Metallica’s generous donation is in addition to a $100,000 reward offered by the Jefferson Area Crime Stoppers.
The band posted a story in their website’s news section entitled “One of Our Fans Is Missing.” The Oct. 20 post announced, “We are deeply concerned about the disappearance of 20 year old Virginia Tech student Morgan Dana Harrington” and included a description of Harrington in addition to two pictures of the young woman and a Crime Stoppers poster about her disappearance.
Harrington has long blonde hair and blue eyes, is 5’6” tall and weighs 120 lbs. She was last seen wearing a black Pantera band T-shirt, a black mini-skirt, black tights and black knee-high boots.
Harrington was last heard from at 8:40 p.m. Oct. 17 as she stood outside of John Paul Jones Arena at the University of Virginia, making a cell phone call to friends inside the venue, according to the NBC’s “Today Show.”
She told her friends that she had gone to the restroom and then somehow ended up outside the venue. Harrington said she wasn’t allowed back inside the concert because she didn’t have her ticket stub but that she was going to leave the venue and find her own ride home. She hasn’t been seen since the concert.
“Kids are impulsive,” Harrington’s mother Gil told the “Today Show.” “I don’t know if she met up with another friend or so-called friend. I am reassured that she was not lost in a big crowd inside, that we do have contact with her from outside. She gave the message to her friends that she was OK and could get a ride, and that’s our last communication ... Kids at this age believe that everybody is their friend.”
The day after the Metallica show Harrington’s purse and her cell phone were found in a parking lot near the venue. MTV.com reported that the cell phone’s battery was missing.
Gil Harrington said she and her husband Dan don’t believe their daughter would have run away intentionally. Harrington talked to both her mother and father daily and frequently made the 35-mile trek from her college to visit with her family at her childhood home. The day of the concert she spent time hanging out with her mom, planning what she was going to wear to the show and how she was going to do her makeup. The day after the show she was supposed to hang out with her father for help with an upcoming math exam and balancing her checkbook.
The last words Harrington told her mother as she was driving off to the concert were “2,4,1 Mama,” with 2,4,1 being the family’s code for “I love you too much, forever and one more time.”
“You have to hold out hope that Morgan will come back to us,” Dan Harrington told the "Today Show." “This is probably a parent’s worse nightmare. No one ever expects to be in this situation. We have to hold out hope that we’re going to see our daughter again.”
Harrington’s family has set up a website to help find their daughter at FindMorgan.com.
The public is encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 434-977-4000 or the Virginia State Police at 434-352-3467 or University of Virginia Police at 434-924-7166 with information about Harrington’s disappearance.
Metallica also urges fans to contact the Virginia State Police or University of Virginia Police if they have any video footage or photos from the Oct. 17 concert that could prove useful to the case, writing, “Please check to see if there is anyone in your photos who might resemble Morgan.”
Click here for Metallica’s website.
Click here for FindMorgan.com.
Click here for the “Today Show” story.