By Lindsay Cates
Washington and Lee University’s director of public safety sent an email to the university community Sept. 16 about a man police thought might be connected to the 2009 disappearance of a Virginia Tech student.
But Lexington Police, who had sent the alert to Public Safety Director Ethan Kipnes, might not have been aware that Kipnes planned to share the information.
And by Thursday evening, Kipnes issued a new, updated release, saying Lexington Police told him there is, “no credible evidence linking the local sightings back to the UVA cases.
“The Virginia State Police also advised that they have had many similar reports across the state as the composite photo is very generic,” Kipnes said.
The Sept. 16 email from Kipnes said Lexington Police had reported a sighting of a man who might be connected to the abduction and murder of a Virginia Tech student, who was visiting the University of Virginia campus in 2009 when she disappeared. Her body was found in a farm field three months later.
“If there’s any possibility that that’s an actual sighting of somebody involved in an incident like that, it would be appropriate that our community was aware of that,” Kipnes said earlier this week.
According to Kipnes’ Sept. 16 email, the information Public Safety received came several days after the original sighting had occurred. Kipnes said the sighting was not on campus, but confirmed that it was in the Lexington community.
“It is our desire to really be transparent when it comes to safety information,” Kipnes said.
Public Safety has been directing callers with questions or leads to Lexington Police.
Lexington Police Investigator Cherie Padgett said last week that police were not releasing any more information. But she confirmed that they had received some calls with potential leads. Padgett also said Lexington Police were unaware W&L’s Public Safety office was sending out the notice.
Kipnes says Lexington Police knew of his plan to release the information.
“I had direct communication with Chief [Al] Thomas before we released our information,” he said. “He felt the info was credible and we had a conversation about the fact that we were going to release the information to our community.”
Kipnes said Lexington Police had been working with Virginia State Police and police in Charlottesville, where the 2009 disappearance occurred.
The earlier reported sighting in Lexington was thought to be a man connected to the death of Virginia Tech student Dana Morgan Harrington. Harrington disappeared during a concert at UVa’s John Paul Jones Arena. Her remains were found three months later in rural farmland, but no suspects were ever named.
The Harrington case is thought to be connected to at least one other unsolved abduction and rape, and it initiated one of the largest searches in Charlottesville history.
Around the W&L community Kipnes’ first email was worrisome to many students, especially women and upperclassmen who live off campus.
Emily Streeper, a junior at W&L, said she was alone walking to her car when she read the first email from W&L Public Safety.
“It was really scary and it made me more cautious,” said Streeper. “The next couple of nights I felt uncomfortable walking around campus after the sun had set.”
Many students said they thought twice about walking home alone last week, and made sure to lock their doors at night — two things that can sometimes be overlooked living in a small, tight-knit community.
The information also was disturbing because it followed the recent news about Hannah Graham, a sophomore at UVa who has been missing since Sept. 13.
On Wednesday night Police in Galveston, Texas, arrested Jesse Matthew, the last person seen walking with Graham around 1 a.m. near Charlottesville’s downtown mall. Matthew, a 32-year-old patient technician at UVa, is charged with abduction and was taken into custody.
Kipnes said he didn’t want to alarm people in the W&L community unnecessarily, but he said that was better than withholding information that might have prevented a crime. It also gave his department the chance to remind the community of some simple safety tips.
“Even though we do live in a relatively small, close, tight-knit, rural type of community, we still do live in a larger area as well, and unfortunate things can happen,” Kipnes said. “It’s a good reminder to maintain that level of awareness and not become complacent in our safety and security.”