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This Serial Killer Got Away With Murder · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: Eight victims in three years, all taken from the same
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Speaker 1: darkened road, and for forty years, these murders were a
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Speaker 1: total mystery until one piece of evidence blew the case
0:11
Speaker 1: wide open. These are the Colonial Parkway murders, crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:17
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
0:20
Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
0:22
Speaker 1: intellectually minded freak. I brought the second camera back. Okay,
0:25
Speaker 1: a lot of you guys. I asked you guys a
0:28
Speaker 1: few videos ago if you wanted me to bring the
0:30
Speaker 1: second camera back, and it was overwhelmingly yes. That is
0:33
Speaker 1: why I watch. Half of you were like, that is
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Speaker 1: the only reason I watch. So we're back. We're back
0:38
Speaker 1: with the second camera, all right. And if you don't
0:40
Speaker 1: like it, too bad, this is what we're doing right now,
0:42
Speaker 1: all right. I try not to use it too much
0:44
Speaker 1: to not like make it seem jarring, but it's there.
0:48
Speaker 1: If I just want to leave the video for a
0:49
Speaker 1: minute and just talk to you guys, it's just a
0:51
Speaker 1: little break from reality, all right. So but continue to
0:54
Speaker 1: tell me what you guys like and what you guys
0:56
Speaker 1: don't like. I always read the comments, but I digress anyway,
1:00
Speaker 1: today we are getting into an extremely interesting case that
1:03
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about a week ago, and now I'm
1:06
Speaker 1: about to educate you want it, So without further ado,
1:08
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1:10
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1:13
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Speaker 1: Thank you doing Cogni for sponsoring this video and supporting
2:44
Speaker 1: the channel, and let's get back to it. The Colonial
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Speaker 1: Parkway is a twenty three mile stretch through the heart
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Speaker 1: of Virginia's historic Triangle, and it connects to Jamestown, Williamsburg,
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Speaker 1: and Yorktown, all along a winding road between the York
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Speaker 1: River and the James River. Built between nineteen thirty one
3:02
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty seven, the Parkway was designed to be
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Speaker 1: a meticulously crafted landscape, allowing visitors to experience nearly four
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Speaker 1: hundred years of American colonial history without any commercial advertising,
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Speaker 1: and there are no gas stations along the length, no restaurants,
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Speaker 1: no billboards, and the pavement itself is made of rounded
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Speaker 1: river gravel that's set into concrete, giving the road an
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Speaker 1: earth tone color, with no painted lane markings and several
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Speaker 1: million people venture down this path, drawn by its natural
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Speaker 1: beauty and historical significance. And during the day it's a
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Speaker 1: beautiful drive with forests on both sides of the road
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Speaker 1: and the York River appears through the gaps in the trees.
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Speaker 1: But at night it becomes something else entirely there are
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Speaker 1: no street lights to be found, and long stretches pass
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Speaker 1: through dense woods where the towering trees block even the moonlight,
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Speaker 1: and more than fifty pulloffs and overlooks can be found
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Speaker 1: throughout and in daylight, families use them to stretch their
4:02
Speaker 1: legs and take pictures that after dark, these same spots
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Speaker 1: become completely isolated, invisible from the main road, and National
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Speaker 1: Park Service rangers are responsible for patrolling that route, but
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Speaker 1: jurisdiction is complicated, and rangers handle traffic violations and have
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Speaker 1: sole authority over certain sections. In James City, Williamsburg and
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Speaker 1: York County police have jurisdiction within their respective limits, except
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Speaker 1: in areas belonging to the Park Service, so state police
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Speaker 1: can patrol most of the parkway again, except for where
4:37
Speaker 1: the rangers have exclusive authority, and this is important. So
4:41
Speaker 1: put it all together and you're left with a bunch
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Speaker 1: of overlapping responsibilities that leave potential gaps in coverage, and
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Speaker 1: a local to the area, Bill Thomas, described the situation bluntly.
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Speaker 1: Quote some longtime law enforcement people have said to me
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Speaker 1: that it was like the Wild West out there at night,
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Speaker 1: because it was only patrolled every few hours, so people
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Speaker 1: knew you could go there and basically be left alone,
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Speaker 1: especially at night. Quote. And nearby young couples figured this
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Speaker 1: out quickly. And while most unmarried people still lived with
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Speaker 1: their parents, making privacy hard to find, the Colonial Parkway
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Speaker 1: but offered a solution, as one author noted, quote as
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Speaker 1: soon as the sun set, these isolated dark corners became
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Speaker 1: a popular place for young couples to park their cars
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Speaker 1: and hook up unquote. And during the nineteen eighties, the
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Speaker 1: parkway was known specifically as gay Lover's Lane, and according
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Speaker 1: to former homicide detective Steve Spingola, author of Predators on
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Speaker 1: the Parkway, quote, it was known not only by the
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Speaker 1: homosexual community, but by the haters of the homosexual community unquote.
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Speaker 1: So the parkway has an eerie dual nature that people
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Speaker 1: who live nearby seem to understand naturally. And true crime
5:54
Speaker 1: author Blaine Pardeau, who would later co author A Special
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Speaker 1: Kind of Evil, The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings, observed quote
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Speaker 1: having done the research for the book, I've since found
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Speaker 1: that it's a creepy place to go to at night.
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Speaker 1: It's lost its romance. There are alternative routes, unquote, and
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Speaker 1: that reputation would prove well earned. So the surrounding Virginia
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Speaker 1: Peninsula was heavily influenced by military and college towns in
6:20
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, and Hampton Roads was and still
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Speaker 1: is one of the most significant military spots in the
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Speaker 1: United States, and the area supported a number of major bases,
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Speaker 1: Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base, and Langley
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Speaker 1: Air Force Base, Fort Monroe, Fort Eustace, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard,
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Speaker 1: the oldest Navy shipyard in the country. So these bases
6:43
Speaker 1: brought in a steady stream of service members and their
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Speaker 1: families to the area, creating a moving population where unfamiliar
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Speaker 1: faces rarely drew attention. And alongside the military presence, the
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Speaker 1: peninsula is home to a large student population, and the
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Speaker 1: College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, founded in sixteen
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Speaker 1: ninety three, is the second oldest institution of Higher Education
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Speaker 1: in the United States, and Christopher Newport College, though it
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Speaker 1: wouldn't gain university status until nineteen ninety two, is an
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Speaker 1: anchor for the academic community. So young people were just
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Speaker 1: everywhere in the late night. Culture was vibrant, but what
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Speaker 1: didn't exist was any way to call for help because
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Speaker 1: this was before everyone had cell phones, and once a
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Speaker 1: couple pulled off the main road and into one of
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Speaker 1: the parkways secluded areas, they were completely cut off from
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Speaker 1: any means of communication. So if something went wrong, there
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Speaker 1: was no one to call and no way to reach
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Speaker 1: them either, and former FBI special Agent Maureen O'Connell later explained, quote,
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Speaker 1: couples go to Lover's Lane because it's isolated. They're usually
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Speaker 1: in a dark area, They're secluded, especially when they're there
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Speaker 1: to engage fully with one another. All those things could
7:53
Speaker 1: feed the fantasy of a serial killer unquote. So the
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Speaker 1: combination of minimal patrols, complete isolation, multiple would pull off
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Speaker 1: snow lighting, and a population of young people from nearby
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Speaker 1: military bases and colleges created a swirl of conditions that
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Speaker 1: would prove disastrous. Now, the parkway's darkness was perfectly suited
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Speaker 1: for someone to take advantage of those who were unprepared.
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Speaker 1: So Kathleen or Kathy Maryann Thomas was seventeen years old
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Speaker 1: in October of nineteen eighty six, and her brother Bill
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Speaker 1: would later describe her as stereotypically Irish in her physical features,
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Speaker 1: pale skin, blue eyes, bright red hair, with a sweet
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Speaker 1: and innocent look, and she had always been extremely smart
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Speaker 1: and socially conscious, even from a young age. She was
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Speaker 1: articulate and funny, with what he called a quick irish wit.
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Speaker 1: And Kathy had already accomplished more than most people twice
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Speaker 1: her age, and in high school she was an excellent athlete.
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Speaker 1: She was a forward on the basketball team and competed
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Speaker 1: in track and field, and she was just a natural leader.
