Has anyone been following the story of the missing VA girl

[VeryViolet]

Here is a link to a story if anyone hasn't seen it. www.cnn.com/2014/09/17/us/virginia-missing-student-hannah-graham/ 

The whole thing is so sad and scary. I am not really sure of what to make of everything. They have video of her running but it doesn't appear anyone is chasing her. Then there is video of her talking to a man but he has come forward and said that he was trying to help her and he left her with some guy she seemed to know. 

It is also eerily similar to the girl who went missing from a concert five years ago. They talk about it a little in the article but her killer was never found. She was drunk and disappeared. Then there is the Route 29 murders as well. 

I think it is hitting me particularly because I went to school not far from UVA. I keep thinking of what an insular safe world it felt like when I was in college and it just isn't. 

[VeryViolet]

Sept 18, 2014 14:05:19 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

This is what incogneato has been talking about right?

It's horrible.

I figured I probably missed a thread on it. 

[eddy]

It is so scary because I think probably most of us have been in a similar situation and ended up okay. I got piss drunk multiple times and wandered off on my own looking for like pizza or my bed. But I always ended up okay.

This poor girl and family.

[acuore]

Yes.  It's really scary, especially the similarities between this and Morgan Harrington, who was abducted and murdered in charlottesville 5 years ago.  Both are young, college students, taken from near the University while walking alone and reportedly impaired, late at night.  It seems like they may have a lead from on this most recent case, though, with cc footage showing the girl being followed by a man.  

[VeryViolet]

Sept 18, 2014 14:08:17 GMT -5 eddy said:

It is so scary because I think probably most of us have been in a similar situation and ended up okay. I got piss drunk multiple times and wandered off on my own looking for like pizza or my bed. But I always ended up okay.

This poor girl and family.

I know I am having this same thought too. I was a really big fan in college of getting really drunk and just leaving parties and walking or taking the bus home alone. I never gave a second thought to my safety.

[pinkeggs]

Well, I live here in Cville, so yeah, it's everywhere. Very creepy. Cville has a problem of young girls going missing, it seems. I have woods behind my house, and stuff like this makes me afraid to go back there, morbid as it is

[mrsg123]

This is terrifying.

[cville]

Sept 18, 2014 14:12:34 GMT -5 VeryViolet said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:08:17 GMT -5 eddy said:

It is so scary because I think probably most of us have been in a similar situation and ended up okay. I got piss drunk multiple times and wandered off on my own looking for like pizza or my bed. But I always ended up okay.

This poor girl and family.

I know I am having this same thought too. I was a really big fan in college of getting really drunk and just leaving parties and walking or taking the bus home alone. I never gave a second thought to my safety.

It's breaking my heart to think how the fact that she was a freshman might literally have been the difference between life and death for her.  Given that she was less familiar with the area than she would've been as a junior, you know?  You get so lost so quickly in new places stone cold sober in broad daylight.  But she made a wrong turn or two and now she's gone.

[eddy]

Sept 18, 2014 14:12:34 GMT -5 VeryViolet said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:08:17 GMT -5 eddy said:

It is so scary because I think probably most of us have been in a similar situation and ended up okay. I got piss drunk multiple times and wandered off on my own looking for like pizza or my bed. But I always ended up okay.

This poor girl and family.

I know I am having this same thought too. I was a really big fan in college of getting really drunk and just leaving parties and walking or taking the bus home alone. I never gave a second thought to my safety.

It used to be a joke amongst my friends. I decided I was done for the night and headed out. Sometimes telling people and sometimes not. "Welp eddy pulled an eddy last night"

And this was before we carried cell phones with us.

[pinkeggs]

Sept 18, 2014 14:15:40 GMT -5 cville said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:12:34 GMT -5 VeryViolet said:

I know I am having this same thought too. I was a really big fan in college of getting really drunk and just leaving parties and walking or taking the bus home alone. I never gave a second thought to my safety.

