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ROANOKE — The memories and goodwill of a community turned what could have been considered a funeral into a celebration of the life for recently deceased Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.
Standing at the front of Roanoke’s St. Andrews Catholic Church, Gil Harrington spoke on the wild ride she and her husband faced in the search for their missing daughter Morgan, which took them from “Dr. Phil to Capitol Hill, and everywhere in between.”
“We went to a heavy metal concert," Harrington said, “you got your papa on Facebook and me writing a blog. Who would have ever imagined such a thing?”
Gil Harrington said she and her son, Alex, were looking into getting a tattoo to commemorate Morgan.
“We did check it out, but so far we’re still testing the concept out with sharpie. It’s coming.” Harrington said, holding up her left wrist, dotted with the family’s “2-4-1” logo, standing for “I love you too much, forever, once more.”
The Mass service brought out several hundred to the church from locations as far as West Virginia and Ohio, despite the dangerous road conditions and icy weather that Morgan’s father Dan Harrington would call “frozen tears from the heavens.” Harrington said it was “not the day we would’ve liked.”
“I kind of thought I’d be coming to celebrate Morgan’s graduation, or perhaps her marriage, or perhaps the baptism of her children,” Dan Harrington said. “But no, we’re here to celebrate the end of her life.”
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 9 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Harringtons -Be Strong. You've been so dignified and courageous.
We believe in you and are so sorry for your loss.
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My name is Bill Thomas. I am the brother of Cathleen Thomas, who was one of the first two victims in the so-called Colonial Parkway Murders, which claimed 8 young people in and around Williamsburg, Virginia. These crimes remain unsolved.
I am so sorry to hear the news about Morgan Harrington's murder. Clearly, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI), the FBI and local law enforcement need to be looking at the pattern of murders in this area over the last 23 years.
Starting with the Colonial Parkway Murders, which claimed 8 young people, including my sister Cathleen Thomas and her friend Rebecca Dowski from 1986 to 1989, the Route 29 Murders, the killing of the Williams and Winans women in the Shenandoah National Park in 1996, the murder of the two Virginia Tech students in August 2009, and now Morgan Harrington in October 2009, and others, there is a distinct pattern of unsolved murders in that part of Virginia. With the exception of the two Virginia Tech students, all of these murders happened within a two hour drive of one another. Perhaps it is time for you to be asking if it is time for the Commonwealth of Virginia to step up and create a Task Force to break these cases?
Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathleen Thomas
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Ther pattern to all these murders is they occurred in isolated areas of out public view the killer(s) possibly knew.
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