The Colonial Parkway Murders

The Colonial Parkway is a historic and scenic road that links together the three points of Virginia's Historic Triangle: Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. It also happens to be ground zero for one of the nation's most brutal crime sprees, which remains clouded in doubt and tragedy more than three decades later…

The Colonial Parkway is a historic and scenic road that links together the three points of Virginia's Historic Triangle: Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. All three cities are historic for various reasons, with Jamestown being the location of the original Virginia colony, which was founded along the James River. Williamsburg would replace Jamestown as the state capital in 1699, and Yorktown is where General Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington, marking a turning point in the American Revolutionary War.

The Colonial Parkway, which connects these three points along the Virginia Peninsula, is known primarily for sightseeing. For that reason, it doesn't intersect any other roads or thoroughfares and is maintained by the National Park Service; putting it under the purview of the federal government, as a part of the Colonial National Historical Park.

Located roughly halfway between Richmond and Virginia Beach, the Colonial Parkway spans roughly 22 miles in southeastern Virginia and is an incredibly beautiful drive during daytime hours. At night, however, it can become haunting, without any streetlights or businesses illuminating the road and being shadowed by the darkened patches of woods that line the road. This duality is perfectly expressed in the history of the Parkway itself, which is an incredibly scenic and vibrant piece of American history, but also happens to be ground zero for one of the nation's most brutal crime sprees... which remains clouded in doubt and tragedy more than three decades later.

This is the story of the Colonial Parkway Murders.

Cathleen Thomas was a 27-year-old from Lowell, Massachusetts, who had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981. This was only the 2nd class to allow women, and one of Cathy's fellow sailors, Lt. Frank Thorp, who was in her graduating class, told Virginia's Daily Press that:

"[Cathy] was a pioneer, and more so than just being a pioneer, she was incredibly enthusiastic and incredibly friendly."

Cathy would remain a Naval officer for roughly five years, ultimately rising to the rank of lieutenant. For more than two years, she served as the protocol officer at U.S. Atlantic Fleet HQ in Norfolk, Virginia, which was a prestigious position that she had been specifically chosen for. However, after serving for several years, Cathy found that her career potential in the Navy was rather-limited (because of her gender), so she decided to leave the military on her own terms in May of 1986.

After being discharged from the Navy, Cathy began working as a stockbroker at a firm in Virginia Beach, where she started work as a salesperson and began to find near-instantaneous success, earning more than $4,000 a month in commissions. She seemed to have her sights set on a promising career in the business field and began pursuing her master's degree in business administration at Old Dominion University.

Eventually, Cathy's story would end up intersecting with another young woman named Rebecca Dowski, who was a 21-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York. Despite growing up in the Hudson Valley, Dowski was rather worldly, having spent two years in Paris after her father accepted a position with the computing company IBM. Rebecca became fluent in French during her stay there and graduated from the American School in Paris.

After returning to the states, Rebecca had attended Dickenson College in Pennsylvania, where she became known as an All-Star softball player in the Mid-Atlantic Conference. However, she would end up transferring to the College of William & Mary down in the Virginia Peninsula in January of 1986, becoming a business management major and hoping to take advantage of William & Mary's strong computing program. Rebecca had her sights set on a career in the business field and made the move to Virginia to facilitate her corporate aspirations.

By the Fall of 1986, Rebecca Dowski was living in Williamsburg, and while not at school or hanging out with her friends, could be found spending hours with tutors to improve her grades or working at a day-care center near campus. She was in her second semester at the College of William & Mary and had just entered into a new and exciting relationship with an older woman: Cathleen Thomas, who lived in the area and had been introduced to Rebecca through their mutual friend group. Ironically, the two were introduced together through Cathleen's former-partner, which ruffled some feathers at the time, but was quickly worked through.

The two young women were last seen together on the evening of Thursday, October 9th, 1986, at a computer lab with some friends at the William & Mary campus. Rebecca was planning on driving home over the extended weekend, with the school's Fall quarter not beginning until the next Wednesday due to Columbus Day. This would give her time to drive up to Pennsylvania to visit with her old college friends at Dickenson College, before driving home to New York to see her family. However, Rebecca hadn't made any firm plans; she hoped to head out sometime on Friday, and had packed her car ahead of time, but didn't have a strict schedule. She was going to drive at her own pace and simply get to Pennsylvania and New York when she got there, so none of her friends or family expected to see her at any given time that weekend.

Meanwhile, it was just another regular week for Cathy, who was seen with Rebecca that Thursday evening at the William & Mary campus, but was a no-show for her financial job the following day, October 10th. Over the next couple of days, neither of the two women would be seen or heard by any of their friends or family, but because no one had any reason to suspect anything untoward, no missing person reports would be filed.

On the afternoon of October 12th, 1986, a jogger happened upon a suspicious vehicle in an overlook near Cheatham Annex, a naval supply center along the Colonial Parkway, just outside of Williamsburg. This was about 6 miles away from Yorktown, near the Bellfield Plantation, close to the 9km marker of the Colonial Parkway.

This jogger happened upon the vehicle at around 5:30 PM that Sunday, while jogging along the York River. The vehicle was found just off of a run-off area (sort of like a gravely parking lot) near the river itself. On the westbound lane of the parkway, there was a 15-foot dropoff heading down to the York River, which was shielded by a large area of bushes and shrubs... and that's where the vehicle was found.

The white 1980 Honda Civic - which would later be revealed to belong to Cathy Thomas - had been pushed out of view into the thick bramble overlooking the river. The jogger was unsure whether or not the vehicle had been intentionally pushed into the roughly-eight-feet of briars and brambles, but it seemed to be something worth reporting to authorities, which is what they did next.

Park Rangers arrived at the scene that evening, and immediately suspected that the vehicle had been accidentally driven over the embankment towards the river; perhaps by a drunk driver or by someone who didn't have a full sense of their surroundings the prior evening. However, as they got closer to the vehicle and examined it, they determined that to not be the case.

Two bodies were inside of the vehicle: one of which was 21-year-old Rebecca Dowski, who was laying in the backseat; and the other was 27-year-old Cathy Thomas, who was found underneath the hatchback of her own vehicle. Both of the women were still fully-clothed, seemingly to eliminate any hint at a sexual motive, but something had undoubtedly happened to get them there.

The Park Rangers at the scene broke the back window of the vehicle, hoping that both of the women might still be alive, but neither stirred, eliminating the belief that this might have been a tragic accident.

Because the bodies of the two women had been found on federal property, the investigation into their suspicious deaths would be handled by the FBI, who began their inquiry at the crime scene where they had been found.

Almost immediately, it was determined that the bodies of the two women had been doused in diesel fuel; undoubtedly an attempt by their killer to start a fire and destroy evidence. However, the killer had likely not realized that diesel fuel isn't flammable like regular gasoline, and ended up spraying diesel fuel all over the bodies and vehicle in an attempt to set it ablaze. Investigators were also able to find several burned-up matches and cigarettes in the run-off area, which had likely been lit in unsuccessful attempts to start the flame (and would be tested for DNA evidence years later which was non-existent at the time).

After failing to light the vehicle on fire, the killer had likely driven or pushed it off of the embankment in the run-off area, hoping that it would catch momentum and plummet into the river below. However, the 8-10 feet of bramble lining the river had caught the vehicle, and ended up cushioning and preventing it from falling 15 feet into the river below. This also likely preserved the crime scene inside of the vehicle, with the killer failing twice in a row to destroy evidence of their misdeeds.

Both women's purses would be found inside of the vehicle, having been tucked underneath their respective seats; Cathy's under the driver's seat and Rebecca's under the passenger seat. Their money seemed to be untouched, eliminating robbery as a motive for investigators. However, Cathy's wallet was found on the floor of the vehicle, indicating that it had been taken out of her purse and potentially shown to the killer (a possibility that I'll extrapolate on later).

Investigators would end up finding more than 150 fingerprints inside of the car, which did not match anyone in the FBI forensic database. What surprised them most, however, was the overall lack of blood in the car, which wasn't fitting the brutal ends that both women had faced. This led the FBI to theorize that the two women had been killed elsewhere and were then brought back into the vehicle; then, perhaps, driven to this isolated location, where the killer attempted to light the car on fire and then pushed or drove it into the bramble in a misguided attempt to destroy evidence.

Autopsies performed on Rebecca and Cathleen's bodies would reveal bruises all over their bodies, which indicated that they had been brutalized or mishandled while alive. There were also nylon rope burns on their necks and wrists, and years later, forensic tests would reveal brine on the ropes used to bind them; this indicated that the crimes took place in or near water, which might have been how the killer avoided leaving blood all over the vehicle and area around the crime scene.

In addition to the bruises and rope marks, the victims had apparent signs of strangulation, as well as deep cuts into their throats, with Jack Wagner, the FBI special agent in charge of the Norfolk office, telling the press that:

"Their throats were slit from ear to ear."

According to reports at the time, the cuts to the victims' throats had been left-to-right - indicating the killer being right-handed - and the cut to Cathy Thomas's neck was so severe that her head was almost severed from her body. To investigators, this indicated some serious overkill on behalf of the killer, as it was believed that the women had been strangled beforehand, so both were already dead at the time of this mutilation.