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Speaker 1: And when one friend from high school learned about Kathy
8:56
Speaker 1: wanting to go to the Naval Academy during their senior year,
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Speaker 1: she immediately thought it was so Kathy, because not only
9:03
Speaker 1: was it exceptional, it was groundbreaking, and even though that
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Speaker 1: was an unusual thing for a woman at the time,
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Speaker 1: that same friend recalled just how well liked Kathy was.
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Speaker 1: She was friends with nearly everyone, and in the classroom
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Speaker 1: she excelled, and she was a great writer with a
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Speaker 1: natural aptitude for learning new languages. Even so, from nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy seven to nineteen eighty one, Kathy attended the United
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Speaker 1: States Naval Academy as part of only the second class
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Speaker 1: in the institution's history to admit women, and the Thomas
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Speaker 1: family became the first father, son, and daughter trio to
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Speaker 1: graduate from the academy. And while there she played basketball
9:39
Speaker 1: and ran cross country, and she would graduate and become
9:41
Speaker 1: an ensign in the US Navy, and she even studied
9:44
Speaker 1: to become fluent in Russian at the height of the
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Speaker 1: Cold War and was awarded most Improved Russian Student at graduation,
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Speaker 1: and she would be assigned to duty in Norfolk, Virginia,
9:55
Speaker 1: where she served abroad the l y Spear as a
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Speaker 1: logistics officer in charge of trains and the movement of torpedoes,
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Speaker 1: and she was one of the first women to become
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Speaker 1: surface warfare officer qualified and earned a number of outstanding
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Speaker 1: fitness reports, and several sailors said she was the best
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Speaker 1: officer they ever served under, so just an extremely accomplished woman.
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Speaker 1: But Kathy eventually would leave the Navy due to their
10:20
Speaker 1: general hostility towards homosexuals, as her brother would later describe, quote,
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Speaker 1: she had been very sorry to leave the Navy after
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Speaker 1: five years, but she didn't feel that it was welcoming
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Speaker 1: for her as a gay woman, unquote, So she would
10:34
Speaker 1: jump into a new career as a stockbroker, and it
10:37
Speaker 1: would be around this time that she would meet Rebecca
10:40
Speaker 1: or Becky and Dowski. Now Becky Dowski was twenty one
10:44
Speaker 1: years old, originally from Poughkeepsie, New York, and she majored
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Speaker 1: in business management at the College of William and Mary,
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Speaker 1: where she was in her senior year. Now Becky held
10:54
Speaker 1: two jobs while pursuing her studies, and one at a
10:58
Speaker 1: daycare center looking after young children, and another as a
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Speaker 1: clerk in the college's English department. And she would be
11:04
Speaker 1: described as a very talented musician and college student with
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Speaker 1: a very promising future. And she was also creative kind
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Speaker 1: and just loved music. So Kathy and Becky would start
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Speaker 1: dating in the spring of nineteen eighty six, which was
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Speaker 1: not something easily discussed in the mid nineteen eighties. His
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Speaker 1: people's attitudes towards same sex relationships at this time made
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Speaker 1: openness hard, especially for someone with Kathy's military background, so
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Speaker 1: the two kept their relationship private, seeking out places where
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Speaker 1: they could spend time together without fear of judgment, and
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Speaker 1: the Colonial Parkway was one of those places. So on
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Speaker 1: the evening of October ninth, nineteen eighty six, Becky was
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Speaker 1: seen leaving the computer lab on the William and Mary
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Speaker 1: Campus sometime around six point thirty in the evening because
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Speaker 1: she and Kathy had made plans to be together later
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Speaker 1: that night. But after that they would vanish and their
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Speaker 1: families would grow more and more worried as attempts to
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Speaker 1: reach them failed, and no one would have any idea
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Speaker 1: what had happened to them for three days. So on
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Speaker 1: October twelfth, nineteen eighty six, a jogger spotted a white
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Honta Civic somewhere between five point thirty and
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Speaker 1: five forty five a m and the car would sit
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Speaker 1: at the bottom of an embankment at the Cheatham Annex Overlook,
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Speaker 1: and the location was about seven miles east of Williamsburg.
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Speaker 1: The vehicle had gone off the road into thick brush
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Speaker 1: and it came to rest just a few feet from
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Speaker 1: the fifteen foot drop into the York River. So a
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Speaker 1: state trooper responded and found both women inside, and both
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Speaker 1: had been killed. Now, Kathy's body had been shoved into
12:39
Speaker 1: the rear hatchback area and Becky was found in the
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Speaker 1: back seat, and from what the ranger could see, both
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Speaker 1: women looked to have been strangled with a rope and
12:48
Speaker 1: also their throats had been cut. An evidence suggested Kathy
12:53
Speaker 1: had actually tried to fight back, because a clump of
12:55
Speaker 1: hair was found gripped between her fingers and a piece
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Speaker 1: of nautical line was tangled in her hair, and the
13:02
Speaker 1: killer had also doused the car's interior with diesel fuel,
13:06
Speaker 1: but the fire was never lit, and whether this was
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Speaker 1: intentional or a failed attempt remains unclear, but several details
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Speaker 1: pointed toward a methodical killer, and the driver's seat had
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Speaker 1: been adjusted for someone much taller than Kathy, which possibly
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Speaker 1: indicated the killer had driven the vehicle after taking control.
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Speaker 1: But no blood was found in the surrounding area and
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Speaker 1: the murders likely occurred somewhere else before the bodies were transported,
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Speaker 1: and both women remained fully dressed, so there was no
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Speaker 1: indication of any sa and their purses were also still
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Speaker 1: inside the car, with money and jewelry untouched, so robbery
13:44
Speaker 1: did not appear to be the motive. Investigators collected more
13:47
Speaker 1: than one hundred fingerprints from inside and outside the Honda,
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Speaker 1: though none matched anyone in law enforcement databases at the time,
13:55
Speaker 1: so they had no leads in the case started to
13:57
Speaker 1: go cold. Then there was David Lee Nobling, who was
14:01
Speaker 1: twenty years old and he lived in Hampton, Virginia, where
14:05
Speaker 1: he did landscaping and sales work, and his girlfriend had
14:08
Speaker 1: recently found out she was actually expecting a child. But
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Speaker 1: David would meet another girl at that time named Robin
14:15
Speaker 1: Margaret Edwards, who was just fourteen years old, and she
14:18
Speaker 1: would be described as fearless and just full of energy,
14:22
Speaker 1: but she had reportedly run away from home a number
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Speaker 1: of times before, and according to one's source, her experiences
14:29
Speaker 1: had left her aged beyond her years. But it was
14:32
Speaker 1: around this time where she actually seemed to start turning
14:34
Speaker 1: things around for herself. So on September nineteenth, nineteen eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: David offered to drive his younger cousin Jason to see
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Speaker 1: Robin for a date. So Jason was actually going out
14:45
Speaker 1: on a date with Robin that night, and the plan
14:48
Speaker 1: was to see the movie Dragnet and David's brother Michael
14:52
Speaker 1: came along as well. However, When they arrived, the movie
14:56
Speaker 1: was sold out, so the group went to an arcade instead,
14:59
Speaker 1: and at around ten pm that night, they brought Robin
15:02
Speaker 1: back to her parents' house in Newport News, and Robin's mother,
15:06
Speaker 1: Bonnie Dodson, remembered their last conversation quote, I told her
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Speaker 1: that she had to be home by eleven, and she
15:13
Speaker 1: called me about a quarter after eleven and let me
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Speaker 1: know that she was home safe unquote. But Robin did
15:19
Speaker 1: not stay home, and she actually slipped out later that
15:23
Speaker 1: night to meet up with David again, this time alone,
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Speaker 1: and together they drove to Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge in
15:32
Speaker 1: that area sits about thirty miles from the Colonial Parkway
15:36
Speaker 1: along the James River, and like the Parkway overlooks, it
15:39
Speaker 1: was a secluded location. But unfortunately, neither of them would
15:44
Speaker 1: ever be seen alive again. So two days later, on
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Speaker 1: September twenty first, a Sheriff's deputy patrolling Ragged Island found
15:51
Speaker 1: David's Ford Ranger pickup and the truck appeared abandoned and
15:55
Speaker 1: the doors were closed but not locked, and the window
15:58
Speaker 1: on the driver's side was rolled down and the radio
16:01
Speaker 1: was still on, but there was no sign of David
16:04
Speaker 1: or Robin anywhere, and two days after that, on September
16:08
Speaker 1: twenty third, a person walking the shoreline discovered their bodies
16:12
Speaker 1: because both had washed up with the tide about one
16:14
Speaker 1: hundred feet apart from each other on the beach, and
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Speaker 1: Robin looked to have been shot once in the back
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Speaker 1: of the head, and evidence indicated she actually had been
16:22
Speaker 1: esque because she had been found with her clothing partially
16:26
Speaker 1: removed and her jeans were unbuttoned and her bra had
16:30
Speaker 1: been pushed up around her neck. And David would be
16:33
Speaker 1: found shot twice, once in the shoulder and once in
16:36
Speaker 1: the head, and the shoulder wound suggested he may have
16:39
Speaker 1: attempted to flee, and he likely turned away from his
16:42
Speaker 1: attacker before being struck. And in a stroke of unfortunate timing,
16:46
Speaker 1: a heavy rainstorm had passed through the area on the
16:49
Speaker 1: night they died, so investigators found that most of the
16:52
Speaker 1: evidence found at the scene had already been washed away,
16:55
Speaker 1: so again, any tangible evidence at this time was lacking
16:59
Speaker 1: and and there were no suspects. So Richard Keith Call
17:03
Speaker 1: was twenty years old and studying computer science at Christopher
17:07
Speaker 1: Newport College and his sister Joyce would describe him as
17:10
Speaker 1: someone who really enjoyed life a lot and was just
17:13
Speaker 1: fun to be around. He was passionate about computers and
17:17
Speaker 1: even had a Commodore sixty four set up in his bedroom.