It's breaking my heart to think how the fact that she was a freshman might literally have been the difference between life and death for her.  Given that she was less familiar with the area than she would've been as a junior, you know?  You get so lost so quickly in new places stone cold sober in broad daylight.  But she made a wrong turn or two and now she's gone.

I believe she is a second year, but yeah. Some of the streets downtown and campus area are so confusing. I've been here almost 4 years and I still get turned around down there sometimes.

[zoomzoom]

It's awful. She looks so happy in the photos I've seen. People are just sick.

[Deleted]

It makes my stomach turn in knots, in hindsight I know I put myself in questionable situations when drunk and was lucky nothing every happened. That poor girl and her poor family.

[lurknomore]

Sept 18, 2014 14:05:19 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

This is what incogneato has been talking about right?

It's horrible.

Sadly I think this is another one. That girl was from Maine and I believe her body was found. Similar situation but I can't remember the college. So scary. And sad.

[pinkeggs]

Sept 18, 2014 14:22:37 GMT -5 lurknomore said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:05:19 GMT -5 chilerellanos said:

This is what incogneato has been talking about right?

It's horrible.

Sadly I think this is another one. That girl was from Maine and I believe her body was found. Similar situation but I can't remember the college. So scary. And sad.

No, it's the same one she mentioned on Sunday (or Monday? Can't remember).

[lurknomore]

Sept 18, 2014 14:23:30 GMT -5 pinkeggs said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:22:37 GMT -5 lurknomore said:

Sadly I think this is another one. That girl was from Maine and I believe her body was found. Similar situation but I can't remember the college. So scary. And sad.

No, it's the same one she mentioned on Sunday (or Monday? Can't remember).

Ahhh. Gotcha. Someone was posting a couple of weeks ago about another missing college girl. I didn't see the posts from earlier this week. Either way...so sad.

[iamali]

I think it's fairly normal for young people to think they are invincible.

So very sad, all the way around.

[VeryViolet]

Sept 18, 2014 14:15:40 GMT -5 cville said:

Sept 18, 2014 14:12:34 GMT -5 VeryViolet said:

I know I am having this same thought too. I was a really big fan in college of getting really drunk and just leaving parties and walking or taking the bus home alone. I never gave a second thought to my safety.

It's breaking my heart to think how the fact that she was a freshman might literally have been the difference between life and death for her.  Given that she was less familiar with the area than she would've been as a junior, you know?  You get so lost so quickly in new places stone cold sober in broad daylight.  But she made a wrong turn or two and now she's gone.

I think she was a sophomore but she did really seem to be lost. I saw in another article a map which pinpointed places they knew she was and it seemed like she was trying to figure out how to get home but just kept going in the wrong direction. It was her first year living off campus and probably with a car so she probably hadn't really gotten to know her way around yet like you said in broad daylight, sober.  

[toepick]

I went to school in the area - not UVa - and I'm cringing today and how many times I walked home drunk alone. And it was before cell phones so I couldn't have even called her help.

[Deleted]

The statistics on missing women and children is sad. It seems like only certain stories get a lot of media attention. I hope they can find some more leads.

[jigsy]

I think this is particularly scary because there are many of us who have had too much to drink and wandered off from friends...it really is "could happen to anyone" situation.

[Deleted]

I'm in VA so I hear about it quite a bit on FB. They think that whoever got Hannah probably got that other girl who went missing and found dead several years ago. Morgan Harrington was her name. There are a lot of similarities between the two disappearances.

[pinkeggs]

Sept 18, 2014 18:41:32 GMT -5 incogneato said:

Yes, this is the story I posted about. Apparently a few of us are local, pinkeggs and cvillern. This is a pretty "small town" in feeling, if not in actual numbers, and it has shaken the town very deeply. I'm not only a local, but a UVA grad and I live a few minutes from the downtown mall where it looks like she was abducted, which is one of the two main bar/nightlife areas in our town. Everyone here was shaken deeply by Morgan Harrington's disappearance/murder years ago but I think there was a faint hope that the perpetrator was non-local (although most theories based on her location when found point to local) but this situation makes it feel like someone/someones awful are lurking, and it's horrifying.