Both of the women were found fully-dressed, and there was no sign of sexual assault, so any kind of predatory sexual motive was eliminated by investigators early on. However, since there was no sign of robbery, that made the motive in the crime a complete and total mystery. Regardless, there was some sign that the two women had attempted to fight back against their attacker; especially Cathy, who had a significant cut on her thumb - which, investigators believed, had come after she tried to grab the attacker's knife.

Giving additional credence to this self-defense theory was a clump of hair found in the hand of 27-year-old Cathy Thomas, which indicated that she had fought back against her attacker before being subdued. This surprised investigators because there was no apparent sign of struggle in the victims' vehicle or the surrounding crime scene, which - again - solidified the notion that the victims had been killed elsewhere. It also surprised investigators because Cathy had served in the military until just recently, having undergone self-defense training and staying in relatively good shape.

For a brief time, Cathy's former-partner was investigated as a potential suspect, even though the killer was undoubtedly a male, as made evident by the physical strength needed to carry out the crime; not only the ability to control both victims and physically carry them into the vehicle but the strength needed to nearly decapitate Cathy with a knife. Eventually, this logic led to investigators solidifying the killer as a male.

Unfortunately, one of the setbacks for investigators came in the form of a time discrepancy: investigators believed that the victims were killed later on October 10th or even the 11th, which doesn't fit in with the window established by the victims themselves. Rebecca and Cathy were both last seen alive on the evening of October 9th, and then Cathy was missing from work that Friday, October 10th. This discrepancy - while it may seem minor - might have led to certain suspects being eliminated early on, and stands as a potential oversight years later.

To make matters even more complicated, it was publicly suspected (albeit somewhat briefly) that more than one killer may have been involved in this crime, due to the athletic physique of both women and there being no sign of an apparent struggle. Some investigators believe that this would have necessitated more than one culprit to keep both victims at-bay, but this remains a point of contention so many years later.

Unfortunately, the investigation into this violent double-murder would fail to really answer any of the large overarching questions. After finding the bodies of the two girls - and learning how they had spent their final hours - investigators began to probe their lives and those around them. Police discovered Rebecca's car on the College of William & Mary campus, packed and ready for her weekend trip up north. This indicated to them that Rebecca and Cathy had been intercepted after leaving the computer lab on the evening of October 9th, since she had plans to return to campus and begin driving home that night or the following morning. However, where they were going in those vital hours - or where they had been - remains unknown to this day. The older brother of Rebecca Dowski, Richard, told the press in the weeks after the crime:

"Where they were going, I don't know... There is no clear motive in the case. The wallets were found on the victims. They had money. Beyond that, not a lot is known."

David Knobling was a 20-year-old from Hampton, Virginia, whose parents had divorced when he was very young. Because of this, David seemed to express a lot of issues early on in his life and was often considered a "problem child" by teachers and other figures of authority in his life. This led to David being sent to military school during his teenage years, and - according to his father, Karl, a German immigrant - this seemed to straighten him out significantly.

David left school at the age of 17 and began working for his father's landscaping business. A year or two later, David began working a job as a water purification systems salesman and seemed to finally be making inroads into becoming an adult. And it couldn't come a moment sooner, as David had just gotten his longtime girlfriend pregnant, and he was preparing to become a father at the age of 20.

David loved to spend his free time working on things; primarily his black pickup truck, a Ford Ranger, which his parents described as his "pride and joy." He had attempted to figure out how everything worked when he first got it and did pride himself on replacing or repairing almost everything on his own.

Robin Edwards, a 14-year-old from Newport News, seemed to be cut from the same cloth as David. An 8th grader at Huntington Middle School, Robin was a headstrong girl with a prior history of running away; both of which were attempts that year, in 1987. In May, she had run away for eight days - having spent that time at a friend's house, just blocks away from her own home - and had repeated herself that July, when she had left home for a total of 12 hours. The cause for the second attempt was because of Robin's repercussion for the first; as a result of her runaway attempt earlier that year, she had been ordered by a judge to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. After giving herself several hours to contemplate her options, Robin turned herself in to police and was ultimately diagnosed with depression (which resulted in her receiving medication and therapy).

Despite her dramatic history, Robin always seemed to return home; it became apparent that her runaway attempts were little more than acts of teenage rebellion. In the months since, Robin had been working on bettering herself and was working hard to keep herself engaged, which in turn helped her combat her depression. Her grades had started to improve at school, and Robin had started to express an intense interest in the French language - even showing a desire in becoming an exchange student when she made it to high school.

The lives of David and Robin would intersect on the evening of September 19th, 1987, when the two met for the first time. David was taking his younger cousin Jason and his younger brother Michael to see the buddy comedy "Dragnet," and Robin was on a date with one of David's relatives. However, the movie was sold out, so the four ended up going to an arcade instead, where they spent the next few hours together.

Despite Robin being on a date with one of David's younger relatives, she seemed to hit it off with the older David; which didn't surprise Robin's friends and family when they learned about it later on, as they described her acting and looking older than she was (14). After hanging out at the arcade for a few hours, the four began driving home, with Jason and Michael riding in the back of David's pickup truck; and Robin riding alone in the cab with David. David dropped off Robin at her home at around 11:00 PM, but it's believed that they made plans to reconnect later that night, now that Robin had made it home before curfew.

Robin's mother, Bonnie, last saw her at around 11:30 PM, but her father found the front door of their home open at 5:30 the following morning, with Robin missing from her bedroom. Robin's sister would later recall Robin seeming particularly eager for her to go to bed, which indicated that she had been planning on sneaking out.

Meanwhile, David Knobling's mother last saw him just after midnight that Sunday, and it was believed that he had left his home to pick up Robin, never to be seen alive again.

Early on Monday, September 21st, 1987 - roughly 24 hours after David or Robin were last seen - David's black Ford Ranger was discovered in a parking lot on the south side of the James River Bridge, near Smithfield (approximately 22 miles away from the nearest entry point to the Colonial Parkway). This was a popular lover's lane in the area, where David had been before (with his longtime girlfriend), but the circumstances of the discovery made it incredibly eerie.

Deputy Joey Willard, who was on patrol that evening, stumbled upon the vehicle by happenstance just after midnight, and later told reporters:

"The circumstances are suspicious. Something's just not right."

When David's pickup truck was found near the James River Bridge, it was found with both doors wide open and the engine still running, with the radio playing and the windshield wipers swaying back-and-forth. Inside, articles of clothing would be found neatly laid out inside of the truck, including men and women's underwear; which seem very unnatural (not what you'd expect from an undressing at a lover's lane, which would be more frenzied). Inside of the truck were also a man and woman's pair of shoes, which were later confirmed to be David and Robin's.

The families of both victims would later state that they believed the scene to be staged, as the keys had been put into the ignition and turned to accessory mode (what you'd do if you wanted to utilize the electrical components of your car without using any fuel). However, David had hard-wired his truck so that he could turn on the radio without having to use the keys, so it didn't make sense for him to have done this.

Investigators were unsure how long the vehicle had been abandoned at this location, but it was believed that it could have been left there for the better part of an entire day - as far back as 5:30 on Sunday morning.

Bonnie Edwards, the mother of Robin, had been in communication with law enforcement since that Sunday and - upon the discovery of David's abandoned truck - filed a missing persons report that Monday. Searches would be performed throughout the area over the next several days, primarily focused around the Ragged Island game preserve, with not so much as a trace of the two youngsters being found.

Karl Knobling, David's father, told reporters:

"I know my son and his truck. He'd never leave his truck like that. He'd lock his truck up in my back yard. It's getting doubtful now. So many hours have passed."

Bonnie Edwards would express a similar sense of doubt to the press:

"I'm very frightened at this time. We're still hoping for the best but are trying to prepare ourselves in case something's happened."

On the morning of September 23rd, 1987 - two days after David Knobling's truck was discovered near the James River Bridge - a jogger named Louis Ford was traversing along the James River. He would stumble upon a pile of clothes along the water, which - upon further inspection - was revealed to be the body of Robin Edwards.

Ford, unaware that a couple of youngsters had gone missing just days prior, contacted the police, who arrived at the scene quickly. Ford then escorted them to the location along the river, showing them the body of the deceased 14-year-old, who was lying facedown - having been washed up with the river's tide. At the time of her discovery, she was only wearing a blouse and pants, with her pants unzipped and her shoes missing (having been found in David's truck).

A search party that had been searching throughout the area - which included David's father, Karl - ended up moving to this location after Robin was found. Less than 100 feet away from Robin's body, these searchers would discover the body of 20-year-old David Knobling, caught up in some flora along the river, wearing only pants at the time.

Because both bodies were found alongside the Ragged Wildlife Management Area, an emergency meeting was held by numerous agencies - local, county, state, and federal - to determine who would handle the case. It was ultimately determined that the Virginia State Police would handle this investigation, with insights and cooperation from the other adjoining agencies due to the particularly large scope of this crime.

An autopsy of both victims' bodies would reveal that they had been shot in the head once, execution-style, but the male victim (David Knobling) had sustained an additional gunshot to his shoulder; which, investigators believed, had been received while attempting to escape from the killer, perhaps while he was running away.

Because of the large scale of the crime scene, it was impossible to determine where, exactly, both teens had been shot; perhaps in the water, where the elements might have helped wash away evidence. To make matters worse, it had rained twice since the teens were last seen, and the tide of the river had changed, so any existing footprints or evidence left near the river had disappeared.