17:20
Speaker 1: And at this time, Keith was on a temporary break
17:23
Speaker 1: from his girlfriend and they had been together for close
17:26
Speaker 1: to four years, but he had just asked for a
17:28
Speaker 1: couple of weeks apart to sort through his feelings, and
17:31
Speaker 1: it would be during this break that he would meet
17:34
Speaker 1: Cassandra Lee Haley. Cassandra was eighteen years old and had
17:38
Speaker 1: just begun her freshman year at Christopher Newport College, and
17:41
Speaker 1: she stood about five foot seven with an athletic build,
17:45
Speaker 1: and she had competed as a gymnast in high school
17:47
Speaker 1: and taught gymnastics to younger students. And her mother, Joanne Haley,
17:51
Speaker 1: later would describe her as very warm and had openness,
17:56
Speaker 1: saying Sandy was unique. There was nobody she wasn't going
18:00
Speaker 1: to be a friend to. She was very generous with
18:02
Speaker 1: everything quote. But Cassandra had a fear of water, and
18:06
Speaker 1: she had also expressed unease about the Colonial Parkway, and
18:09
Speaker 1: after the murders of Kathy Thomas and Becky Dowski, two
18:13
Speaker 1: years earlier, she thought the place felt unsettling. But April ninth,
18:17
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, would be the day of their first date,
18:21
Speaker 1: and by most accounts, this was just meant to be casual.
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Speaker 1: So that evening, Keith picked Cassandra up from her family's
18:27
Speaker 1: home in Grafton, Virginia, and he was driving his red
18:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two Toyota Selica and they but first go
18:33
Speaker 1: to see a movie and then they would head to
18:35
Speaker 1: a party near campus in the University Square area. And
18:38
Speaker 1: at the party, witnesses noticed they spent time apart, and
18:42
Speaker 1: Keith talked with his own friends and Cassandra caught up
18:45
Speaker 1: with an ex boyfriend. Actually, it was a very relaxed,
18:48
Speaker 1: fun evening with nothing unusual, and after they had enjoyed themselves,
18:52
Speaker 1: they left the party together sometime between eleven thirty pm
18:55
Speaker 1: and two twenty five am, so very big gap of time.
19:00
Speaker 1: Despite Cassandra's discomfort with the Colonial Parkway, that's where they
19:04
Speaker 1: ended up going anyway. So the next morning, April tenth,
19:08
Speaker 1: Keith's red car was spotted at the York River Overlook
19:11
Speaker 1: in Yorktown and it was found around seven am, but
19:14
Speaker 1: not reported until nine am, and This location was only
19:18
Speaker 1: a few miles from where Thomas Sandowski had been discovered
19:21
Speaker 1: eighteen months earlier, and the driver's door was hanging open,
19:25
Speaker 1: and Keith's keys sat on the seat, and his watch
19:29
Speaker 1: and glasses had been placed on the dashboard, so the
19:31
Speaker 1: arrangement seemed deliberate, and inside the back seat, investigators found
19:37
Speaker 1: most of Keith's clothing and nearly everything he had worn
19:40
Speaker 1: that night, including his underwear in Some of Cassandra's clothing
19:44
Speaker 1: was there too, along with her underwear, and empty beer
19:48
Speaker 1: cans were scattered throughout the back seat as well, and
19:51
Speaker 1: both Cassandra's purse and Keith's wallet were gone this time,
19:55
Speaker 1: and true crime author Blaine Pardout later observed a pattern
19:59
Speaker 1: across the case, saying, quote, it's almost like a fingerprint
20:02
Speaker 1: to each one of the Colonial Parkway cases. The keys
20:06
Speaker 1: were left in the car, the door was left ajar,
20:09
Speaker 1: the radio was on. They were all set up so
20:12
Speaker 1: someone would see that car and steal the car and
20:15
Speaker 1: muddy the case even more unquote. But tracking dogs were
20:20
Speaker 1: brought into search because at this point neither of them
20:22
Speaker 1: were anywhere to be found. But the dogs would pick
20:25
Speaker 1: up a scent leading away from the vehicle, and the
20:28
Speaker 1: trail ran along the parkway past the spot where Thomas
20:31
Speaker 1: and Dowski's car had been found, and it ended at
20:35
Speaker 1: Indian Field Creek, where the dogs tried to go into
20:38
Speaker 1: water and handlers had to hold them back, and the
20:41
Speaker 1: behavior suggested a boat may have been involved, so park
20:45
Speaker 1: officials initially theorized that Keith and Cassandra had just gone
20:49
Speaker 1: swimming and potentially drowned, but investigators were doubtful that that
20:52
Speaker 1: was the case because the water temperature that time of
20:55
Speaker 1: year was around forty degrees, which is cold as a
21:00
Speaker 1: foot embankments separated the overlook from the river, and as
21:04
Speaker 1: mentioned before, Cassandra was known to be afraid of water.
21:08
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, an extensive search of the river turned up
21:11
Speaker 1: no sign of them, and with no bodies, they really
21:14
Speaker 1: had nothing to go on, so the case would go cold.
21:17
Speaker 1: And next there was Anna Maria Phelps, who was eighteen
21:21
Speaker 1: years old, and her family said she had such a
21:24
Speaker 1: great sense of humor, just very sharp and very witty,
21:28
Speaker 1: and she had been living in Virginia Beach with her boyfriend,
21:31
Speaker 1: Clint Lower, but the couple was struggling to make ends
21:34
Speaker 1: meet hisu Clint had recently been let go from his
21:36
Speaker 1: job at Wendy's, and their electricity had even recently been disconnected.
21:41
Speaker 1: But Daniel Lower, who was twenty one years old and
21:43
Speaker 1: Clint's brother and from Amelia County, Virginia, said that he
21:48
Speaker 1: would move in with them to help with payments, and
21:50
Speaker 1: those who knew Daniel described him as being exceptionally generous,
21:55
Speaker 1: saying he was quote the kind of guy who refused
21:57
Speaker 1: paychecks from his father's painting business. So Daniel had agreed
22:01
Speaker 1: to move in with Clint and Anna Maria to help
22:04
Speaker 1: cover their expenses, and he also wanted to spend Labor
22:07
Speaker 1: Day weekend with them in Virginia Beach, but he needed
22:10
Speaker 1: to return back to his parents' home in Amelia County
22:12
Speaker 1: to gather his belongings and officially move in, and Anna
22:16
Speaker 1: Maria decided to go with her boyfriend's brother, Daniel so
22:20
Speaker 1: she could visit her own family back in Amelia County.