I know my FB feed is full of posts about it. I can't even imagine how her friends, roommates, and family are feeling right now. I know it's a cliche, but I think everyone just feels like this sort of thing doesn't happen *here* of all places, even though it clearly does. One of my friends was her TA last semester.

It's awful. Just awful.

Yes. I was describing to my husband earlier that it just feels like there is a "film" over the city right now.

Although I don't feel like it doesn't happen *here*; we've been here going on four years now and I think missing young girls have been in the news the entire time Scary, esp. as a mom of two girls.

[juliagoulia]

Sept 18, 2014 15:00:49 GMT -5 @wandering said:

The statistics on missing women and children is sad. It seems like only certain stories get a lot of media attention. I hope they can find some more leads.

I heard the numbers not long ago and it was shocking! My husband was so surprised, too. It just awful to think that there are so many people out there that just vanish

[pinkeggs]

Sept 18, 2014 19:08:59 GMT -5 incogneato said:

Sept 18, 2014 19:04:52 GMT -5 pinkeggs said:

Yes. I was describing to my husband earlier that it just feels like there is a "film" over the city right now.

Although I don't feel like it doesn't happen *here*; we've been here going on four years now and I think missing young girls have been in the news the entire time Scary, esp. as a mom of two girls.

I guess I should have said it feels like it *shouldn't* happen here. It just seems like such a sweet town, where you always run into people you know, not like a huge anonymous city (not disparaging cities, just how people tend to "feel" like cities are more dangerous.) I mean, if I lived in NYC and felt like a handful of women had been abducted, I would still feel like the odds of me ever running into a victim or the criminal were slim, whereas here I feel like everyone is wondering, "is it that guy?" "Is it someone I know?" Hell, we just won like, "Best small city," "Best place to live" "Best college town" and "Best small foodie town" or things of that nature. 

I have two girls, too, so I know what you mean. Not to mention the numerous family and friends of mine who work at the University, have kids there, etc. Ugh, just ugh.

I definitely agree with you there. Hell, we probably know each other, or at least have friends in common And scary headlines aside, I loooooooove it here. It's my favorite place we've lived and I don't see us moving.

[VeryViolet]

Sept 18, 2014 18:41:32 GMT -5 incogneato said:

Yes, this is the story I posted about. Apparently a few of us are local, pinkeggs and cvillern. This is a pretty "small town" in feeling, if not in actual numbers, and it has shaken the town very deeply. I'm not only a local, but a UVA grad and I live a few minutes from the downtown mall where it looks like she was abducted, which is one of the two main bar/nightlife areas in our town. Everyone here was shaken deeply by Morgan Harrington's disappearance/murder years ago but I think there was a faint hope that the perpetrator was non-local (although most theories based on her location when found point to local) but this situation makes it feel like someone/someones awful are lurking, and it's horrifying.

I know my FB feed is full of posts about it. I can't even imagine how her friends, roommates, and family are feeling right now. I know it's a cliche, but I think everyone just feels like this sort of thing doesn't happen *here* of all places, even though it clearly does. One of my friends was her TA last semester.

It's awful. Just awful.

I was reading in the daily mail (which I know isn't exactly know for its journalism) about all the girls who have gone missing recently along 29 and it is impossible for my mind not to go to awful places. I have a friend who lives in Lynchburg and I go through there a few times a year and she comes this way. We are often alone or with babies and your mind goes to the what ifs. I can't imagine how magnified that is when you live there.

I went to JMU and spent time in Charlottesville in college. It really does feel like a nice, safe, small town.

[bittybomb]

It's

really awful.  I hate that there are such scary, despicable people in the world.

[cvillern]

It is just awful. DH said there were a lot of police on the Rivanna trail when he was there this morning :/ our 17 year old niece lives with us and I get nervous every time she leaves the house. I know crime happens everywhere, but walking around and knowing there is this monster among us is so freaking unsettling.