The caliber of the firearm used to shoot David and Robin would never be released to the press, with it being announced that no shell casings had been found in the area near the bodies. This indicated the possibility of the weapon being a revolver - which wouldn't leave behind shell casings - although that's just a guess on my part. Additionally, the bullets had gone through the victims' bodies, leaving behind no direct proof of their size, so investigators were left guessing.

While dozens of .22-caliber cartridges would be found in the woods, it was unknown if any of them could be linked to the murders. Since Ragged Island was a wildlife refuge, they simply could have been left behind by hunters.

Another facet of the case that investigators struggled with was trying to establish a timeline for the crime. They theorized that David had picked up Robin at around 12:30 AM on Sunday, September 20th, but would establish a roughly five-hour window for this crime to have happened - theorizing that it happened sometime between 12:30 and 5:30 AM that Sunday (Sept. 20th).

Investigators believe that David and Robin had gone out to this region along the James River Bridge (due to David's familiarity with it), and were surprised while inside of David's truck by the killer, armed with a firearm. From here, investigators speculate that the pair were forced out of the truck - in a state of undress - and then forced to walk about a mile towards the river. There, Robin might have been shot first, causing David to attempt to flee, resulting in the gunshot to his shoulder. Briefly incapacitated, David was then shot in the back of the head, and both bodies were dragged several hundred feet to the river - where they would be found days later, caught up in bushes and shrubs along the river.

Unlike the first crime, the female victim (Robin) was missing her wallet, along with whatever money she had had on her at the time. It was undetermined whether or not this was intentional, with the wallet potentially being washed away by the current of the river. But for this reason, investigators were unable to eliminate robbery as a motive.

Despite rumors early on - that David and Robin had fallen prey to a "drug deal gone wrong" - investigators were quick to dismiss such baseless rumors, not finding any basis in fact for them. Rumors of a "drug deal gone south" tend to plague a lot of true crime stories, with the drug trade being a boogeyman that's perpetually linked to unsolved cases, but neither Robin nor David had any link to drug dealers or had any known involvement in drug usage. And while the idea of a shadowy cabal conducting drug deals in the dead of night along a moonlit lover's lane - killing anyone that they encounter - may seem intriguing, it's not something that generally happens in real life.

However, what did raise a few eyebrows early on was the fact that 20-year-old David Knobling had been the recipient of death threats in the days before his death, with the threats coming from a family out on the Virginia Peninsula (close to where this crime took place). However, after police interviewed the family involved - described as a woman and her sons - police would clear this lead, believing there was nothing to it. Newport News Sheriff B.F. Dixon would tell reporters with the Daily Press:

"There's not a whole lot to it. We talked to a lady and her sons about it. She didn't hate him, she said, but it wasn't any love affair either... It doesn't appear to us the family was involved."

By the end of 1987, police had established a task force to investigate this double-murder, which was comprised of state, county, and city officials. Together, they worked to chase down leads and publicize the $5,000 reward that had been offered up for any available information but were still no closer to solving the case. As admitted by Sheriff Dixon, police had two suspects that they had yet to clear, but who had nothing but sketchy, circumstantial evidence pointing in their direction.

This was the first double-murder in the county in at least a decade, if not longer, and because of this, the story would receive a lot of media attention at the time. Some were even quick to link the case to the still-unsolved double-murder of Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski, which seemed to bear some notable similarities and had unfolded less than 20 miles away.

In the weeks to come, investigators were unable to make any real inroads in this case, due to some major details in the case remaining blank. Police had been unable to determine the location that David and Robin had been killed at, believing that they might have been killed elsewhere - perhaps even another city or county - and then dumped into the James River near the Ragged Island Refuge to confuse investigators.

These questions would continue to linger several months later when a similar story began to unfold not-too-far away...

On April 9th, 1988, two students at Christopher Newport University (then known as Christopher Newport College) went on their first date together.

Cassandra Hailey, nicknamed "Sandra" (or "Sandy" by her friends), was an 18-year-old from Grafton, Virginia. Richard Call, who usually went by his middle name Keith (to avoid confusion with his father of the same name), was a 20-year-old from Gloucester. While Keith had just recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend and wasn't necessarily looking for a new love connection, he couldn't say no to a date with Sandy.

April 9th was a cold spring evening, with temperatures hovering between the mid-40s and low-50s. That night, Keith picked up Sandy at her parent's home and promised to have her back by 2:00 AM. The two were going to be heading to the movies, he said, although it was discovered later on that this wasn't happening. It's unknown whose idea this was, but the two instead decided to head to a party being held at the Warwick Boulevard apartments in the University Square neighborhood of Newport News.

At the party, dozens of other kids their age mingled, but - to bystanders, at least - it didn't seem like Keith and Sandy were really hitting it off. Keith seemed to spend most of his time at the party talking to his friends, while Sandy moved around, chatting with friends of her own and some other boys. What I'm trying to say is that this didn't seem like a spark-filled love connection, to say the least, and it became obvious to some of those at the party that neither Keith nor Sandy was head-over-heels with the other.

While neither of the two would be seen leaving the party, they would last be seen at around 1:30 AM on the morning of April 10th. Because Sandy's curfew was at 2:00 AM - and her unofficial curfew was at 2:30 (which she never exceeded without calling beforehand) - it was believed that the two began driving home at around this point. However, neither would return home that night, and Sandy was reported missing by her parents later that morning.

Several hours after Keith Call and Sandy Hailey were last seen by classmates at the party, Keith's red 1982 Toyota Celica was found. The car, which he had received as a gift from his parents following his high school graduation, was found abandoned at the York River Overlook along the Colonial Parkway, just west of the Naval Weapons Station, about 3 miles west of Yorktown (and about 2 miles east of the first crime scene from 1986).

Keith's father, Richard Call, was actually the first known person to discover the vehicle while heading to the brewery in town that he worked at. At around 7:15 AM, Richard saw the red Toyota Celica parked along the Colonial Parkway and decided to pull over to give it a look. Because he knew it was Keith's, he looked inside the empty car and said that nothing seemed amiss. He noticed a couple of items inside of the car - such as Keith's wristwatch, Sandy's purse, and a couple of empty beer cans - but didn't think that anything was out-of-the-ordinary. He knew that Keith had gone out on a date the night prior, and - him being an adult - his business was his business. Richard believed that Keith and his date had gone out on a walk to chew up some of the picturesque scenery, and he decided to continue onto work, already running a bit behind that morning.

However, it later became clear that the vehicle had been abandoned. A Park Ranger came upon the vehicle about two hours later, discovering the driver's side door to the Toyota Celica ajar, and the glove box opened inside. Tucked near the gas and brake pedals were a pair of men's shoes (which were later determined to be Keith's), and inside, a wide variety of items were scattered throughout; this included Sandy's purse, Keith's watch, a pair of glasses, car keys, Keith's wallet, another wallet containing $12, at least one Busch beer can, and several items of clothing folded up neatly on the backseat (which included all of Keith's clothing and Sandy's undergarments, as well as at least one of her shoes). Missing from the scene, however, were Cassandra's wallet, money, and jewelry (none of which would ever be recovered).

Richard Call, Keith's father, says that only a few of those items had been inside of the car when he saw the vehicle earlier that morning. It was believed that they had been put inside of the car sometime between the two sightings of the vehicle that morning (7:15 and 9:00 AM) by someone who knew what had happened to Keith and Sandy... who were nowhere to be found.

Because Keith Call's Toyota Celica had been abandoned along the Colonial Parkway, this case was handled by the FBI, who impounded the vehicle to figure out what had happened to Keith and Sandy Hailey.

Multiple fingerprints were recovered from the vehicle, and investigators would note that the driver's seat was moved forward much more than usual. Because Keith was just under six feet tall, it was theorized that whoever had moved the seat - or had last driven the car - might have been much shorter, about 5'4" or thereabouts. Another clue that investigators got from the vehicle was mud on all four tires, which indicated that it had been driven somewhere else with wet conditions - not just in the area that it had been found.

Federal investigators initially feared that foul-play was involved in this bizarre disappearance, citing the case as a "mysterious disappearance and possible abduction."

In the days after the vehicle was found, searches were conducted along the Colonial Parkway, which included the use of tracking dogs, who were able to track the scent of both Keith and Sandy over a prolonged distance, using their clothing found in the Toyota Celica as a starting point. Sandy's scent went a mile west from the crime scene, towards Indian Field Creek, along the side of a bridge; Keith's scent also went west along the Parkway, and then circled back to the bottom of a 25-foot slope near the shoreline, close to where his vehicle had been abandoned, which was covered in vines. Several dogs tracked the same route independently, but still, no trace of the missing would be found.

Because high tide had come in at 4:15 on the Sunday morning that the two disappeared, it was believed that whatever had happened to them happened before then, giving investigators a roughly two-hour window to fill (with Sandy and Keith reportedly leaving the party in Newport News at around 1:30 AM).

A continued search of the region would cover more than three miles of shoreline - both east and west of where the vehicle had been found - but was unable to find anything definitive pointing to the whereabouts of the missing 18 and 20-year-old. Aerial searches conducted via helicopter were similarly unsuccessful in finding anything of-note.

