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The Dark Secrets of Lovers’ Lane: Colonial Parkway Killings · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:30
  Speaker 1: A lover's lane is the perfect place for a young
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: couple to enjoy a moment of privacy, but it's also
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the perfect place for a serial killer to find his
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: next pair of victims. During the late nineteen eighties, a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: series of murders began along the length of Virginia's twenty
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: two mile Colonial Parkway. The parkway provides a connection between Yorktown, Jamestown,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and Williamsburg and runs directly through the Colonial National Historic Park.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: While it's a scenic drive in many places, many sections
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of the road didn't have any lighting, and as soon
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: as the sun set, these isolated dark corners became a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: popular place for young couples to park their cars and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: hook up. None of those couples suspected that there was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: another person out there in the dark, waiting for the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: right moment to attack. The first victims were a lesbian couple,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: twenty one year old college senior Rebecca Dawski, who was
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: known as Becky, and twenty seven year old Kathleen Thomas,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: who was known as Kathy. Becky and Kathy were last
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: seen at a college computer lab the evening of October ninth,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, and for three days there was no
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: sign of them. Finally, in the early morning of October twelfth,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a jogger saw a white Honda that had been left
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: in an embankment off the side of the Colonial Parkway.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: That vehicle belonged to Kathy Thomas. The jogger reported the vehicle,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and when the highway patrol arrived, they found Becky and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Kathy's bodies inside the park car. Becky's body was in
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the back seat, but Kathy had been placed inside the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Honda's hatchback. It was immediately clear that foul play was involved.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Both victims had been strangled and their attacker had used
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a sharp weapon to then cut their throats. The neck
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: wounds were so deep that they had both been almost
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: completely decapitated. There were signs of rope burn marks around
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: their wrists as well as their necks, showing that at
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: some point they had been restrained. Kathy had clearly tried
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to fight off for a killer and had ripped out
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: some of their hair, which the autopsy found clinched between
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: her fingers. While the cause of death was clear, the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: motive was another story. No valuables had been taken, so
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it definitely wasn't a robbery. In fact both victims wallets
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: were easily accessible and had been left inside the Honda.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Sexual assault also didn't appear to be the motive. There
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: was no sign that either victim had been raped, and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: all of their clothes had been left on. Only a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: few weeks after the bodies were discovered, the media announced
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico were working
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to create a behavioral profile of the perpetrator. It was
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: clear that investigators didn't believe the murder was an isolated case.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: They were dealing with a killer who may have killed
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: before and was likely to kill again unless they were apprehended.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Despite the construction of a behavioral profile and the FBI
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: looking into the case, it went cold until nineteen eighty eight,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: when an abandoned truck was found. The truck was a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Ford Ranger pick up that belonged to twenty year old
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: salesman David Nobling. David had gone missing on the nineteenth
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of September nineteen eighty eight, along with fourteen year old
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Robin Edwards, who had been his passenger. Robin had gone
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: on a date that evening with David's younger cousin, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: David had driven them to the arcade. However, at some
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: point during the evening, she and David had arranged to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: meet up alone, despite Robin being in the eighth grade
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: and David being in his twenties. At midnight, David drove
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the pick up to Robin's house. It was the last
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: time that either of them were seen alive. David's truck
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was discovered two days later, left in a parking area
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: with the radio still playing, the doors and one window open,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and the truck engine turned on. David and Robin's bodies
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: weren't found near the pickup truck. Instead, they were found
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: lying on the banks of the James River after the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: current had washed them ashore. Unlike the previous victims, David
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and Robin had not been strangled or had their throats cut.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: They had both been fatally shot. Robin's jeans were unbuttoned
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and her bra had been removed. This made investigators wonder
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: whether the killer had assaulted Robin, but they knew it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was possible that David and Robin had a sexual relationship,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: so he might have been the one to partially remove
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: her clothing. Because David's truck had been left with the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: driver's window rolled down, investigators wondered whether the killer was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: a law enforcement officer, or at least pretending to be one.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: He could have asked for David's license and registration, resulting
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: in David winding the window down to pass them over,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and then ordered both David and Robin to get out
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of the vehicle, explaining why the doors were left open.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Even though the Colonial Parkway was not directly involved in
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: David and Robin's murder, there was only about a half
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: an hour drive between the sites of the second murders
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and the site where Becky and Cathy had been killed
