Their Blood Still Cries Out for Justice

The Roanoke Times | File 2009

A disconcerting blog title for a disturbing and haunting subject: the still-unsolved murders of Heidi Childs, 18, of Forest VA; David Metzler, 19, of Lynchburg VA; and Morgan Harrington, 20, of Roanoke VA. 


The young student-couple, Heidi Childs and David Metzler, were murdered on the evening of August 26, 2009, in the parking lot of the Caldwell Fields campground in the Jefferson National Forest on Craig Creek Road in Montgomery County. My mind has never wandered far from this tragedy, especially when the perpetrator(s) of this crime still walk(s) freely on this earth.

Credit: Facebook Photo

Although occurring in Charlottesville VA, the murder of Morgan Harrington on or around October 17, 2009 remains unsolved and deeply-unsettling as well. Justice has also been delayed in the case of this heinous crime.  But we serve a just God, and we can live our lives with the assurance that retribution for this evil will ultimately be meted out. But for Harrington family and friends living in the here and now, it doesn't make their memories any less painful.

Regrettably, these are but three of several senseless murders committed on or around the VT campus in recent years. As an alumni, father of three other VT alumni, and avid follower of Virginia Tech and its academic and athletic programs, it is viscerally painful to dredge these base events back to the surface. The wounds never heal, especially for the families involved.  A surface scab is formed, but it is ripped off time and time again. These incidents haunt the soul, and serve as cruel reminders of the fallen world in which we live. 

• August 20, 2006: William Morva, while in jail awaiting trial for attempted armed robbery, and facing a maximum 38 years sentence, was taken to Montgomery Regional Hospital for a sprained ankle and wrist. After using a hospital bathroom, he assaults and knocks deputy Russell Quesenberry unconscious, breaking his nose and smashing his face using a metal toilet-paper container. He then seizes the deputy's gun and shoots Derrick McFarland, a hospital security guard who was running to the deputy's aid. McFarland subsequently dies from his wounds. This initiates a manhunt for Morva, who on the morning of August 21, 2006 shoots and kills Montgomery County sheriff's deputy, Cpl. Eric Sutphin, on the Huckleberry Trail near the Virginia Tech Campus. He is later apprehended hiding in a briar patch on an off-campus trail about 150 yards from where Cpl. Sutphin was shot. He is currently on death row awaiting execution. His execution has already been stayed multiple times. Quit screwing around and finish it.
• April 16, 2007: The Virginia Tech Massacre occurs, in which 32 students and faculty members are killed and 25 others are injured. The perpetrator of this horror then turned one of his guns on himself. Godspeed to hell, Mr. Cho.
• January 21, 2009: Chinese male grad student Haiyang Zhu, 25, decapitates female grad student Xin Yang, 22, with a kitchen knife in the Au Bon Pain in the Donaldson-Brown building on the VT campus. On April 19, 2010, Zhu was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
• August 26, 2009:  David Metzler and Heidi Childs are shot in Jefferson National Forest. Their killer(s) still at large.
• October 17, 2009: Virginia Tech student Morgan Dana Harrington, 20, of Roanoke VA, vanishes during a Metallica concert in Charlottesville. On Jan. 26, 2010, her remains were found on an Albemarle County farm. Police are still searching for her killer.
• December 7, 2011: Ross Ashley, a part-time Radford student from Partlow VA, steals a car at gunpoint from a Radford rental office, ends up on campus at Virginia Tech the following day and shoots a campus police officer without provocation.  He then proceeds to change clothes in a greenhouse, runs to a parking lot, and fatally shoots himself after being spotted there by another police officer.  Justice served.

My two youngest sons attended the university during the period when many of these events occurred.  I can never know their pain.


The Childs-Metzler murders were thrust back into the news on March 30, 2012, when  Montgomery County Sheriff Tommy Whitt held a news conference reinvigorating the ongoing investigation with the news that DNA evidence has been recovered. 


The night of the murders, many people were traveling to and from Wednesday night church services on Craig Creek Road, which connects to the Caldwell Fields day-use parking lot where the students' bodies were found the next morning. Whitt said investigators have identified a number of vehicles that were on the road that evening, and are still attempting to locate a few of them. Whitt stressed that the owners of the vehicles may not be suspects, but possibly could have information that might help with the case. With the DNA evidence, the federal and state task force now has something to vet possible suspects with.


Unfortunately, the unsolved case of Morgan Harrington continues to drag on as well. In October of last year (2011), Investigation Discovery created a dramatization of the events surrounding her disappearance; thus helping to keep this unsolved case in the forefront of both the public, and more importantly, the task force assigned to solve the case.  Then, on January 26, 2012, State police spokesman Corinne Geller asserted that the investigation remains active and ongoing. They had previously publicly announced at least one break in the case, but it has not led to an arrest. In July 2010, they said the same man who abducted and killed Harrington may have sexually assaulted a woman in Fairfax City in 2005, based on DNA evidence.


A number of Facebook pages have been formed by those who loved and cherished these victims. One for David Metzler and Heidi Childs can be found here.  One for Morgan Harrington can be found here.


We owe it to these three innocents and their families to keep the search for their killers alive. I pray that God will comfort their families and give them strength. And I pray that God will provide the investigative teams wisdom and the fortitude to persevere in their pursuit of justice.


James 5:16 provides us the promise that the prayers of the righteous are "powerful and effective". We must hold fast to this promise.