Since neither Keith nor Sandy had been known to use the Colonial Parkway in the past, it was believed that the vehicle had been left there by the person responsible for their disappearance. Both of the two missing youngsters were described as cautious, who wouldn't drive out to an isolated roadway like that in the middle of a cold night at the beginning of Spring. Especially not Keith, who had seemed leery of the area in the past (and expressed his hesitance to travel places without streetlights or people nearby). Investigators would echo this doubt weeks later, when FBI Special Agent Joe Wolfinger told the press that the vehicle had possibly been abandoned there specifically, along the Parkway, to confuse investigators... perhaps distracting them from the real crime scene, where Keith and Sandy might have met foul-play.

Unlike the other stories, in this case, the bodies of Cassandra Hailey and Richard Keith Call would never be found.

Park Rangers believed that the couple had gone skinny dipping that night, and had potentially been carried away by the current. Maybe, perhaps, they had gotten into some other kind of trouble, but there was no evidence indicating what that might have been, so there was no real reason to investigate further.

The loved ones of both victims would push back against these theories - that the two, being youngsters that were drinking beer and had just come from a party, had gotten into some kind of unknown trouble. Keith and Sandy's families would push back against the skinny-dipping hypothesis in particular because the temperature had been quite low that night, just about 10 - 15 degrees above freezing. The temperature of the water was even colder, below freezing, and it was unlikely that either Keith or Sandy would have gotten into the water willingly.

Joanne Hailey, Sandy's mother, would tell reporters about this proposed theory:

"They didn't go up there to go swimming; they didn't go up there to get in trouble. They're smarter than to get into the water on a night that cold."

Loved ones of the two missing youngsters would also malign the Park Rangers for their early handling of the case, having been the ones to discover Keith's Toyota Celica that morning and label it an abandoned vehicle. Rangers had taken several of the items from inside of the vehicle in an attempt to identify the driver - potentially contaminating the crime scene in the process - and it was believed they might have actually discovered the vehicle earlier than they had claimed.

If you recall, Keith's father Richard Call had discovered the Toyota Celica at around 7:15 AM on April 10th and claimed to have only seen a few items inside of the car. Hours later, Park Rangers would claim to discover the car with several other items strewn about, but it was theorized by some that this was due to them reporting an incorrect time; believing that Park Rangers had taken these items in an attempt to identify the driver of the car, and then returned them sometime later before police arrived at the scene.

Regardless, by the time that the FBI had a chance to review the case, it had already gone cold, and evidence from inside of the car had been mishandled by authorities. Keith's Toyota was covered in fingerprints - which made identifying the responsible parties a near-impossibility - and it was ultimately theorized that Keith and Sandy had gone out to this spot along the Colonial Parkway, where they were accosted by someone with a gun that lured them to a second location (where they would mysterious vanish). This theory didn't factor in the unlikely nature of Keith and Sandy being on a bad date but still heading out to a quiet lover's lane together - in an area that neither was too keen on - but it was still more likely than the skinny-dipping theory that Park Rangers had earlier proposed.

With the FBI's theory came an added detail that was initially glossed over, but would become more pertinent as time went on: the idea that the person responsible for their disappearance might have been posing as law enforcement. That's a theory I'll expand upon later in the episode; but, for now, it remained just a footnote in this story.

Searches for Sandy and Keith were officially called off at the end of May 1988, and while the bodies of the two would never be found, their cases were almost immediately linked to the ongoing crime spree, which had been attributed to a still-unknown individual that was potentially targeting young couples in the Virginia Peninsula. That same month (May), the FBI would announce a $10,000 reward for information in the first double-murder, that of Cathleen Thomas and Rebecca Dowski from 1986, citing imminent danger to the public. While investigators wouldn't officially state that the rationale for this reward was linked to the recent disappearance of Cassandra Hailey and Keith Call, Irvin B. Wells, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Norfolk would tell the press that:

"... the possibility exists that people in the community there remain in danger..."

Ron Little was a man from New Zealand, who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1985 and began working as a private investigator in Virginia. There, he operated a private firm named Liberty Security, which coincidentally, had links to at least one victim of this still-unnamed offender (Robin Edwards, whose mother worked for Little at the security firm).

At the time, Ron Little seemed to have established a nice life for himself in Virginia, having married a woman that he later had a child with and owning his own business. But then, for some unexplainable reason, Little decided to insert himself into the middle of this unfolding story, writing a series of rambling letters to numerous media outlets and local politicians - newspapers, news stations, and state senators alike - claiming that he was being harassed by the FBI over several unsolved murders. This included the six victims from this crime spree, as well as at least two others: Brian Pettinger and Laurie Powell, whose bodies were found in the James River in February and April of 1988, respectively. Unlike the ongoing case from the Colonial Parkway, these two victims had a personal connection to Little - having worked with him at his security firm - but Little wasn't an active suspect in either case.

Surprisingly, the FBI was not investigating Little for any of these murders; at least, not actively. After raising a stink in the press about his alleged mistreatment at the hands of the FBI, Special Agent Jim Watters would be forced to address the matter in a statement given to the Daily Press:

"I don't even want to justify that man's accusation with a statement... The FBI has interrogated hundreds of people in connection with these cases. The only one pointing a finger at Little is Little himself - and he seems to be doing it in a big way."

What would be determined is that Ron Little was in the middle of an investigation, but it had nothing to do with murder; rather, he was being investigated for filing false statements to buy firearms in the US, and falsely registering with INS on his visa paperwork. It turns out that Little had concealed numerous convictions back home in New Zealand, which included convictions for burglary, grand theft auto, and possession of illegal substances - all of which would have deterred him from entering the United States, to begin with, let alone obtain a firearm or citizenship.

Despite his connections to several of these murder victims, Ron Little was deported back to New Zealand in August of 1989, and his status as a suspect was addressed by William Bittner, the INS officer in charge of southeast Virginia, who told the press:

"If the guy was a suspect in any federal investigation, I don't care if it was drug smuggling or murder or what, someone would have filed an order to detain him in this country, not deport him. We never received such a request from any agency to detain him."

It's unknown why Ron Little decided to insert himself into the story the way that he did. Maybe his letters were a desperate attempt by him to stay in the United States - by turning himself into a sympathetic figure in the press - or, perhaps, they were simply the ramblings of a mentally ill person. But it would become clear months later that he was not a valid suspect in this story. That is when the Colonial Parkway crimes continued, with perhaps the most baffling case yet...

Daniel Lauer was a 21-year-old that lived in Virginia's Amelia County but had gone out to visit his brother in Virginia Beach over 1989's Labor Day weekend. Clinton Lauer, Daniel's brother, lived in Virginia Beach with his fiance, 18-year-old Annamaria Phelps (who often went by a shortened version of her first name, "Anna"). Anna was known in her family as the peacemaker, the one that kept everyone calm and collected with her positive and nurturing attitude. Jewel Phelps, Anna's mother, said that:

"She was like a mother to everybody, a big sister to everybody."

Over Labor Day weekend, Daniel drove out to visit his brother along with some friends of his, who brought along their infant daughter. While out there, Daniel spoke to his brother and decided to shake things up with his life. Clinton and Anna (Daniel's brother and brother's girlfriend) had invited him to come out and live with them for the time being, and Daniel - craving something new in his life - decided to accept their offer. Daniel would move in the following week after he was able to fetch some items from his family's home in Amelia County.

The following Monday - September 4th, 1989 - Daniel made the two-plus hour drive back to his parent's home, having been joined by his friends - who were returning home - as well as his brother's girlfriend. Anna seized upon the opportunity to visit with her own family out there, however briefly, and was going to be headed back to Virginia Beach with Daniel later that evening.

Daniel and Anna were last seen at around 11:15 PM, leaving the Lauer family's home in Daniel's gold 1972 Chevy Nova. They were going to make most of the trip along I-64, heading eastbound for Virginia Beach. But as hours began to pass, it became clear that something had happened to the two, with Clinton - Daniel's brother and Anna's fiance - growing concerned in the early morning hours as he awaited their return.

Early that morning, Clinton would actually set out along I-64 with a coworker of his, looking to see if the pair had broken down alongside the road. After some time, however, Clinton and his friend - running low on gas and money - had to return home. They were concerned that they would break down themselves while searching, or potentially miss Daniel and Anna returning home. However, they had no idea how close they had come to discovering Daniel's vehicle, which had been parked along the interstate... just a few miles away from where they had been at the time.

The following day - September 5th - Daniel's Chevy Nova was found abandoned by state transportation officials at the I-65 New Kent rest stop; which, surprisingly, was facing the opposite direction of where Daniel and Anna had been headed (west). This was right off of the Route 155 exit, which was the first exit east of the Route 106 exit, showing that whoever had parked the car here was familiar with the local roads.

Daniel's Chevy Nova had been parked near an area designated for large trucks, having been left along the side of the ramp, near a "no parking" sign. The car had been parked curiously - half on the shoulder and halfway on the road - as if the driver had been in the process of pulling off the ramp and decided to call it good as-is.

A Virginia State Trooper came out to inspect the vehicle and was about to have it towed, but stopped when he heard a missing persons call come over the radio: two youngsters that had last been seen inside of a gold Chevy Nova. Upon inspecting the vehicle more closely, the trooper found that both the passenger and driver's side doors were unlocked, and the keys to the vehicle had been left in the ignition. A roach clip with a feather had been left dangling from the rearview mirror, which was later confirmed to be Anna's.

An inspection of the vehicle would later prove that it was fine: nothing was broken or otherwise wrong with it, and the gas tank was still 3/4 of the way full, so it was clear that it had not broken down. However, that left the question of why it had been abandoned that much more intriguing, especially since almost all of the items that Daniel Lauer had retrieved from his family's home the evening prior were still there, barring a few items that weren't worth anything of value.