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: two years before. Along with the other similarities in the case,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: this made investigators suspect that the same killer had struck again.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: The next victim, twenty five year old Brian Pettinger, went
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: missing in December nineteen eighty seven after visiting a ball
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: room dance studio in Hampton, Virginia, where he was studying
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to eventually become an instructor. Two days later, Brian's wife
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: saw his car abandoned in a mall parking lot, but
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: there was no sign of Brian until early nineteen eighty eight,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: when his hog tide body was found in the James River.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: He had been hid in the head while he was
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: tied up and then tossed into the river, where he drowned.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Once again, the cause of death was different, but there
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: were connections to the other murders. Brian had known Robin
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Edward's mother, and his body had been found in the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: same river as Robin and David. In April that year,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: another young couple went missing. Eighteen year old Cassandra Hayley
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and twenty year old Richard Call were last seen attending
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: a party, and then Richard's abandoned car was found with
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the keys still inside and several items of Richard and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Cassandra's clothing in the back seat. Tracking dogs followed the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: scent of the missing people down to the water, but
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it was doubtful that Cassandra and Richard had stripped off
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to go swimming. The embankment was incredibly steep and the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: water was freezing. During the investigation, one suspect appeared, a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: local fisherman who had been seen approaching a different couple
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: on the Colonial Parkway. His name was Alan Wilmer, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: although the FBI found a gun and a pair of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: handcuffs when they searched his house, he was cleared after
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: passing a polygraph. Despite a financial reward for any information
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: about Cassandra and Richard, that case went cold. In September
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, eighteen year old Anna Maria Phelps and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: twenty one year old Daniel Lower were driving to Virginia
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Beach in Daniel's gold Chevrolet when they disappeared. The vehicle
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: was later found at a rest stop with no sign
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of the occupants. Once again, the keys were left inside
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the car, the doors were unlocked, and no valuables had
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: been taken. The next month, Anna Maria and Daniel were
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: found hunters stumbled across two sets of skeletal remains only
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: about a mile away from where the Chevrolet had been left.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The decomposition was so severe that an autopsy could not
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: establish the cause of death for either victim. For more
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: than two decades, there were no more leads until a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: handwritten note in Anna Maria phelps handwriting was found in
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: a box of evidence from her apartment. The note outlined
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Ana Maria's plans to meet someone at a rest stop,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: stating the person's name and that they would be driving
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a blue van. Somehow, this piece of evidence had been overlooked.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: In January twenty twenty four, a statement was released two
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of the Colonial Parkway murders had been linked to a
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: deceased suspect. The suspect's name was Alan Wilmer, the same
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: fisherman who had passed a polygraph test after initially being
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: viewed as a suspect in the killings. Unfortunately, Alan and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: couldn't be questioned or arrested for murder. He had died
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. Allan was confirmed to have killed David
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Nobling and Robin Edwards, but his DNA had also connected
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: him to a different murder which had never been linked
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to the Colonial Parkway murders, twenty nine year old Teresa
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Lynn Spaul Howell, who had been fatally strangled in July
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. Technically, the Colonial Parkway murder cases have
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: been solved, but Alan Wilmer has not yet been linked
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to all of the killings, and several possible additional victims
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: have not been formally connected to the string of Colonial
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Parkway murders. At the very least, Alan killed three people
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and lived out the rest of his life without being
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: viewed as a suspect. He got to have a wife,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a family, then grow old and pass away peacefully of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: natural causes, a chance that none of his victims ever
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: got to have. That is ten Minute Murder for today,
• 10:16
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• 11:00
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• 11:15
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• 11:18
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• 11:21
  Speaker 1: are we collectively doing about sweet potato fries. Nobody wants
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: these things, they continue to make them. I don't know
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: why they continue to make. Just make regular French fries.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: We love regular French fries with regular potatoes. Leave the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: sweet potatoes for. I don't even know what you use
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: sweet potatoes for. I don't like them. I'm sure people
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: out there like them and love them, and they're supposedly healthy.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: They taste healthy, I guess I don't they take there's
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: something wrong with them. The sweet potatoes are tainted in
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: some way. They're not delicious. Stop making French fries. That
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: going to stop tricking me. The reason I'm bringing this
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: up is because I was tricked with a sweet potato fry.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I thought I was a regular fry, turned out to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: be a sweet potato fry. Didn't like it, thought the
• 12:03
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• 12:05
  Speaker 1: these damn things are sweet potatoes. That was it. We
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: don't want those. Stop doing that please, whoever's doing the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: sweet potato fries the end, I hope that. I hope
• 12:15
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• 12:17
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