22:23
Speaker 1: So by all accounts, it should have been an uneventful trip,
22:26
Speaker 1: but it wasn't so. On the evening of September fourth,
22:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Daniel and Anna Maria left her parents' house,
22:33
Speaker 1: heading east on Interstate sixty four toward Virginia Beach, and
22:37
Speaker 1: Daniel drove his gold nineteen seventy two Chevrolet Nova, and
22:41
Speaker 1: he had cash on him from recent work he had
22:43
Speaker 1: done for his father's painting company, and the trip should
22:46
Speaker 1: have taken about an hour, but they would never arrive,
22:50
Speaker 1: and witnesses later reported seeing them at a rest area
22:53
Speaker 1: at the eastbound side of I sixty four in New
22:56
Speaker 1: Kent County, but what happened after remains unclear. So the
23:00
Speaker 1: next day, Daniel's Nova was found abandoned at the rest
23:03
Speaker 1: stop on I sixty four in New Kent County, but
23:06
Speaker 1: something was wrong. The car was on the westbound side
23:10
Speaker 1: of the highway, which was odd because they had been
23:12
Speaker 1: traveling east toward Virginia Beach, so someone had turned them around,
23:17
Speaker 1: and the car sat at an odd angle on the
23:20
Speaker 1: merge ramp and the driver's window was halfway down, with
23:23
Speaker 1: both doors unlocked and the keys remained in the ignition.
23:27
Speaker 1: But a small detail inside the car caught investigator's attention
23:31
Speaker 1: because Daniel had a feathered roach clip that he normally
23:34
Speaker 1: kept hanging from his rear view mirror, but it had
23:37
Speaker 1: been moved to the driver's side window, so the repositioning
23:41
Speaker 1: appeared to be very deliberate, and some investigators saw it
23:44
Speaker 1: as a taunt from whomever had taken them, And dirt
23:48
Speaker 1: and grass were caked underneath the vehicle, which made it
23:51
Speaker 1: look like the car had been driven off road recently,
23:54
Speaker 1: and Daniel would have had no reason to leave the highway,
23:57
Speaker 1: and Anna Maria's purse was still inside, once again ruling
24:01
Speaker 1: out robbery. So at first investigators speculated that Daniel and
24:05
Speaker 1: Anna Maria had simply run off together. For six weeks
24:09
Speaker 1: neither was found, but finally, on October nineteenth, nineteen eighty nine,
24:14
Speaker 1: hunters walking along a logging road made a discovery less
24:17
Speaker 1: than a mile from the rest stop, and the discovery
24:20
Speaker 1: was skeletal remains in that wooded area covered by an
24:24
Speaker 1: electric blanket, and the blanket had come from Daniel's car,
24:28
Speaker 1: but decomposition had destroyed most of the physical evidence, which
24:32
Speaker 1: unfortunately made it so the exact cause of death could
24:34
Speaker 1: not be determined, and whether Anna Maria had been s
24:38
Speaker 1: was also impossible to establish, but one finding stood out.
24:43
Speaker 1: Stab wounds were visible on Annie Maria's bones, because she
24:47
Speaker 1: had a cut mark on one of her finger bones,
24:49
Speaker 1: suggesting she had fought back against her attacker. So whatever
24:53
Speaker 1: happened in those woods, she did not give up without
24:55
Speaker 1: a struggle. But years later, investigators would discover a note
24:59
Speaker 1: Anna Maria had written, and it had been sitting in
25:01
Speaker 1: a box of evidence from her apartment, overlooked during the
25:05
Speaker 1: original investigation, and the note described plans to meet someone
25:09
Speaker 1: at a rest stop, and it included a name and
25:12
Speaker 1: mentioned the person would be driving a blue van And
25:15
Speaker 1: how this detail connects to what happened has never been explained.
25:20
Speaker 1: And by September of nineteen eighty nine, at least eight
25:22
Speaker 1: young people had been killed or disappeared along or near
25:26
Speaker 1: the Colonial Parkway over a span of just three years,
25:30
Speaker 1: but at this point the person responsible remained free. Let's
25:33
Speaker 1: take a pause to talk about something that has saved
25:35
Speaker 1: my mornings, and that is Remy. Because for years I'd
25:39
Speaker 1: wake up with a sore jaw from nightly clenching. I
25:43
Speaker 1: heav a horrible clenching problem, but I even see like
25:47
Speaker 1: little chips forming in my teeth, and I knew I
25:49
Speaker 1: needed to protect my smile. And that's why I trust
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Speaker 1: Remy to protect my teeth with their custom nightguard, along
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Speaker 1: with over three hundred and fifty thousand Americans and Remy
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Speaker 1: night guards are clinically tested and FDA cleared to prevent
26:03
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26:08
Speaker 1: and help improve sleep quality. I also get horrible migraines.
26:12
Speaker 1: I have chronic migraines, and my clenching actually makes them worse,
26:16
Speaker 1: and I have found that Remy has helped that quite
26:18
Speaker 1: a bit. But you get the same professional quality and
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Speaker 1: comfort as a dentist made guard for about eighty percent
26:24
Speaker 1: less by taking your own impression at home. But here's
26:27
Speaker 1: how my personal Remy experience went. The impression kit arrived
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Speaker 1: at my door. The instructions were really easy to follow,
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Speaker 1: for supporting the channel in sponsoring the video and let's
27:05
Speaker 1: get back to it. So the FBI did not wait
27:08
Speaker 1: long to share their theory with the Thomas family, and
27:11
Speaker 1: four days after Kathy and Becky's bodies were discovered, agents
27:14
Speaker 1: approached Bill Thomas and they believed the killer might be
27:18
Speaker 1: someone in law enforcement or possibly someone impersonating law enforcement,
27:22
Speaker 1: and when Bill asked them to clarify, the agents explained
27:25
Speaker 1: they were looking at police officers, park rangers, or someone
27:29
Speaker 1: presenting themselves as an authority figure. And the theory came
27:32
Speaker 1: from what investigators observed at the crime scene. The windows
27:36
Speaker 1: of Kathy's Honda had been rolled down and her wallet
27:39
Speaker 1: had been pulled from her purse, so it looked like
27:41
Speaker 1: she had been preparing to show identification and retired FBI
27:44
Speaker 1: specialist agent Irvan Wells later pointed to those rolled down
27:48
Speaker 1: windows and they suggested the victims believed they were dealing
27:51
Speaker 1: with someone who had authority over them, and former FBI
27:55
Speaker 1: profiler Jim Clement reached a similar conclusion. Wallet were found
28:00
Speaker 1: open in the victim's vehicle across multiple cases. Quote that
28:05
Speaker 1: tells me that either they were getting ready because they
28:07
Speaker 1: thought they were being pulled over by a police officer
28:10
Speaker 1: or park ranger. Or whoever approached them pretended to be
28:13
Speaker 1: a cop or was a cop unquote, but criminal profile
28:17
Speaker 1: or Pat Brown interpreted it slightly differently, and she believed
28:21
Speaker 1: the perpetrator quote could be involved in law enforcement, or
28:24
Speaker 1: more likely wished he were. And this was someone who
28:27
Speaker 1: quote wanted authority and probably did not have it, she said,
28:31
Speaker 1: and quote his crimes gave him this feeling he was
28:34
Speaker 1: able to surprise, control and punish wrongdoers unquote. So the
28:39
Speaker 1: theory explained something that had puzzled investigators. How could one
28:42
Speaker 1: person control two victims at once? And why was there
28:46
Speaker 1: no evidence of a struggle in most cases, and why
28:49
Speaker 1: other than David did nobody try to flee Because if
28:52
Speaker 1: the victims thought they were dealing with a cop, then
28:54
Speaker 1: compliance made sense, and they would stay calm and just
28:58
Speaker 1: follow instructions and they would have no reason to suspect
29:01
Speaker 1: danger until it was already too late. But a theory is,
29:05
Speaker 1: of course, not a suspect, And for nearly two years,
29:08
Speaker 1: the FBI had a profile but no one to attach
29:11
Speaker 1: it to, but that changed in the spring of nineteen
29:14
Speaker 1: eighty eight, so shortly after Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey
29:18
Speaker 1: vanished on April tenth, a suspect surfaced, and he was
29:22
Speaker 1: a waterman, and he made his living harvesting oysters and
29:25
Speaker 1: clams from the rivers and creeks of the Virginia Tide
29:28
Speaker 1: water because he knew those waterways intimately, and he had
29:31
Speaker 1: built his own boat. And he also drove a truck
29:34
Speaker 1: that people remembered, and it was a blue nineteen sixty six,
29:37
Speaker 1: a Dodge pickup truck with oversized tires, with a rifle
29:41
Speaker 1: rack in the rear window, and the vanity plates read
29:45
Speaker 1: E m raw short for eatam raw, which I know
29:49
Speaker 1: he does oysters, but I don't like that at all.
29:51
Speaker 1: And witnesses had come forward with stories about this man
29:55
Speaker 1: because he wasn't content to watch from a distance. He
29:58
Speaker 1: had been approaching couples parked in the pulloffs along the parkway,
30:02
Speaker 1: and he walked up to the vehicles and he knocked
30:05
Speaker 1: on the windows and he made contact, and people who
30:08
Speaker 1: encountered him described him as bolder than the typical peeping tom.
30:13
Speaker 1: In fact, one incident in particular stood out, and a
30:16
Speaker 1: couple was parked in their car when someone knocked on
30:18
Speaker 1: the glass and the man outside peered in and asked
30:21
Speaker 1: quote unquote, are you girls having fun? Oh? God, creepy.
30:27
Speaker 1: And when he realized one of them was actually a
30:29
Speaker 1: young man with long hair, he backed off and left.
30:31
Speaker 1: And FBI profilers had been building a picture of the
30:34
Speaker 1: killer based on events from the crime scenes, the piece
30:37
Speaker 1: of nautical rope that was found in Kathy Thomas's hair.
30:41
Speaker 1: The killer had used diesel fuel in an attempt to
30:43
Speaker 1: burn the evidence, and diesel was far more common in
30:46
Speaker 1: boats than in cars, and the knife wounds on the
30:49
Speaker 1: victims suggested someone comfortable with a blade, perhaps someone who
30:53
Speaker 1: processed fish and shellfish for a living. And tracking dogs
30:57
Speaker 1: had followed victim sense to the water's edge in multiple cases,
31:01
Speaker 1: so the FBI started watching their fishermen suspect almost immediately,
31:05
Speaker 1: and what they saw was concerning because he was repainting
31:09
Speaker 1: the bed of his pickup truck, vacuuming the interior carefully,
31:13
Speaker 1: so to the agents watching it, it looked like someone
31:15
Speaker 1: eliminating traces of what his vehicle might have been used for.
31:19
Speaker 1: So investigators would obviously be worried evidence was disappearing, so
31:23
Speaker 1: they would move quickly to obtain a search warrant, and
31:25
Speaker 1: they executed it at the trailer where the man lived,
31:28
Speaker 1: and inside they found items that fit their developing profile, handcuffs,
31:33
Speaker 1: a gun, and cornet. An FBI agent Joe Wolfinger later
31:38
Speaker 1: described the search, saying, quote, they got everything. We got
31:41
Speaker 1: his vacuum cleaner, and they did a search of his truck,
31:44
Speaker 1: and they found a gun, handcuffs, and I can't remember
31:47
Speaker 1: what else, unquote, but nothing directly tied him to Keith
31:51
Speaker 1: and Cassandra. No blood, no belongings, nothing that placed him
31:55
Speaker 1: at the scene of their disappearance. But then the suspect
31:58
Speaker 1: said something is under questioning. He admitted he had been
32:02
Speaker 1: parked at a pulloff near the Colonial Parkway around the
32:05
Speaker 1: time the couple went missing, and Wolfinger confirmed this, saying
32:09
Speaker 1: quote he even admitted being at the next cutoff around
32:12
Speaker 1: the right time, so he was seen by somebody else
32:15
Speaker 1: that night. And with that the circumstantial case started to build.
32:20
Speaker 1: And they had a suspect who matched the profile, and
32:23
Speaker 1: he had behavior consistent with destroying evidence, like restraints and
32:27
Speaker 1: a weapon in his home, and his own admission that
32:31
Speaker 1: he was nearby when Keith and Cassandra vanished. And today
32:34
Speaker 1: this combination might have been enough to pursue charges, or
32:37
Speaker 1: at least to keep the pressure on while forensic testing continued.
32:41
Speaker 1: But this was nineteen eighty eight and DNA analysis was
32:44
Speaker 1: not yet standard, and the fingerprints from the crime scene
32:47
Speaker 1: had not matched anyone in existing databases, and since Keith
32:51
Speaker 1: and Cassandra hadn't been found, there were no bodies to examine,
32:55
Speaker 1: so the FBI decided on one more step they would
32:58
Speaker 1: administer a polygraph test. So the bureau brought in one
33:02
Speaker 1: of their very best because the examiner had a reputation.
33:06
Speaker 1: He was known as a polygrapher extraordinaire and his name
33:10
Speaker 1: was Barry, and he had worked major cases, including the
33:13
Speaker 1: John Walker spy investigation. And John was a Navy communication
33:17
Speaker 1: specialist that ran an eighteen year spy ring and passed
33:21
Speaker 1: sensitive info to the Soviet Union. So serious guy to
33:24
Speaker 1: say the least. So when Barry rendered a verdict, people
33:28
Speaker 1: trusted it, and the fishermen sat for the test, but surprisingly,
33:32
Speaker 1: he passed effortlessly, and based on the results, the FBI
33:37
Speaker 1: removed him from suspicion and released him. He simply walked
33:41
Speaker 1: out and went back to his life. An FBI Special
33:44
Speaker 1: Agent in charge, Irvin Wells, was furious and he told
33:48
Speaker 1: author Blaine Pardout what he had said to the polygraph
33:51
Speaker 1: team saying, quote, I know this guy did it. You
33:54
Speaker 1: guys better be right unquote, but Wells deferred to the examiner, quote,
33:59
Speaker 1: we brought in a polygrapher, one of the best the
34:01
Speaker 1: Bureau had, and he said this guy didn't do it.
34:05
Speaker 1: And at this point it was the spring of nineteen
34:08
Speaker 1: eighty eight, and by then the suspect had already killed
34:11
Speaker 1: David Nobling and Robin Edwards the previous September, and he
34:15
Speaker 1: had killed Kathy Thomas and Beckydowski a year and a
34:18
Speaker 1: half before that. And then five months later, Anna, Maria
34:21
Speaker 1: Phelps and Daniel Lawyer became the next victims. But the
34:25
Speaker 1: fisherman was not the only suspect that surfaced, and over
34:29
Speaker 1: the following decades, more than one hundred and thirty people
34:31
Speaker 1: drew investigative attention and more than thirty five hundred reports
34:36
Speaker 1: were generated, and the case file swelled with tips and
34:39
Speaker 1: theories and dead ends. But one name that emerged was
34:42
Speaker 1: Fred Atwell. Now he was a former deputy in Gloacester County,
34:47
Speaker 1: and Atwell would be eventually arrested, but not for murder.
34:50
Speaker 1: He had actually run a fraudulent car raffle that targeted
34:53
Speaker 1: families of the Parkway victims, which is awful and disgusting,
34:58
Speaker 1: just exploiting their great for money, and the scheme brought
35:02
Speaker 1: investigators to his door, but nothing connected him directly to
35:05
Speaker 1: the killings, so they hit another dead end. But then
35:09
Speaker 1: another name persisted, and that was Daryl David Rice. Now
35:13
Speaker 1: Rice had been charged in connection with the nineteen ninety
35:16
Speaker 1: six murders of Julie Williams and Lowly Winnin's in Shenandoah
35:19
Speaker 1: National Park, and the two women had been killed in
35:22
Speaker 1: a remote outdoor location, and the case had some similarities
35:25
Speaker 1: to the Parkway murders on the surface, a couple targeted
35:28
Speaker 1: in an isolated area, possible selection based on sexual orientation.
35:33
Speaker 1: So investigators explored whether Rice might be responsible for both
35:37
Speaker 1: murders for years, and finally, in twenty twenty four, DNA
35:41
Speaker 1: testing would eliminate him, and the actual killer in the
35:45
Speaker 1: Shnandoah case was identified as Walter Leo Jackson. Now, Jackson
35:49
Speaker 1: had no known connection to the Colonial Parkway, and Rice
35:53
Speaker 1: was tragically hit by a car while riding his bike
35:55
Speaker 1: and died just fifteen days after being exonerated. So despite
35:59
Speaker 1: every other lead, the investigation kept circling back to the
36:03
Speaker 1: watermen with the blue truck, but officially, as we know,
36:06
Speaker 1: he had been cleared, so they were back at a
36:08
Speaker 1: dead end. So the Colonial Parkway investigation had faced a
36:12
Speaker 1: number of problems from the start. Jurisdiction was a mess,
36:16
Speaker 1: as we kind of discussed at the beginning of this video,
36:19
Speaker 1: and the parkway itself fell under National Park Service authority,
36:23
Speaker 1: which meant there could be FBI involvement. But the Nobling
36:26
Speaker 1: and Edwards murders happened at Ragged Island, which was Isle
36:29
Speaker 1: of White County Territory, in the Phelps and Lawyer case
36:33
Speaker 1: occurred at a rest stop in New Kent County, and
36:36
Speaker 1: Virginia State Police were involved across all the cases, and
36:39
Speaker 1: each agency had its own protocols and information and didn't
36:42
Speaker 1: always flow freely between them, and the technology of the
36:46
Speaker 1: time offered little help, as we know, because as mentioned,
36:49
Speaker 1: DNA testing was not standard practice yet, and even though
36:52
Speaker 1: fingerprints were plentiful over one hundred were lifted from just
36:56
Speaker 1: the Thomas and Dowski crime scene alone, there were no
36:59
Speaker 1: databases to match them against, so they sat in evidence
37:02
Speaker 1: storage effectively useless without a comparison, and some of the
37:05
Speaker 1: crime scenes had been compromised, as we know because at
37:08
Speaker 1: the York River Overlook, where Keith's car was found, park
37:11
Speaker 1: rangers reportedly disturbed evidence before investigators arrived, causing the original
37:16
Speaker 1: state of the scene to be lost, and the killer's
37:19
Speaker 1: methods created additional confusion because Thomas and Dwski were strangled
37:24
Speaker 1: with their throats cut, and Nobling and Edwards were shot,
37:27
Speaker 1: and Phelps and Lawyers showed signs of stabbing. So if
37:30
Speaker 1: one person truly was responsible, why did their approach keep changing?
37:34
Speaker 1: That was odd. Usually these killers had the same mo
37:38
Speaker 1: across the board, and some investigators questioned whether the cases
37:41
Speaker 1: were even connected because of that, And furthermore, two of
37:45
Speaker 1: the cases left almost nothing to work with because Keith
37:48
Speaker 1: and Cassandra's bodies were not found, and Anna, Maria and
37:50
Speaker 1: Daniel were not discovered until six weeks later, and by
37:54
Speaker 1: then decomposition had destroyed most of the physical evidence, So
37:57
Speaker 1: the families remained in this just dreadful full limbo with
38:01
Speaker 1: no answers and no closure. So by the early nineteen nineties,
38:05
Speaker 1: the Colonial Parkway investigation had completely stalled, and the last
38:08
Speaker 1: confirmed victims, Anna Maria, Phelps, and Daniel Lawyer had been
38:12
Speaker 1: found in October of nineteen eighty nine, and investigators had
38:15
Speaker 1: continued working leads in the months that followed, interviewing potential
38:18
Speaker 1: witnesses and reviewing evidence, but nothing broke open, and the
38:22
Speaker 1: steady stream of tips slowly trickled out, and then it
38:26
Speaker 1: would dry up entirely and the case went cold. But
38:30
Speaker 1: that did not mean it was forgotten, because every few
38:33
Speaker 1: years a new detective would pull the files and take
38:35
Speaker 1: another look, and journalists revisited the story on anniversaries, publishing
38:40
Speaker 1: retrospectives that briefly rekindled public attention, and true crime writers
38:44
Speaker 1: reached out to families, promising fresh perspectives and books that
38:48
Speaker 1: never produced breakthroughs. None of it really led anywhere, but
38:52
Speaker 1: Bill Thomas refused to let his sister's case disappear, and
38:55
Speaker 1: he would stay in contact with investigators, following up on
38:59
Speaker 1: every single lead, and he kept Cathy's name in front
39:02
Speaker 1: of anyone who might listen. And he wasn't alone because
39:06
Speaker 1: other families did the same, attending press conferences and talking
39:09
Speaker 1: to reporters, refusing to let the victims become footnotes. But
39:13
Speaker 1: time kept passing, and the nineteen nineties ended and the
39:16
Speaker 1: two thousands came and went. Three decades would slip by
39:20
Speaker 1: children who weren't even born yet. When Kathy and Becky
39:23
Speaker 1: died had now graduated from college, new students filled the
39:27
Speaker 1: dorms at William and Mary and Christopher Newport, and most
39:30
Speaker 1: of them blissfully unaware of what happened on the parkway
39:33
Speaker 1: their parents once warned them about. But the overlooks remained
39:37
Speaker 1: still isolated and still dark after sunset, and somewhere in Virginia,
39:41
Speaker 1: the killer just kept living his life. But on December fifteenth,
39:46
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, a delivery driver in Lancaster County, Virginia noticed
39:51
Speaker 1: something wrong. A front door stood open at a rural residence,
39:55
Speaker 1: and the signs suggested a home that had been abandoned
39:58
Speaker 1: or perhaps someone who could know no longer care for themselves,
40:01
Speaker 1: and the driver reported what he saw and police conducted
40:04
Speaker 1: a welfare check and inside the home they found a
40:07
Speaker 1: sixty three year old man and he was dead, and
40:10
Speaker 1: the medical examiner ruled the death by natural causes at
40:13
Speaker 1: a rosclerotic cardiovascular disease aka plaque build up that had
40:18
Speaker 1: stopped blood flow to his heart, and based on the
40:21
Speaker 1: condition of the body, he had likely been dead for
40:24
Speaker 1: at least a month before anyone found him, and he
40:27
Speaker 1: had died alone. So as part of routine procedure, the
40:30
Speaker 1: medical examiner collected a DNA sample, and this was standard
40:34
Speaker 1: practice in cases requiring identification or documentation, and the sample
40:39
Speaker 1: was then preserved and filed. But no one had any
40:42
Speaker 1: idea of its significance at the time, because the man
40:45
Speaker 1: had no felony convictions and his DNA had never been
40:48
Speaker 1: entered into any law enforcement databases. But he had been
40:52
Speaker 1: investigated three decades earlier when FBI surveiled, searched, questioned, and
40:59
Speaker 1: polygraphed him, but he had never been arrested or charged
41:02
Speaker 1: or required to provide a sample. So this routine collection
41:06
Speaker 1: at his death would eventually become the most important piece
41:09
Speaker 1: of evidence in a case that had gone unsolved for
41:12
Speaker 1: more than thirty years, but that realization was years away yet,
41:17
Speaker 1: So in December twenty seventeen, he was simply another body
41:21
Speaker 1: discovered during a welfare check, a brave report, a standard autopsy,
41:25
Speaker 1: nothing more, and the families of the Colonial Parkway victims
41:29
Speaker 1: didn't know the man investigators had long suspected was now dead.
