Online fund drive for U.Va. abduction suspect disabled

The legal defense effort for Jesse L. Matthew Jr., accused of abducting a University of Virginia sophomore missing since Sept. 13, apparently won't get much help from an online fundraising drive created by his friends and supporters.

A notice on the fundraising page says the online drive has been disabled due to "inappropriate behavior by some people, including threats and menacing behavior."

The site, on the crowdsourcing website FundRazr, had raised $1,835 from nine people before it was shut down. The largest gift, $1,000, came from an anonymous source.

"This fund is to assist LJ with the costs of his legal defense, including court costs, attorney fees, expert witness fees, and investigator fees," the site says. "Whether you are a friend of LJ, or a believer in the right to a trial by jury and due process, this fund's goal is to assist LJ and his attorney in defending him against these charges and any future charges related to the Hannah Graham matter."

The site says that all funds collected would be transferred to an escrow account handled by Matthew's attorney. The site promises that the costs of the drive will not be absorbed by those who donate.

Matthew, 32, was fired from his job as a lab tech at the University of Virginia Hospital after being charged with abduction with intent to defile Hannah Graham, 18, of Alexandria, Va. Police say Graham was last seen leaving a Charlottesville bar with Matthew on Sept. 13.

Matthew was arrested a week ago, camping on a beach in Galveston, Texas.

Matthew's lawyer, former Albemarle County commonwealth's attorney Jim Camblos, has declined to discuss his client's defense. Camblos did not return a call to USA TODAY.

Police say two searches of Matthew's apartment turned up evidence investigators have not disclosed.

Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller also said this week that Matthew's arrest in the Graham case "provided a significant break" in the case of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student who disappeared after a concert in Charlottesville in 2009. Her body was found three months later, but no charges were ever filed in the case.

Geller did not detail the new forensic evidence.

The evidence also could link Matthew to the September 2005 abduction and rape of a 26-year-old woman in Fairfax City, outside Washington, D.C. In July 2010, six months after Harrington's body was found, authorities announced that DNA evidence linked her killing to the man wanted for attacking the Fairfax City woman as she walked home from a grocery store.