For months, there was an impromptu memorial to Morgan D. Harrington at the bridge where she was last seen Oct. 17, 2009. Sunday, her parents and University of Virginia officials unveiled a plaque that has replaced the sprawling collection of ribbons, posters, mementos and Buddhist prayer flags.
“Morgan had no luck that night,” Dan Harrington said. “If only one person had intervened, my daughter would still be here.”
She was last seen at about 9:30 that night on the bridge, after leaving a Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena. Her remains were discovered in an Albemarle County pasture in January. Her death has been ruled a homicide, but police have no suspects.
Harrington said his daughter, her friends, the arena and others all made mistakes that night.
“We know we cannot go back in time, we can only move forward,” Dr Arthur Garson Jr., university provost, said during the dedication ceremony.
Harrington’s parents have made working to change what Dan Harrington called “the culture of violence in this country” part of their daughter’s legacy.
Harrington’s parents asked that the plaque not only commemorate their daughter, but serve to promote that change.
The parents have also launched charity projects to honor their daughter, including a scholarship at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and school-building work in Africa.
After the plaque’s dedication, the university screened a documentary filmed by one of Harrington’s mentors at Virginia Tech. The film was shown at the Newcomb Hall Theater. After the screening, Leonard W. Sandridge, the university’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, announced a donation of $500 from the UVa Foundation to the scholarship fund.
“I think Morgan, in her death, will touch more people than she would have in her life,” Dan Harrington said during the dedication ceremony.
The Harringtons also reiterated their hope that their daughter’s killer will be caught.
“It’s important to catch the monster who savagely murdered our daughter from the streets of this community,” mother Gil Harrington said.
The Harringtons also thanked a host of people who have helped them over the last year.
“We appreciate your love so very much,” Gil Harrington said.
The plaque has Harrington’s name, her years of birth and death, the date of its dedication and the pattern of dots that Gil Harrington used as a symbol throughout the last year: three lines of dots — two, then four, then one. It is a visual representation of a family saying: I love you too much, forever and once more.
It also bears this inscription: “A student at our sister institution, Virginia Tech, Ms. Harrington was last seen alive on this bridge on October 17, 2009.”
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement