Friends of Morgan Harrington Know Foul Play Was Involved

Remains of Morgan Harrington were found late last week.

ByABC News
January 29, 2010, 3:32 PM

Feb. 1, 2010 — -- If there's one thing Jenna Testerman knows about her best friend Morgan Harrington, whose body was found last week in a farmer's field in Virginia, is that she would not have succumbed to a killer without putting up a fight.

"I really don't know what happened to her," Testerman told ABCNews.com, just days after the search for Harrington came to a grim ending with the discovery of her body. "She wasn't someone who would just wander off."

"But what I do know is that Morgan is a fighter and she would have fought to the death," said Testerman.

The mystery surrounding Harrington's disappearance the night of Oct. 17 deepened last week when authorities in Virginia identified skeletal remains found in a remote field as the missing 20-year-old Virginia Tech junior.

"We were all hoping that they were going to find her safe and while we knew it would take a lot of work to get Morgan back to normal, we just wanted her to be alive," said Testerman. "We just wanted her to give us one of her big hugs that she's known for."

Testerman said she is particularly feeling the loss. She and Harrington were part of a close-knit group of girlfriends who called themselves "The Nine." Some of the girls even got the number nine tattooed on their bodies as a symbol of their friendship when they all went off to college. Now they are eight.

"We just hope that she didn't have to go through any pain and that her killer showed her mercy and that she's up above in heaven looking down on us," said Testerman.

Friends like Testerman who had been holding out hope that Harrington would be found alive are now shifting their focus, eager to find the person they say is responsible for her murder.

While Testerman and Harrington's parents believe that she was murdered, the Virginia State Police department has not yet officially classified her case as a homicide investigation. The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to Corrine Geller, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police. No one has been named a person of interest or a suspect in Testerman's case either.