Surprisingly, the vehicle looked like it had been driven in the woods, due to a large accumulation of dirt and grass stains, as well as weeds that had accumulated in the car's undercarriage. This surprised the loved ones of the missing youngsters, who had no reason to believe that they would have been driving anywhere other than I-64. That information - paired with the fact that the vehicle was found at a rest stop on the westbound side of the interstate - led loved ones to believe that someone other than Daniel might have driven the vehicle to this location and left it there.

A massive search would ensue for the missing man and woman, who had last been seen at around 11:00 PM the night prior. Because of the location that the vehicle had been found - along the interstate - the search and subsequent investigation was headed by the Virginia State Police, who utilized tracking dogs and helicopters over the next several days. However, no sign of Daniel or Annamaria would be found.

Over the next several weeks, sightings of the pair would be reported throughout the area, including one sighting in particular reported by a truck driver who claimed to have seen them in the eastbound rest area the night that they went missing, just after midnight. This would fit in with the timeline established by investigators but didn't explain how the vehicle they were in ended up on the westbound side hours later. Another potential witness claimed to have seen them at the westbound rest stop during the daytime hours of September 5th - the day after they went missing - but this didn't seem to fit in with the timeline. There was no way to prove any of these sightings, so they would remain rumors over the next month or so... while Daniel and Anna remained missing.

On October 19th, 1989 - roughly six weeks after Annamaria Phelps and Daniel Lauer had gone missing - their bodies were discovered on a logging road near I-65 and Route 155, located between Williamsburg and Richmond. This was about 30 miles away from the I-64 ramp to the Colonial Parkway, and about 2 miles away from the rest stop where Daniel's vehicle had been abandoned. The logging road was connected to Courthouse Road, which was the first exit from I-64, where the vehicle was abandoned; indicating that the killer was familiar with the New Kent area.

At around 8:00 that morning, a couple of deer hunters discovered a blanket in the woods, which was later learned to be an electric blanket that belonged to Daniel (and had been missing from the packed possessions found in his car). Upon moving the blanket, these two hunters discovered the bodies of the two young adults, who police had been searching for for the better part of two months.

Because so much time had elapsed since their death, the bodies had heavily decomposed (investigators noted they were nearly skeletonized at the time of discovery), which made identifying a cause of death virtually impossible. To make matters even more complicated, the two bodies had been picked at by scavenging animals in the interim weeks.

At least one body appeared to have knife wounds - Annamaria had a significant cut on her finger that hadn't healed, indicating it had happened shortly before her murder - but medical examiners could not rule out the possibility of gunshots. However, it was determined that if either had been shot, the bullet had not gone through bone, because neither of their bodies showed evident signs of gunshot trauma.

Both sets of remains would be ID'd through medical and dental records, with Anna's identification coming first. Her dental records were stored locally, so ID'ing her was a relatively easy process. For Daniel, not so much. Investigators had to send for Daniel's dental records from New York State, which ultimately delayed the process of identifying the second (male) body by several weeks. In the end, though, both bodies were positively identified as Daniel Lauer and Annamaria Phelps.

Because their bodies were so decomposed at the time of discovery, the medical examiner's office was unable to identify an official cause of death. As a result, both bodies would be handed over to physical anthropologists at the Smithsonian Institution, with the hope that they would be able to determine how the victims had met their tragic end by examining their skeletons through X-ray scans and microscopic examinations. This collaboration was able to determine that Annamaria's death had come as a result of cuts or stab wounds to her abdomen, but that would not be conclusively proven. All that was definitively proven was the estimated time of death for the two: the week of September 4th, when they had last been seen alive. Their deaths were listed as homicides, and Daniel was believed to have died of similar means as Anna.

Several pieces of evidence related to this crime would never be recovered, which included the wallet of Annamaria Phelps. This seemed to match the pattern of female victims in this case having their wallets and ID cards stolen. When investigators found the two bodies, it was noted that Anna was wearing Daniel's sock and shoes, and a couple of her personal documents had been found near the bodies, which included both her Social Security card and her miniature birth certificate (both of which had likely been taken from her wallet). The reasoning for this remains unexplained.

In addition to Anna's missing wallet, it was also learned that Daniel had been given several hundred dollars by his father on the night he was last seen (September 4th, 1989). This money was not found on Daniel or in the vehicle, presumably stolen by the killer. Because this money has never been recovered - as well as the contents of Anna's wallet - it was hard for police to eliminate robbery as a motive, and made the investigation that much more difficult to process.

In 1989, these four cases would be covered on a couple of national TV programs, including "Unsolved Mysteries", which linked them together as potentially being the work of a single killer. While police officials had discussed potential links between these crimes in the past, they would begin to approach the idea more publicly following these broadcasts. Irvin B. Wells, the special agent in charge of the Norfolk, was asked a question about these four crimes as well as a litany of others with similarities, and while he refrained from using the phrase 'serial killer' in relation to these cases, he did say:

"While we cannot say they are [linked], we cannot dismiss the possibility that four of these cases are connected."

In each of the Parkway murders (as they had been dubbed by the press at the time), the victims had been a couple. In all but one case, the couples were a man and a woman. The exception lay in the first known crime, the murders of Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski, who were a lesbian couple. I t was believed that the killer might have mistaken Rebecca's short hair from afar, and that might have led to the overwhelming violence they received (as a result of the killer's incompetence).

In two cases, the victims' bodies were recovered a short distance away from where their vehicles had been abandoned. The only exceptions were the first murder (Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski, who were found inside of their vehicle) as well as the third crime (Cassandra Hailey and Keith Call, whose bodies were never found).

The locations of these four crimes seemed to happen incredibly close together, within a span of twenty miles or so. The crime scenes discovered by police in the 1st and 3rd crimes (the Thomas-Dowski murder and the Call-Hailey disappearance) were less than a mile apart, and the victims' bodies from the 2nd crime (David Knobling and Robin Edwards) were found less than five miles away from where the victims of the 4th crime (Daniel Lauer and Annamaria Phelps) had been found.

In all but one case, it was believed that the victims had been led away from their vehicles at gunpoint; or, at the very least, encouraged to do so by someone they deemed an authority figure (a theory I'll get to in just a minute). In at least 2/4 murders, the crimes had taken place on a holiday weekend (Columbus Day 1986 and Labor Day 1989), and 3/4 cases happened in either September or October (a time of year that might have held some significance to the killer).

Six out of the eight victims were between the ages of 18 and 21, with the only exceptions being 27-year-old Cathy Thomas (who looked young enough in appearance to be confused for someone in her early twenties) and 14-year-old Robin Edwards (who was out with an older boy that night, and - according to friends and family - appeared and acted older than she was). This indicates that the killer had a type: pairings of young individuals of college age, who might have been alone in isolated settings at the time of their deaths.

Despite these apparent similarities between the four cases, some notable differences made investigators question whether they were a part of the same spree. For starters, these four crimes seemed to lack the signature of a single killer, such as the cause of death. In one case, the victims had been shot to death; in another, the victims were strangled and then had their necks cut (in a gross act of overkill). Two of the victims' bodies were never recovered, and another two had decomposed to the point that their cause of death remains undetermined today (even though they were likely stabbed, but other means cannot be eliminated).

This would indicate different attackers at each crime scene, but it is speculated that this might have been a clever ruse by the killer(s) to try and confuse investigators; using a different M.O. in each crime to keep investigators second-guessing themselves. This also leads to the possibility that there was more than one killer (but that's another theory I'll expand upon in a little bit).

Because investigators had never been able to locate the scene where any of these eight victims had been killed, it was believed that the killer had utilized similar tactics in each crime; choosing to kill them in one location, and then abandoning their vehicles and bodies in another. In doing so, the killer(s) had scattered the bodies throughout the area, and the locations they chose were generally close to the Colonial Parkway (giving this case the nickname it has now).

Despite these differences, detailed analysis from state police and the FBI would reveal that it was almost a statistical-impossibility for these four crimes, committed over a roughly three-year timespan, to not be linked. Larry McCann, a behavioral science specialist with the Virginia State Police, told reporters during a press conference:

"Some numbers were crunched a while back, and it's highly unlikely this is four different guys. Just the geography of it."

Years later, the senior supervisory FBI agent, in this case, Ted Roese, would address this theory that the crimes were all committed by the same person or persons:

"That's one of our theories, yes. But it's just a theory."

Because of some similarities found in all four cases, it was believed that the person responsible for the murders and disappearances could be law enforcement; or, at least, someone pretending to be law enforcement, who likely admired the power that kind of authority had.

In each of the Colonial Parkway cases, each of the victims' driver-side windows had been partially pulled down - something that you'd expect from people that had been pulled over by police and had to interact with a cop late at night. In addition to this, almost all of the victims had their wallets removed from their pockets or purses, indicating that they had taken them out to show to a police officer.

This would also explain why the victims had gotten out of their vehicles and gone along with their eventual killer willingly; if they believed this person to be a law enforcement agent, they would have felt compelled to comply with their demands, regardless of how bizarre or obscure their demands were. After all, this was in the late 1980s - before the age of cell phone technology - and it's believed that all of these victims had been out in isolated areas, removed from bystanders or potential witnesses. After leaving their car, they might have been instructed at gunpoint to head to secondary locations, where their murders were eventually carried out.

Because at least two of these crimes had been recorded on federal property, it was believed that the culprit could be linked to the National Park Service or FBI, someone who held authority over the Colonial Parkway. However, it was just as likely that the culprit was involved with the Virginia State Police, who oversaw the other two investigations. A theory has even cropped up over the last several years that the culprit might have been in the CIA, due to there being a CIA installation just a few miles away from where most of these crimes occurred, but that's just another theory that's become prominent in certain corners of the internet.

Another theory that has lingered over the last few decades (but hasn't received as much attention as the law enforcement angle) is the possibility that the killer, in this case, was actually a group of killers; at least two or more individuals that perpetrated this spree together, acting in-tandem to terrorize their victims before killing them.

This theory had been floated very early on when investigators struggled to determine how the first two victims, Cathleen Thomas and Rebecca Dowski, had been killed without any sign of a struggle at the crime scene. This would remain a consistent question throughout the investigation, with the law enforcement theory explaining it in part, but not fully.

Larry McCann, a behavioral science specialist with the Virginia State Police, believed that more than one person had been involved in these crimes because of the psychological profile he developed over time. As reported by the Daily Press, he would publicly state:

"I don't think one person could have controlled the victims. I think there needed to be two. These were not easy targets. These were young, healthy, strong individuals. It would have been too much for one person to handle."

McCann would mention the possibility of a second killer - or at least, an accomplice - in a 1990 press conference, where he alluded to police narrowing in on this second individual, who he believed knew vital information about the crimes. Later, he would reveal that this was a bluff intended to get the second person to talk, but he believed that this individual had since passed away; which, he explained, is why the killings had come to an end.

"The situation has changed dramatically. Without the second person, the killer would be in danger of losing control of the situation. And I think it would be difficult to recruit another follower."

Over the next several years, investigators would continue to follow up on any available leads, interviewing hundreds of persons-of-interest and dozens of potential suspects, but were unable to make any sustained progress in the four unsolved cases. However, they were able to find a few cases that bore many significant similarities to the Colonial Parkway Murders, which - likewise - remain unsolved today.

The first case that was tentatively linked to the Parkway crimes was the murder of Mike Margaret and Donna Hall from August of 1984. This was a crime that predated the murders of Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski by two years, and took place in Richmond, but bore many similarities. Margaret and Hall were last seen at 11:45 PM on August 17th of that year, heading out camping for the weekend but not returning when they said they would (that Sunday). This led to the filing of missing person reports by their family, who began to grow concerned.

Days later - on August 21st, 1984 - the Jeep that the two had gone camping in was discovered near Kings Crossing Apartments off of Gaskins Road, backed into an outlet of a rural trail. The person that discovered the Jeep - a retired dentist that was taking his dog for a walk - noticed that the vehicle was half-hidden in foliage, with both of its doors wide open. Upon further inspection, he discovered that the keys were in the ignition and there was dried blood on the passenger seat. As he walked around the Jeep, he discovered the bodies of the murdered couple about twenty feet away from the vehicle, victims of an apparent double-homicide.

The bodies of Mike Margaret and Donna Hall were found underneath a checkered red-and-blue blanket, and the body of Donna was missing shoes. Other than the bodies themselves, there was no apparent sign of violence or foul-play, and other than some abandoned cigarette butts and an empty bottle of beer, nothing appeared to have been disturbed. An autopsy would reveal that Margaret and Hall had been drugged with Demerol, and their throats had been slit sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 AM on August 18th, 1984.

The blood of a third unknown individual was recovered from the crime scene, which was later revealed to be Type A blood (and did not match either of the two victims). This blood had been scattered all over the crime scene as-if the culprit had been looking for something after injuring themselves, but the case would grow cold almost as soon as it began, with justice never being found for either Mike Margaret or Donna Hall.

The second "case" that became loosely linked to the Colonial Parkway Murders were actually two separate murders, which were themselves loosely linked together through happenstance.

The first of these two murders was that of Brian Pettinger, a former-soldier that lived in Newport News with his wife of nearly three years. Having been employed as a security officer in the past, Pettinger had been employed by New Zealand native Ron Little (who had cast suspicion upon himself in 1989, resulting in his deportation to New Zealand).

Pettinger was last seen on the evening of December 4th, 1987 at a dance club in Hampton, where he was training to be a dance instructor. Some of his fellow dancers were throwing a party, but Brian would only stay at the party for half-an-hour or so, before returning to his truck that he had parked nearby. It's believed that in the brief distance it took Brian to reach his vehicle, he encountered trouble, and he was reported missing that evening by his wife. Just two days later - on December 6th - Brian's truck was discovered in the parking lot of Newmarket North Mall, but his case would go cold until the following February.

On February 1st, 1988, the body of Brian Pettinger would be discovered by a couple of fishermen floating in the Chuckatuck River, an outlet of the James River, where it was believed that Brian's body had been dumped. At the time of his discovery, Brian was found wearing only a dress shirt and socks, but it would be determined that he had been bound at his ankles, wrists, and neck with rope before his death. While he was believed to have drowned to death, a wound to the back of his head revealed that he had endured some kind of blunt force trauma beforehand.

The second of these two murders was that of Laurie Powell, a young woman that lived in Gloucester and had similarly worked for Ron Little for a brief period. But at the time of her murder, Powell was working for her mother at a video store at the Edgehill Shopping Centre and was last seen by her boyfriend on the evening of March 8th, 1988.

At the time of her last sighting, Laurie Powell had been in a heated argument with her boyfriend while driving and had decided to get out and walk home. About 45 minutes later, Laurie's boyfriend returned to the scene, but she was gone. She would not be seen for several days afterward and was eventually reported missing by her stepfather.

On April 2nd, 1988 - just about two months after Brian Pettinger's body was found - Laurie's body would be found in the James River. This also happened to be the same river that the bodies of David Knobling and Robin Edwards had been found the prior September, and wasn't too far away from the exact location (nearby the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge). While her autopsy would be unable to determine the approximate date and time of her death, she had been found nude in the river, with numerous stab wounds to her back.

Laurie's boyfriend would remain the most likely suspect in her death, due to him having been violent with her in the past and being the last person to see her alive. But because of the overall lack of evidence, Laurie's case remains unsolved, and - just like Brian Pettinger's - has been tentatively linked to the Parkway murders in the years since, due to the geographical similarities and uncertain details.

One internet commenter proposed an interesting theory: that the killer might have targeted these two, a man and a woman, and considered them a "complete set" (as in, an imaginative couple), and for some reason, I find that theory more likely than I'd typically feel comfortable with. Because of their proximity to one another - not only in location but estimated time of death - as well as other similarities to the Parkway murders, many think these crimes may be linked to the same spree.

The third case that became tied to the Colonial Parkway Murders was a case from the Shenandoah National Forest, which bore a lot of similarities to the first Parkway murder (that of Cathleen Thomas and Rebecca Dowski).

In this case, the victims were two women - Lollie Winans and Julianna Williams - who were a lesbian couple that went camping in May of 1996 (a decade after the first Parkway murder and nearly seven years after the final known crime). Their camping trip began on May 19th, and the couple went out into the Shenandoah National Park with their dog, a golden retriever named Taj. The couple was last seen alive by a camp ranger on May 24th when they went to renew their camping permits and were dropped off at the Stony Man parking lot at 5:30 PM. Despite the couple being expected back later that month - with Julie expected to return to work the following week, and Lollie attending a friend's wedding on June 1st - they would not make it home.

On June 1st, 1996, the bodies of both women were found near the Skyline Lodge, with their wrists bound and their throats slit (left-to-right, as had been the case in the first Parkway murder). One of the women was found inside of their tent - naked, gagged, with her wrists and ankles bound - while the other was found ten to fifteen yards away - also naked, similarly bound at her wrists, and her mouth covered in duct tape (which contained hairs from an unknown individual). The second victim was found inside of a sleeping bag, which had seemingly been thrown towards a creek at the bottom of the hill (but, just like the murder of Cathleen Thomas and Rebecca Dowski, had failed to meet the mark).

Neither of the women appeared to have been sexually assaulted or robbed, and this vicious murder appeared to be violence for the sake of violence. Investigators pegged the women's date of death as either May 28th to May 29th, and investigated their crime as a hate crime based on their sexual orientation, barring any new information.

For those of you that are dog lovers, fret not: their golden retriever, Taj, was eventually found wandering unharmed near the crime scene.

In the aftermath of the crime, investigators were left grasping at straws, but a suspect would emerge the following year (1997). That is when a man named Darrell Rice was arrested after attempting to violently abduct a woman, before trying to run her over with his truck when he was unsuccessful in that attempt. The woman managed to raise the alarm with local authorities, and Rice was obtained by park rangers a short time later. By the time he was in their custody, he had changed not only his clothing but the license plates on his truck and was found to be carrying both leg and hand restraints inside of his car.

In addition to being an all-around unpleasant person, Darrell Rice had a history of harassing and exhibiting potentially-abusive behavior towards female coworkers and other acquaintances, which had resulted in his termination from his job earlier that year. At the time of his arrest, Rice had been 29 years old, and only had two short-lived relationships under his belt; investigators would discover that he had become obsessed with violent pornography in the years leading up to this violent encounter and harbored an obsessive hatred of women in general.