41:33
Speaker 1: They also didn't know he had walked out of the
41:35
Speaker 1: FBI interview room in nineteen eighty eight and lived freely
41:39
Speaker 1: for nearly three decades. But now the key to the
41:43
Speaker 1: truth was sitting in a medical examiner's file, just waiting
41:47
Speaker 1: for science and determination to catch up with a killer
41:50
Speaker 1: who had escaped justice his entire life. So in twenty
41:53
Speaker 1: twenty two, the FBI and Virginia State Police made a
41:56
Speaker 1: decision that would reshape the entire investigation. The Colonial Parkway
42:00
Speaker 1: murders had been cold for more than thirty years at
42:02
Speaker 1: this point, and traditional methods had been all but exhausted,
42:05
Speaker 1: and witnesses died or disappeared, and memories had faded with
42:09
Speaker 1: all that time passed, and the physical evidence that remained
42:12
Speaker 1: was sitting in storage lockers, untouched by modern forensic science
42:16
Speaker 1: since it had been collected before DNA testing was really
42:19
Speaker 1: even a thing. So investigators decided to go back to
42:22
Speaker 1: the beginning and they would re examine every piece of
42:25
Speaker 1: preserved evidence using technology that had not existed in nineteen
42:28
Speaker 1: eighty six. And this was no small task because more
42:31
Speaker 1: than eight hundred and thirty people were investigated over those years,
42:35
Speaker 1: and files accumulated and names were added and removed, and
42:39
Speaker 1: some suspects had died and others moved away or vanished
42:42
Speaker 1: from investigative radar entirely. But DNA, of course, does not
42:47
Speaker 1: fade with time, and evidence properly stored can reveal its
42:50
Speaker 1: secrets decades after a crime. And among the samples submitted
42:53
Speaker 1: for comparison was one collected in December of twenty seventeen,
42:58
Speaker 1: the one taken from a sixty three year old old
43:00
Speaker 1: man found dead in his Lancaster County home. And that
43:04
Speaker 1: man was the waterman who had been the FBI's primary
43:07
Speaker 1: suspect in nineteen eighty eight, the one who had passed
43:11
Speaker 1: a polygraph and walked free, and for thirty five years,
43:15
Speaker 1: the polygraph result had protected him despite every piece of
43:18
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence, despite the instincts of veteran investigators, the Bureau
43:24
Speaker 1: had let him go, just let him go based off
43:27
Speaker 1: a free polygraph test, and now science would deliver the
43:30
Speaker 1: final verdict. And in twenty twenty three, the Virginia Department
43:34
Speaker 1: of Forensic Science confirmed when investigators had long believed, the
43:38
Speaker 1: DNA conclusively matched, and the testing was performed by DNA
43:43
Speaker 1: Labs International in Florida, and funding came through the Virginia
43:46
Speaker 1: Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which was a program created to
43:50
Speaker 1: address the backlog of untested evidence in sexual assault cases
43:54
Speaker 1: across the state. The same initiative that had brought closure
43:58
Speaker 1: to survivors of sexual violences was now delivering answers to
44:02
Speaker 1: families who had waited nearly forty years. And the Waterman's
44:06
Speaker 1: genetic profile matched evidence records from the crime scenes, and
44:10
Speaker 1: it left no room for doubt. So the man who
44:13
Speaker 1: had sat in the FBI interview room in nineteen eighty
44:16
Speaker 1: eight and convinced a polygraphic examiner of his innocence had
44:19
Speaker 1: been guilty the entire time. And his name was Alan
44:23
Speaker 1: Wade Wilmer, Senior, and he had been the FBI's top
44:26
Speaker 1: suspect from the moment they'd identified him in April nineteen
44:30
Speaker 1: eighty eight. Everything about him aligned with the profile investigators
44:33
Speaker 1: had constructed from the nautical line, the diesel fuel, the
44:37
Speaker 1: blade work, et cetera, all pointing to a pattern of
44:40
Speaker 1: a predator who knew the parkway's isolated overlooks and used
44:43
Speaker 1: that knowledge to hunt. And that single test derailed the
44:47
Speaker 1: whole investigation, and it gave him a second chance at life,
44:50
Speaker 1: which he milked for twenty nine more years, free from suspicion, prosecution,
44:56
Speaker 1: and consequence, and then he died in his bed of
44:58
Speaker 1: November of twenty seventeen, and he was never forced to
45:01
Speaker 1: answer for what he had done to those innocent people
45:04
Speaker 1: between nineteen eighty six and nineteen eighty nine, and the
45:07
Speaker 1: DNA confirmation came six years after his death, nearly forty
45:12
Speaker 1: years after his first murder, so justice in any traditional
45:16
Speaker 1: sense was no longer possible. Let's take a quick pause
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46:51
Speaker 1: and let's get back to it. But the confirmation of
46:52
Speaker 1: Wilmer's identity came in stages, as investigators methodically linked his
46:57
Speaker 1: DNA to one crime scene after another, and in January
47:01
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four, the FBI announced that Wilmer had
47:03
Speaker 1: been connected to the murders of David Nobling and Robin Edwards,
47:08
Speaker 1: the twenty year old landscaper and the fourteen year old
47:11
Speaker 1: found on the shores of Ragged Island in September of
47:14
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. Yet the same announcement revealed something unexpected.
47:18
Speaker 1: Wilmer had also been linked to Teresa Lynn Howell, a
47:22
Speaker 1: victim who had never been associated with the Colonial Parkway investigation. Now,
47:27
Speaker 1: Howell died in July nineteen eighty nine, two months before
47:31
Speaker 1: Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lawyer vanished. So it turns
47:35
Speaker 1: out the scope of Wilmer's crimes was larger than anyone
47:38
Speaker 1: had realized, and November of twenty twenty five, investigators announced
47:43
Speaker 1: another connection. Wilmer's DNA matched evidence from the murder of
47:47
Speaker 1: Lori Ann Powell, and she had been killed in March
47:50
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, just one month before Keith Call and
47:53
Speaker 1: Cassandra Hailey disappeared, and like Howell, her case had been
47:57
Speaker 1: investigated separately for decades. And then in January twenty twenty six,
48:02
Speaker 1: the FBI made the announcement the families had been waiting
48:06
Speaker 1: nearly forty years to hear Alan Wade Wilmer Senior was
48:10
Speaker 1: responsible for the murders of Kathleen Thomas and Rebecca Dowski,
48:15
Speaker 1: the first known victims the case that had started everything.
48:19
Speaker 1: The circle was finally closed. For the families who had
48:23
Speaker 1: spent decades searching for answers. The confirmation brought a complicated
48:27
Speaker 1: kind of relief. Bill Thomas had pursued his sister's case
48:30
Speaker 1: for a significant portion of his life, and when the
48:33
Speaker 1: announcement came, he spoke publicly, saying, quote, I've been pursuing
48:37
Speaker 1: answers for thirty nine years unquote, and even after all that,
48:42
Speaker 1: even after everything he had learned about the investigation, the
48:45
Speaker 1: confirmation just caught him off guard, saying quote, I was
48:48
Speaker 1: still surprised it was Wilmer unquote. And the surprise made
48:52
Speaker 1: sense because Bill had known about Wilmer for years and
48:55
Speaker 1: knew he had been a suspect, and he even knew
48:58
Speaker 1: about the polygraph test. But suspicion and proof are different things,
49:03
Speaker 1: and after thirty nine years of uncertainty, the finality of
49:06
Speaker 1: DNA evidence still hit harder than expected, and the families
49:10
Speaker 1: of David Nobling and Robin Edwards expressed relief at finally
49:13
Speaker 1: having answers, saying quote, now we have a sense of
49:16
Speaker 1: relief and justice unquote. But the word justice carried a
49:22
Speaker 1: bitter undertone because Wilmer was dead, which meant that no
49:26
Speaker 1: courtroom would ever hold him accountable. But knowing who had
49:29
Speaker 1: taken their loved ones provided something that had seemed impossible
49:33
Speaker 1: for so long, and Wilmer's own family released a statement saying, quote,
49:37
Speaker 1: the Wilmer family continues to be deeply impacted by the
49:41
Speaker 1: revelations of Alan w Wilmer Senior's previous crimes. Learning that
49:45
Speaker 1: another crime has been connected to him is devastating quote.
49:49
Speaker 1: And the statement to just acknowledge the horror of what
49:52
Speaker 1: their relative had done and recognize the suffering of the
49:55
Speaker 1: victim's families. It just captured the impossible position a kill
50:00
Speaker 1: ER's family occupies, connected by blood to someone whose actions
50:03
Speaker 1: they could have never predicted or prevented. But as of
50:07
Speaker 1: January twenty twenty six, DNA evidence has definitively linked Alan
50:11
Speaker 1: Wade Wilmer Senior to six victims. Kathleen Thomas and Rebecca
50:15
Speaker 1: Dowski were the first to pass. They were killed in
50:19
Speaker 1: October nineteen eighty six, and David Nobling and Robin Edwards
50:22
Speaker 1: were killed in September of nineteen eighty seven, and their
50:25
Speaker 1: case was the first officially connected to Wilmer when DNA
50:28
Speaker 1: results were announced in January twenty twenty four, and the
50:31
Speaker 1: investigation also tied Wilmer to the two victims who had
50:34
Speaker 1: never been part of the original Colonial Parkway case, Lori
50:38
Speaker 1: Ann Powell, who was killed in March nineteen eighty eight,
50:41
Speaker 1: and Teresa Lynn Howell, who was killed in July nineteen
50:44
Speaker 1: eighty nine. So six people, six lives ended by the
50:48
Speaker 1: same man and potentially more, but a pattern of violence
50:53
Speaker 1: that stretched across nearly three years and stayed hidden for
50:56
Speaker 1: nearly forty. But the DNA evidence is conclusive, but sadly
51:00
Speaker 1: not every case has been resolved. Keith Call and Cassandra
51:04
Speaker 1: Haley remained classified as endangered missing persons. Their disappearance in
51:09
Speaker 1: April nineteen eighty eight fits the pattern of Wilmer's other
51:12
Speaker 1: crimes because they vanished from a Colonial Parkway overlook only
51:16
Speaker 1: a few miles from where Kathy Thomas and Becky Dowski
51:18
Speaker 1: had been found, and investigators have told the Call and
51:21
Speaker 1: Haley families that Wilmer is believed responsible and the circumstantial
51:26
Speaker 1: evidence is just overwhelming and points in his direction, and
51:30
Speaker 1: he was the FBI's primary suspect at the time, and
51:33
Speaker 1: agents spotted him near the Parkway days after Keith and
51:36
Speaker 1: Cassandra had vanished, and his knowledge of the waterways explain
51:40
Speaker 1: how he could have moved victims without leaving any trace.
