CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Nearly 1,000 volunteers, some driven by worry for the safety of their own families, fanned out from the University of Virginia campus Saturday to search for a sophomore who disappeared a week ago.
Volunteers met at the university’s basketball arena before going out in teams throughout Charlottesville to search for 18-year-old Hannah Graham.
“I have two daughters of my own, and I would hope that if one of them was missing, everyone would come out as well,” said Marci Stewart, a volunteer searcher.
Police said Friday that they have spoken with a man they think was with her in a bar on the night she went missing but did not have enough information to arrest or detain him after searching his car and apartment.
In an emotional appeal, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo asked anyone who might have seen Graham and the man early Sept. 13 on the Downtown Mall to contact authorities. Longo stopped short of calling the unidentified man a suspect but said police are keeping an eye on him.
Police have focused on Graham’s movements the night of Sept. 12 and into the early morning hours of Sept. 13. The sophomore from northern Virginia met friends at a restaurant for dinner, stopped by two parties at off-campus housing units, and left the second party alone, police have said.
Surveillance videos showed her walking, and at some points running, past a pub and a service station and then onto the Downtown Mall, a seven-block pedestrian strip lined with shops and restaurants.
Graham’s disappearance has sent a ripple of fear through the quiet college town. Students said they’ve started walking in pairs at night and are paying closer attention to their surroundings.
At least three other young women have disappeared in the area in the past five years.
