RG's fingernail, the Prosecutor's DNA evidence proved nothing.

Most shocking for Gil Harrington and me was when the Defense attorney then denied that RG's rape had actually occurred, though she had just justified the hypothetical rape, because, let's face it, there was, the forensic gynecological exam of RG that night in the hospital confirmed, debris from the woods in the vault of RG's vagina. It wasn't Jesse Matthew who raped RG--the Defense suggested.

It was the forest.

The debris of the forest jumped into RG's vagina, penetrated and ruptured her virginal hymen, and had its twiggy way with her. That's right: now we knew the Defense's best contention. The debris raped her. Penetration by debris. The woods rose up and raped RG. Not Jesse.

Sexual penetration by debris.

Hair-tossing, eye-rolling, hunched, herky-jerky in her body habitus, melodramatic and terse, the Defense actually claimed: Jesse didn't do it; probably the debris did.

And although we were stoic and impeccable for almost the entire day, because we were so respectful of courtroom decorum and the meaning of this trial, when the forest became the rape suspect, Gil and I did turn to one another, and stared. We said not a word, because we were still in court. But, yes, we did check eye-to-eye, Gil's green eyes and my brown, forest colors, both, to be sure we were not hallucinating this presentation.

The rape-by-debris theory had another big problem besides how gentle the forest floor has always behaved in my half-century of being a walker in the woods. As Gil pointed out later, but why would RG, having spent the late afternoon hours enjoying a good book at Borders, who then stopped for groceries--why would she, a modest, educated, well-mannered 23-year-old virginal young woman have, on her way home in the dark, subsequent to her grocery shopping, decide to go tramping around in the dark, in the woods, by the way suddenly without her pants, and discarding one shoe for the hell of it, lie down and have the rapacious debris penetrate her? And smash her nose and beat her bloody as well?

Oh, and as a final point from Defense: Jesse didn't really abduct RG. You know why? Because after he picked her up, lofted her overhead, threw her down forcefully onto the concrete curb to disable her, almost breaking her back, grabbing her by one arm and one leg, he dragged her, but be open-minded, please!

He dragged her "to a common area," only kind of over near her apartment complex pool, and you can't abduct someone to s common area. It's a common area! See? He just kind of took her over to a shared space, where he didn't really rape her--the debris did, and where he didn't really attempt to murder her, he just efficiently tried but quick-be-hypnotized-he-didn't-do-it to increase his efficiency as a successful rapist though only the debris raped her.

Now, the Defense rested.

Honestly, although I do not have a legally trained mind and I have no animus personally against Jesse Matthew's defenders, I felt like those arguments were themselves verbal date rape drugs being dropped and stirred into the courtroom air for us to all breathe in and be stupefied by.

Can you imagine the stunned courtroom?

I was thinking of how my father taught me to walk in the woods; taught me how to find Native American arrowheads in the loamy soybean fields near rivers; taught me which wild mushrooms would kill me if I ate them; taught me the names of sumptuous wildflowers, moths, edible plants.

I was conjuring wildflowers such as the sticky fire pinks, wild sapphire lobelia, dwarf crested iris, panax cinquefolium (Appalachian ginseng), pink and yellow lady slippers, asclepius (orange butterfly weed), blue hepatica, and jacks-in-the-pulpit. I was recalling the great Polyphemus, the Atlas Witch, the Royal Walnut, the Ultronia Underwing, the Sphinx, the Cecropia, and  Luna moths. I was remembering the wild tastes of Indian cucumber root, violet petals, cattail pollen, baby poke leaves, blanched nettles, and teaberries.

Don't you try to poison my memories, Defense Lady. Get your unnatural spells out of our air.

Don't you sully the forest as you dismiss so obscenely the sheer brutality of what this man has done.

Debris did not rape the woman.

Don't you change the subject.

And don't think that your disinterested, irked voice speaking so impatiently such intimate phrases as a woman's ruptured hymen and her vaginal vault make you anything less than degraded yourself.

The subject is a man capable of smashing a woman as a golf club smashes a golf ball.

Don't talk to me about debris.

In other words, cruelty and victim blaming are not strategies inherent in the delivery of a strong Defense. Cruelty and aspersions are desperate, stinging choices and I will never forget hearing them made in the presence of Morgan Harrington's mother, Gil.

I must thank the Angels in the courtroom. I liked Judge Schell. He was concise and humane. I loved the victims' family advocates, who sat with us in the front row, brought us water, and smiled at us. I am so grateful to the media, in attendance or virtual, to Laura French, Peggy Fox, Nadine Maeser, and Katie Love. What bright, brave, lovely women, balancing their professionalism and their compassion like champions.

The other heroes of the courtroom were the Commonwealth Attorney Ray Murrough and his assistant prosecutors, Casey Lingan and Bob McClain, who behaved with profound humility and respect for the criminal justice system they were serving. They were never arrogant or histrionic, and in their presence I knew that they operated not from ego but from principle. 

After Judge Schell accepted Jesse Matthew's triple-guilty plea, he announced that sentencing would occur in early October. Given the brutality of the attempted murder, I believe the sentences will be maximal.

I wish to stop here to recognize the inescapable tragedy that this conviction means for Jesse Matthew's family.  They now suffer the knowledge of exactly what he did ten years ago to RG and what he is alleged to have done in 2009 to Morgan Harrington and in 2014 to Hannah Graham. How does a mother fathom that these blood-chilling stories which have headlined in the media for so many years all trace like horrible red threads to the huge puppeteer hands of her bullish son, whose throaty voice confessed flatly: guilty, guilty, guilty. He has made victims of his own family. Please pray for them.

Just minutes after Jesse Matthew's confessions, Gil Harrington spoke for the first time in five and a half years to a waiting crowd and cameras with the knowledge in her heart that she had climbed the first of three staggeringly difficult mountains. Wearing an orange scarf for Hannah Graham, as she had worn pink on Day 2 for Alexis Murphy and purple on Day 1 for her Morgan, Gil praised the courage of RG. "She may not have felt it at first," Gil smiled, "but the brave girl from India is the lucky one. She is the one who got away. And she has chosen to help us all arrive at this great peak of Justice. We are forever grateful for her bravery and her persistence. Her work has saved lives. She has helped save the next girl."

And then Gil hurried off, but not to leave. She went to the parking garage, quite distant from the courthouse, and returned bearing gifts. We went back inside the courthouse and visited the prosecutors and explained our new Eyes of Justice shirts. Everyone received a shirt from Gil. The lead prosecutor, the victorious Ray Murrough, whose daughter's 21st birthday it was, had tears in his eyes, and said he thought he would have to frame his shirt rather than wear it.

And then Gil, with a rare and tender kind of smile, one that accompanies a whisper or a hug, handed a bag containing a note and a small-sized Eyes of Justice shirt to the victims' advocacy assistants.

They promised to deliver Gil's gift to RG.

Jane Lillian Vance
Vice President, Help Save the Next Girl, and
Morgan Harrington's professor in the last Spring of her life