51:43
Speaker 1: But without bodies, there is no DNA test, and Keith
51:46
Speaker 1: and Cassandra have been missing for thirty seven years, and
51:50
Speaker 1: without physical evidence, investigators cannot make the same definitive determination
51:55
Speaker 1: they have made in the other cases. But the families
51:58
Speaker 1: know what happened and gators know what happened, but officially
52:03
Speaker 1: the case remains open, and Anna Marie Phelps and Daniel
52:06
Speaker 1: Lawyer have also not been forensically connected to Wilmer, and
52:11
Speaker 1: their disappearance in September nineteen eighty nine was the last
52:14
Speaker 1: in the series attributed to the Colonial Parkway Killer, and
52:17
Speaker 1: their bodies were found six weeks later, covered by that
52:20
Speaker 1: blanket from Daniel's car, but unfortunately, the decomposition of the
52:24
Speaker 1: bodies had advanced too far to determine the cause of
52:27
Speaker 1: death with certainty, but testing still continues, but no official
52:31
Speaker 1: announcement has linked to Wilmer to their murders, and even
52:34
Speaker 1: in death, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior exists in a kind
52:37
Speaker 1: of legal limbo because under current law, his DNA cannot
52:40
Speaker 1: be uploaded to CODIS in COTIS for anyone unaware is
52:44
Speaker 1: the Combined DNA Index System, or the national database that
52:48
Speaker 1: allows law enforcement agencies to compare genetic profiles from crime
52:52
Speaker 1: scene to known offenders. An entry into the system requires
52:56
Speaker 1: a criminal conviction, which is crazy to think about. I mean,
53:00
Speaker 1: he's killed people, he died, but like put him into
53:03
Speaker 1: the system. That makes no sense. But since Wilmer was
53:06
Speaker 1: never convicted of anything, he was never charged of anything,
53:11
Speaker 1: and he died before the DNA match was made. Because
53:14
Speaker 1: he has no felony record, his profile cannot be entered
53:17
Speaker 1: into the system that might connect him to unsolved crimes
53:20
Speaker 1: and other jurisdictions. And CBS six legal analyst Todd Stone
53:25
Speaker 1: explained the limitation quote the only way to address something
53:29
Speaker 1: like that really is through general assembly. They'd have to
53:32
Speaker 1: change the law unquote then change the law. What the fuck?
53:38
Speaker 1: That makes no sense? Like you could give closure to
53:41
Speaker 1: god knows how many families, but we've got to change
53:43
Speaker 1: the law. What are we even talking about? Like that
53:46
Speaker 1: makes no sense to me. And the Virginia Attorney General's
53:49
Speaker 1: Office has confirmed it cannot intervene, saying, quote the Attorney
53:53
Speaker 1: General's office doesn't have jurisdiction to intervene in an ongoing
53:56
Speaker 1: investigation unquote. A spokesperson said Bill Thomas has taken up
54:02
Speaker 1: the fight to change the law, saying, quote right now,
54:05
Speaker 1: the way the laws are set up, even though Alan
54:07
Speaker 1: Wade Wilmer, Senior is a serial killer and has killed
54:10
Speaker 1: at least six people, including my sister and her girlfriend,
54:13
Speaker 1: Rebecca Dowski, we do not have the capability to upload
54:16
Speaker 1: his DNA into COTIS because he was never convicted of
54:19
Speaker 1: a crime before he died in twenty seventeen unquote, and
54:22
Speaker 1: he and other family members are pushing for legislative reform. Quote.
54:27
Speaker 1: We are going to be asking the legislature, the governor,
54:29
Speaker 1: and the new Attorney General to change this law because
54:33
Speaker 1: I can't believe we're protecting the civil rights of a
54:35
Speaker 1: dead serial killer over the rights of my family and
54:39
Speaker 1: all of these families who are still waiting for answers unquote.
54:42
Speaker 1: But without the CODIS entry, investigators must work case by case,
54:47
Speaker 1: and every potential connection requires a direct comparison between Wilmer's
54:51
Speaker 1: DNA and evidence from that specific crime scene, which is
54:55
Speaker 1: a slow, incredibly painstaking process, and the US Attorney Office
55:00
Speaker 1: for the Eastern District of Virginia has confirmed what the
55:03
Speaker 1: evidence makes clear. If Wilmer were alive, the evidence developed
55:07
Speaker 1: through this investigation would support federal prosecution, a moot point
55:12
Speaker 1: considering he is in fact and not alive, and Commonwealth's
55:15
Speaker 1: Attorney in Isle of Wight County, the City of Hampton,
55:19
Speaker 1: and Gloucester County have all stated that charges would have
55:22
Speaker 1: been filed in their jurisdictions, but since he died before
55:26
Speaker 1: he was caught, he will never see the inside of
55:29
Speaker 1: a courtroom. And the DNA confirmation answered the question that
55:32
Speaker 1: haunted this case for nearly forty years. The families now
55:35
Speaker 1: know who killed their loved ones, but other questions remain.
55:39
Speaker 1: Did Wilmer have an accomplice? Because the methods used in
55:43
Speaker 1: the murders varied dramatically, and how they were killed, in
55:47
Speaker 1: how they were disposed of, etc. And the inconsistency of
55:51
Speaker 1: them all has puzzled investigators for decades. And Larry McCain
55:55
Speaker 1: led the Virginia State Police Behavioral Science Unit, and he
55:58
Speaker 1: argued that two people we're working together. The level of
56:02
Speaker 1: control demonstrated over the victims with multiple people subdued at once,
56:06
Speaker 1: no evidence of escape attempts suggests more than one perpetrator,
56:10
Speaker 1: and Irvin Wells at the FBI shared similar suspicions, and
56:14
Speaker 1: Bill Thomas also supports this idea, saying, quote, I'm fairly
56:18
Speaker 1: certain that he did not act alone unquote. An author
56:21
Speaker 1: Blaine Pardout raised a question investigators have not publicly answered. Quote,
56:26
Speaker 1: So when they were in this DNA testing, did they
56:29
Speaker 1: come across anyone else's DNA profile on the victims that
56:32
Speaker 1: could be a potential accomplice with Wilmer. We just don't
56:35
Speaker 1: know that at this point unquote. And the other question
56:38
Speaker 1: is are there more victims? The FBI has been direct
56:42
Speaker 1: about this, saying we are not finished. We are actively
56:45
Speaker 1: investigating other cases linked to the Colonial Parkway murders and
56:48
Speaker 1: remain committed to pursuing every lead for the families who
56:51
Speaker 1: are still waiting for answers unquote. And Virginia State Police
56:55
Speaker 1: Captain Timothy Rabel confirmed the investigation's scope, saying, quote, we
56:59
Speaker 1: are not ruling anything out when we examine other cases.
57:03
Speaker 1: Today's announcement also does not conclude our agency's investigative efforts
57:06
Speaker 1: to determine if Alan Wilmer Senior was responsible for additional
57:09
Speaker 1: crimes unquote. Investigators have urged anyone who knew Wilmer to
57:14
Speaker 1: come forward, saying, quote, even though Alan Wilmer Senior is deceased,
57:18
Speaker 1: it is not too late to come forward unquote. So
57:22
Speaker 1: the full extent of what Alan Wade Wilmer Senior did
57:25
Speaker 1: during his years on the Virginia waterways may never be known,
57:29
Speaker 1: but hopefully we can get more answers in the near future.
57:33
Speaker 1: But that is it on the Colonial Parkway murders. It's
57:38
Speaker 1: an absolutely wild case, so many, so many failures in
57:44
Speaker 1: this case. It's so sad to hear that he just
57:47
Speaker 1: got to live his life as a freeman and then
57:50
Speaker 1: just die in the comfort of his own home. But
57:52
Speaker 1: hopefully he is burning somewhere out there in the ether
57:55
Speaker 1: of hell or whatever is going on. And hopefully, hopefully
58:00
Speaker 1: the families of victims, not even in this whole particular story,
58:04
Speaker 1: hopefully they can find closure and investigators can work towards
58:08
Speaker 1: giving them that closure. But if you know anything, if
58:11
Speaker 1: you've heard this name or know anything about anything, make
58:15
Speaker 1: sure to contact Virginia's State Police. But with that, please
58:19
Speaker 1: let me know if there are any other cases you
58:21
Speaker 1: want me to deep dive into. I always read the comments,
58:23
Speaker 1: and until next time I will see your beautiful face.
58:26
Speaker 1: Stay safe out there, all right Bye.