CHARLES TOWN – Anitra Keith feels sure she’ll spend time thinking of Morten Aigeltinger on Sunday, three years to the day that the 56-year-old was reported missing from his Cattail Run Road home.
But it’s not just on the anniversary of his disappearance that Keith finds herself remembering the Norwegian-born school portrait photographer who’d been her friend since 2004.
“There are always little reminders,” explains Keith, who lives in Hampton Roads, Va. On Father’s Day, for instance, she posted a photo on Facebook of herself dancing with her dad – a favorite image that Aigeltinger captured on her wedding day. “Every single time I look through my wedding album, I think of him,” she said.
All through the year, photos taken of her and her family by Aigeltinger pop up on her Facebook feed thanks to the “On This Day” feature, and Keith often finds herself reading over comments Aigeltinger made on the posts. He doted on her daughters, now 6 and 7.
“I can’t tell you how much of a good guy he was,” Keith said in a phone interview from her Hampton Roads, Va., home. “He was always so encouraging. Before there was Facebook or even My Space, he’d stay in touch sending emails just saying hi, asking how I was doing.”
Keith does hold out hope that the truth of what befell Aigeltinger will come out someday, and that the person or people responsible for his death will be brought to justice. “I hope someday soon, something turns up that will let the authorities bring charges,” Keith said.
Jefferson County Sheriff Pete Dougherty said there are “lots of pieces to this puzzle” and that his office continues to process information he believes will result in charges being filed.
“We will never give up until we find out what happened,” Dougherty said.
In the limelight
The Jefferson County case got put into the national spotlight last year when former prosecutor Kelly Siegler and her team traveled to Charles Town for an episode of the unscripted crime television show, “Cold Justice.”
Jefferson County Prosecutor Matt Harvey wasn’t involved in the episode, entitled “Fresh Wounds,” but he did offer praise for it once he’d watched it.
“It does a good job of showing the commitment of the sheriff’s department to solving the case,” he said. “I can tell you that is one of the very first cases that I dove into immediately after taking office [in early 2017]. I really believe that we will discover some more evidence.
“I have spoken to the family in Norway and I feel so bad for them. They just want answers and to bring Mort home for a proper burial.”
Harvey said he couldn’t make additional comment on an open and ongoing investigation.
The case’s first big turn came on Sept. 14, 2015, when Aigeltinger’s Ford F-150 was found along the Shenandoah River on John Rissler Road, about a mile from his 20-acre property at 1140 Cattail Run Road.
At the time of his disappearance, he lived at the home with his on-again, off-again romantic partner, Gale Livingstone, and her mother.
Dougherty said Aigeltinger’s last documented sighting came just before 8 p.m. on Sept. 8 when he filled up at a Sheetz gas station in Manassas Park, Va. None of his credit cards or ATM card has been used since, he said.
It was Livingstone, who operates her Rainbow Hill Farm at the property, who called 911 to report Aigeltinger missing. Both Livingstone and her mother told police that Aigeltinger had left early the morning of Sept. 9 for a photo shoot scheduled for the afternoon in Prince William County, Va., according to the sheriff’s office.
But the fact that Aigeltinger’s camera bag – with thousands in camera equipment packed inside – was found in a dirt-floor barn on his property leads Keith to believe her friend never left for that work assignment.
“I knew him for 10 years and I think he let me touch one of his cameras once – he would never have left his cameras behind,” Keith said. “No way.”
“Fresh Wounds” marked the third installment of “Cold Justice” centered on West Virginia crimes. The show previously profiled a 2006 beating death in Bridgeport that remains unresolved and the 2012 death of 24-year-old Ben Cooper of Taylor County – a shooting initially labeled a suicide.
Following the “Cold Justice” investigation, Taylor County Prosecutor John L. Bord took the case against the victim’s wife Samantha Price to a grand jury. Price was arrested and in late 2016 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.
Aigeltinger had lived in the United States since the late 1980s, moving to West Virginia less than a decade before he disappeared. He came to the U.S. to pursue his passion for photography, according to a biography he posted on a photography site.
Aigeltinger had completed a philosophy degree at the University of Oslo, then earned another at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif.
He made his living shooting portraits and video, including photos published in national magazines and newspapers.
WANT TO HELP? Anyone with information about Charles Town resident Morten Aigeltinger is asked to call Sgt. Steven Holz, the lead investigator at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, at 304-728-3205. Aigeltinger’s family in Norway has posted a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case.
