Investigation focuses on UVa employee thought to be last seen with missing student
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Officials investigating the disappearance of a University of Virginia student focused Monday on the man they believe was the last person seen with her, searching his apartment for a second time and trying to locate the campus employee to arrest him on reckless driving charges.
Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., 32 and a patient technician in the operating room at the university’s medical center, hasn’t been charged in the disappearance, but authorities say they want to talk to him about Hannah Graham, 18. She has been missing since Sept. 13. Police have not offered any details about how the two may be connected.
“I believe Jesse Matthew was the last person she was seen with before she vanished off the face of the Earth because it’s been a week and we can’t find her,” Charlottesville police Chief Timothy Longo said. “I’ve made no mistake about it. We want to talk to Jesse Matthew. We want to talk to him. We want to talk to him about his interaction with this sweet, young girl we can’t find.”
But, Longo also noted that “I don’t want to get tunnel vision just because we have a name, just because we saw her with a particular person.”
After initial searches of Matthew’s car and apartment Friday morning, police returned with a new search warrant to his Charlottesville apartment Monday, city spokeswoman Miriam Dickler said.
Pennsylvania governor confident trooper ambush suspect will be captured
In the thick of a difficult re-election campaign, Gov. Tom Corbett could have been tempted to place himself front and center of the effort to capture the gunman who ambushed a Pennsylvania State Police barracks, killing a trooper and injuring another.
Instead, Corbett has largely stayed in the background as he allows state police officials to be the public face of a manhunt for Eric Frein, the 31-year-old survivalist who’s believed to be hiding in the Poconos Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.
Corbett spoke briefly three days after the ambush, asking the public to “pray for the soul” of slain Cpl. Bryon Dickson and declaring that investigators wouldn’t rest until they captured his killer. The first-term Republican attended Dickson’s funeral last week but didn’t speak. And on Monday, the 10th full day of the search, he held a news conference and expressed confidence that state police would capture the man he called an assassin.
“My fervent wish is that we conclude this as quickly as possible, and I’m sure that’s everybody’s wish out there,” he said.
Corbett’s approach to the crisis is drawing a muted response from Democrats who usually love to bash him.
Sierra Leone and Liberia, hardest hit by Ebola, brace and prepare for new cases
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Two of the West African nations hardest hit by Ebola were bracing for new caseloads on Monday after trying to outflank the outbreak with a nationwide checkup and a large new clinic.
Sierra Leone was expected to announce a sharp increase in Ebola patients Tuesday following a nationwide effort to identify new cases, while Liberia opened its largest treatment center yet.
Both countries have poor health systems, weakened by the loss to Ebola of many of doctors and nurses. The World Health Organization estimated last week that they have only about 20 percent of the beds they need to treat Ebola patients.
Still, identifying the sick is fundamental to containing the disease, and Sierra Leone went to an extreme unseen since the plague ravaged Europe during the Middle Ages, ordering an entire nation’s people to remain at home while teams went door to door handing out soap and information.
More than 1 million households were checked for Ebola and told how to prevent its spread, authorities said.
By wire sources