Investigators would also discover that Darrell Rice had been in the Shenandoah National Park the weekend of the Lollie Winans and Julianna Williams murder, having left on May 26th and returning a few days later. While this didn't fit in with the timeline established by authorities (who had pegged the women's deaths as happening on May 28th - 29th), this seemed like too much of a coincidence for investigators. Investigators had long believed the culprit of this double-murder to have trouble expressing himself and harboring resentment towards the women's sexuality, and Rice made a perfect candidate for both attributes.

Rice was charged with the Winans-Williams murders in 2002 while serving out his sentence for the violent assault and abduction attempt from 1997. However, despite all of the circumstantial evidence seeming to fit Darrell Rice like a glove, it would come out during the trial that none of the physical evidence matched. The hairs found on the duct tape at the scene didn't match Rice and seemed to eliminate him as a suspect entirely. For that reason, the charges against him were dismissed in 2004 without prejudice (meaning that he could get charged again in the future, but that has not come to pass).

In 2002, the FBI would publicly state that Darrell Rice was not a suspect in the Colonial Parkway murders, but the murders of Lollie Winans and Julianna Williams remain unsolved to this day.

The fourth (and final) high profile case that has been linked to the Colonial Parkway Murders over the years is the case of the Route 29 Stalker: a criminal that was active throughout northern Virginia and Maryland in 1996 (the same year that Lollie Winans and Julianna Williams were murdered).

The criminal nicknamed the Route 29 Stalker is believed to have been responsible for the murder of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a young woman that went missing in March of 1996 while driving from Baltimore, Maryland to Charlottesville, Virginia to spend the day shopping with her mother. Alicia's vehicle was found abandoned along the highway near Culpeper, along Virginia's Route 29, with a napkin on the windshield (which indicated car trouble).

As police began their search for the missing young woman, they would discover that multiple eyewitnesses had seen Alicia pull over along the side of the road, and speak to a middle-aged man in a blue pickup truck (who, it was theorized, had beckoned her to pull over). Over the next several weeks, close to two dozen women would come forward with reports of similar encounters with a strange man matching that description. According to these women, this man had flashed his headlights at the women to get their attention, and then - once they were pulled over - offered to help fix some mechanical issues he had witnessed while driving behind them. Almost all of these women had refused the man's offer, but it was believed that Alicia might have followed the man's advice (if only to be kind to him).

The witnesses who had encountered this man in the past described him as a middle-aged man (35 - 45 years old), who stood at an average height (just below 6' tall), with a medium build and red-brown hair (that he constantly waved back with his left hand). According to these women, this man used the name Larry Breeden, but this was just believed to be an alias.

Nearly two months after her disappearance, the body of Alicia Showalter Reynolds would be found in the woods, approximately fifteen miles away from where her vehicle had been abandoned. Police have never released specific details about her death, citing its unsolved nature and the integrity of their case.

While the case went cold, police investigated several men in the case; including Darrell Rice, the Maryland native that had been tied to the Winans-Williams murder. Not only did he match the physical description of the suspect, but he had family in the area (his father lived off of Route 29) and he drove a pickup truck that was similar to that described by witnesses.

Because of the lack of public clarity in this case, as well as the known discrepancies between it and the Colonial Parkway Murders, it's hard to say whether or not the two might be related in any way. That is, other than the possible link to Darrell Rice, who has yet to be convicted for any of the crimes he's been publicly linked to. It's hard to say whether or not he was a legitimate suspect in either case - or just a convenient boogeyman - but his lack of convictions since his assault on a woman in 1997 seems to speak for itself. He may be a bastard, but not this bastard.

Sadly, the case of the Colonial Parkway Murders seems to have stalled for several years, carrying through the 1990s and early 2000s. While the story would be mentioned in local newspapers and during evening news broadcasts, there wasn't a lot of new information brought to the table during this span. The cases were - for a lack of a better word - frozen, at this point.

It wasn't until 2009 that the story started to receive a dash of much-needed attention, and that's when an individual named Fred Atwell seemed to insert himself into the story. While Atwell shared a lot of similarities with Ron Little - the New Zealand native who sent rambling letters to the media - he seems to have inserted himself into the story for noble reasons (at least, at first).

In 2009, Fred Atwell, a former deputy from Gloucester, began informing the family members of victims that valuable crime scene photos - containing images of the deceased victims, their crime scenes and abandoned vehicles, etc. - had somehow been distributed to the public over the years. Some family members had become aware of this over time - learning about a picture being released here and there - but didn't realize that this was a serious issue stemming from a lack of oversight at the FBI's office in Norfolk.

The 60-year-old Atwell was the first person to start publicly sounding the alarm on this, stating that because this was an unsolved crime, the distribution of these photos to unknown persons was a major breach of protocol and could seriously impact the still-ongoing investigation. After all, how often do investigators cite the integrity of their investigations as an impetus to close ranks and block access to information? It happens constantly and for totally understandable reasons.

Fred Atwell says that he gave notice to the FBI about this potential lack of oversight but was virtually ignored for weeks, and then months... at which point, Atwell took the story to the press, highlighting how damaging this was to the region's most infamous cold case. Because of this much-needed publicity, the investigation into the Colonial Parkway Murders was jumpstarted by the FBI. Almost immediately afterward, Atwell says that the FBI began to view him as a suspect, perhaps embarrassed that he had been able to flaunt them in such a public format.

To the FBI's credit, it made sense why they took an interest in Fred Atwell as a suspect: he had been a deputy for Gloucester County at the time of the murders, and while he wasn't involved in investigating the murders, he did live in the area and took an interest in the case. Years later, he began consulting work for a friend that owned a private security company, and it was through this friend that Atwell discovered the leaked crime scene photos from the FBI office in Norfolk, which had begun to leak out to journalists and other interested parties.

Despite Atwell claiming to have an alibi for the night of all four of the Parkway murders, even he had to admit that he fit the profile that investigators had established more than two decades prior. To make matters worse, once reporters began digging into his backstory, they discovered that Atwell had been a convicted criminal before he became a cop, serving time for multiple burglaries before he became a Gloucester County Sheriff's Deputy in 1981.

Despite becoming a hero in the public eye for helping reignite interest in the Colonial Parkway Murders, it soon became clear that Fred Atwell was no hero; perhaps just a man that was at the right place at the right time, who then decided to press his luck. In 2011, Atwell was arrested in Gwinnett County, Georgia, alleged to have robbed a woman in Roanoke County, Virginia for less than $100 (one publication even reported that this woman was his wife, which makes the story even more bizarre, but I wasn't able to confirm that detail). When robbing the woman, Atwell reportedly said that he was homeless and hungry, and just needed money.

The following year (2012), it would come to light that Atwell had defrauded some of the Parkway victims' family members, having swindled them out of roughly $300 that had been raised in a raffle to fund a private investigation. Instead, he had used the funds on some personal expenses, and plead guilty to this theft that March. Despite being sentenced to just under three years for fraud, the charges from his robbery arrest would end up putting Fred Atwell in prison for the better part of the next decade; during which time, Fred Atwell - who was already in poor health - ended up passing away.

In December of 2018, Atwell died in prison, with the loved ones of the victims believing that whatever information he had left, he took with him to the grave. Despite Atwell's wrongdoing in his final years, the family members of the victims had a complicated relationship with him, and none of them believe that he was involved in the deaths of any victims. To them, he helped kickstart the second phase of the investigation, and they're grateful for that, at least.

In 2010, the families of the victims requested the assistance of investigator Steve Spingola. Spingola, a retired homicide detective from the Milwaukee Police Department, had gained fame for his contributions to the North Side Strangler case and had become an investigative journalist after his law enforcement career (you may know him from the television program "Cold Justice").

After being contacted by the families and traveling out to Virginia, Spingola began to float a theory that the crimes were attributed to several killers - not just one, as had been posited for years. He would eventually publish this theory in the form of a magazine article titled "Predators on the Parkway" (which was later independently released as a standalone booklet). In it, Spingola explains that the first Parkway murder - that of Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski from 1986 - can potentially be linked to the murder of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams from 1996. He theorizes that both could have been hate crimes committed against lesbian couples from the same individual.

However, Spingola also believes that the murder of David Knobling and Robin Edwards (commonly known as the second of the Parkway murders) can be attributed to a robbery-gone-wrong. He thinks the same of the last known Parkway murder, that of Daniel Lauer and Annamaria Phelps, but that's primarily because of some additional news that broke in 2010.

In addition to the Spingola profile being released in 2010, it was announced that some new information had been found in the decades-old cold case. Inside of the apartment belonging to Annamaria Phelps, one of the final two (known) victims of the Parkway killer, a potentially game-changing clue had been found shortly after her death.

This piece of evidence came in the form of a note, which indicated that Annamaria Phelps was planning on meeting someone at a rest stop on the night that she and her boyfriend's brother, Daniel Lauer, initially disappeared. This note gave a time and date for the meeting and seemed to match up with certain details that investigators already knew about the case. Also, this note revealed that the person Anna was meeting was driving a blue van, which was a new piece of information that investigators had seemingly glossed over back in 1989. This note had initially been taken by investigators but was then handed back to Anna's family after the case had gone cold, where it remained for years. It wasn't until a loved one started going through these belongings that they unearthed this potentially-major clue years later.

Given what we know about this case - with the vehicle of Anna's boyfriend's brother being found at a rest stop, and their two bodies being found roughly a mile away - this is incredibly suspicious. This note seemed to include directions for the exact rest stop that Daniel's Chevy Nova was later found, seeming to put them directly onto the path of a killer. Steve Spingola, who saw the note, later spoke to local news station WAVY at the time:

"What I remember, it was a blue van at the time they were supposed to meet somebody. It was a note with [a] name, and a phone number and a description of the car to meet at the rest stop."

When questioned about this note, a spokesman for the Virginia State Police would state that they were aware of this note, but an investigator that worked on the case back in 1989 refuted that, claiming that he was "unaware" of this note's existence entirely.

In the decade since, a few other suspects have been floated by media outlets and online theorists, including an individual named Ralph Leon Jackson. Jackson, a 57-year-old, was arrested in 2010 for events that transpired that April.

That Spring, 27-year-old Timothy Davis had been out on a date with 19-year-old Christina Floyd, and together, the two were watching the sunset at Rock Point Overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway in western Virginia (about 3 hours west of the Colonial Parkway). Then, suddenly, they were attacked by the older Jackson, who fired a shotgun at the pair. He immediately hit Davis in the head, causing the younger man to fall more than 200 feet off of a nearby cliff.

Jackson would then attack the 19-year-old Floyd, who - despite having her lung punctured by the shotgun blast - would manage to escape. However, in the brief physical assault that followed the gunshot, Jackson would seriously injure Floyd after pushing her off of a small cliff and pelting her with rocks. Floyd managed to survive, fleeing the scene and contacting authorities, ultimately leading investigators to Ralph Leon Jackson.

Jackson, who lived nearby, was married with two children, having previously served in the Army. He was described as a quiet man that usually kept to himself, but had lashed out in a bizarre act of obscene violence at two individuals in an isolated area (whom he had no prior relationship with). Jackson would later confess to committing the murders but placed the blame for them on some male enhancement cream, which he claimed had clouded his mind at the time.

In 2011, Jackson was sentenced to life in prison plus 35 years but has not been officially linked to the Colonial Parkway Murders in the years since. However, due to his age and the proximity to the crimes - as well as his willingness to attack young couples in an isolated area along a scenic parkway - he remains as good a suspect as any.

Another suspect that investigators have looked into over the past couple of decades is former-Virginia State Trooper John Walter Ball, who had fallen off of the wagon completely by August of 1990 when he was shot and killed while attempting to rob a convenience store in King William County. Because he seemed to fit the profile of the Parkway killer - he was a violent offender with a history in law enforcement, and his death in August of 1990 would explain why the Parkway killer's spree came to an end in 1989 - that is unfortunately where the (known) similarities come to an end.

Then there is Jessie Ronald Walling, another suspect that has been floated in the press as a potential suspect in the Parkway murders. Walling was a middle-aged man that was arrested in 1989 for raping and killing 23-year-old Madeline Lashbrook in Newport News, who had a prior history of sexually harassing women and exposing himself in public. However, because of this, Walling seemed to be a sexual predator, which seemed to contrast the Parkway crimes (which bore no sign of an overtly sexual motive).

Even though Walling is not believed to be an active suspect, he is - to me, at least - the perfect embodiment of just how inundated investigators were in this case. Almost every single violent criminal that was active in the region during this time - the mid-1980s to the early 1990s - seems to fit at least some part of the psychological profile. When you factor in the population of the Virginia Peninsula - which was more than 400,000 people by 1990 - paired with the populations of the cities nearby (which includes the Baltimore & DC metropolitan area, as well as other cities such as Richmond and Charlottesville), you're talking about millions of people... potentially hundreds - if not thousands - of suspects. Without a smoking gun piece of evidence, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

However, all it would take is one piece of evidence to change things entirely. Until now, that vital clue has managed to elude investigators, who have been pulled in a thousand different directions over the span of this lengthy investigation, but that can change at any given moment.

In the months and years after the last known Colonial Parkway Murder, in September of 1989, the victims' families and law enforcement both expected the spree to continue. They theorized - based on the killer's prior trends - that they would strike again in either September or October of 1990, but that never came to pass.

The killer might have gotten cold feet as soon as the case started to gain national recognition, and the potential consequences for their actions began to be laid bare, but it is not believed that the killer struck again after this date. Local, state, and federal officials - ranging as far away as Interpol - would report no crimes with similar M.O.'s in the years before or after this spree, and no more crimes have been linked to the same criminal over the years, as the four casefiles have collected dust... and six out of the eight victims have been laid to rest.

Despite the case remaining dormant over the better part of two decades, the case was reactivated by the FBI in 2010, upon the insistence of the victims' loved ones. Officials have revealed that there remain more than 130 suspects in this case; none of whom have panned out over the past 34 years, but who all remain valid possibilities for prosecution.

In 2018, it was announced via social media - from a page monitored by Bill Thomas, the brother of Cathleen Thomas, who has become the most active proponent in the case and now hosts his own podcast called "Minds Over Murder" - that DNA from 3/4 crime scenes was in the process of being tested by the FBI. Details have been scarce about this testing in the years since - such as what three crime scenes the samples were taken from, if they were consistent with each other, etc. - but this was one of the first hopeful updates in a case that is older than many of us. As Bill Thomas was quoted as saying, in a 2019 article from the New York Times:

"For me and my family it's never been about a prosecution. I'm not seeking closure. It's not like the sun will come out tomorrow. I don't care if he's dead. I want to know who he is."

Hopefully, justice will soon be served for the eight victims in this case, as well as all of those tangentially linked to their tragic loss. Until such a time, the stories of Cathleen Thomas, Rebecca Dowski, David Knobling, Robin Edwards, Keith Call, Cassandra Hailey, Daniel Lauer, and Annamaria Phelps will remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Episode Information

Researched, written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan

Published on August 30th, 2020

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Victoria Reid, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Astrid Kneier, Lori Rodriguez, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Thomas Ahearn, Travis Scsepko, Seth Morgan, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Alyssa Lawton, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, Jo Wong, Tatum Bautista, Erin Pyles, Teunia Elzinga, Jacinda B., Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, and Dawn Kellar

Music Credits

Original music created by Micheal Whelan through Amper Music

Other music created and composed by Ailsa Traves

Other Music Credits

Daniel James Dolby - "Longing"

Magna Ingress - "Anahata II: The Longing"

Soft And Furious - "Melancholic Ending"

BOPD - "New England Is Interesting"

Sara Ofonso - "Underwater I"

ROZKOL - "Hell Slime"

Chris Zabriskie - "I Used to Need the Violence"

DR - "Afanassij Iwanowitsch Towstogub And His Wife Pulcherija Iwanowna Towstogubicha - Part 2"

Blear Moon - "Cold Summer Landscape"

Sources and other reading

Wikipedia - Colonial Parkway murders

Colonial Ghosts - “The Colonial Parkway Murders: A Step By Step Report”

“Predators on the Parkway” by Steven Spingola

Unsolved Casebook - “The Colonial Parkway Murders”

Daily Press - “Parkway slaying victims identified” (01)

Daily Press - “Parkway slaying victims identified” (02)

The News Leader - “Two women found slain on parkway”

Daily Press - “Victim’s brother pleads for information”

The News Leader - “FBI doubts quick arrests in slayings” (01)

The News Leader - “FBI doubts quick arrests in slayings” (02)

Daily Press - “College helps students deal with violent death”

Daily Press - “No final conclusions in deaths”

The News Leader - “Reports sayings two were strangled before slashed”

Daily Press - “Mystery surrounds women’s deaths” (01)

Daily Press - “Mystery surrounds women’s deaths” (02)

Daily Press - “Students, family, gather for service”

Daily Press - “Rope marks, fuel found on victims” (01)

Daily Press - “Rope marks, fuel found on victims” (02)

Daily Press - “Women died from strangling, stabbing”

Daily Press - “Police search for missing pair”

Daily Press - “Missing pair found dead near James” (01)

Daily Press - “Missing pair found dead near James” (02)

Daily Press - “Slaying goes beyond worst fears”

Daily Press - “Victim got death threats, father says”

Daily Press - “Reported threats against victim discounted” (01)

Daily Press - “Reported threats against victim discounted” (02)

Daily Press - “Slayings shattered wildlife preserve’s peaceful nature” (01)

Daily Press - “Slayings shattered wildlife preserve’s peaceful nature” (02)

Daily Press - “Sheriff nears end of term without hoped-for peace”

Daily Press - “Task force to begin Isle of Wight slayings”

Daily Press - “Police remain baffled in double slaying” (01)

Daily Press - “Police remain baffled in double slaying” (02)

Daily Press - “Body found in river identified as missing man’s” (01)

Daily Press - “Body found in river identified as missing man’s” (02)

Daily Press - “Father appeals for help to find son’s killer”

Daily Press - “Swim story unlikely, student’s mother says” (01)

Daily Press - “Swim story unlikely, student’s mother says” (02)

Daily Press - “Unidentified body pulled from York” (01)

Daily Press - “Unidentified body pulled from York” (02)

Daily Press - “Family offers reward”

Daily Press - “Frustrating search for students persists” (01)

Daily Press - “Frustrating search for students persists” (02)

Daily Press - “Flustered FBI offers cash for murder info” (01)

Daily Press - “Flustered FBI offers cash for murder info” (02)

Daily Press - “Search in river called off”

Daily Press - “Families maintain sad vigil” (01)

Daily Press - “Families maintain sad vigil” (02)

AP - “Families Seek Solutions to Murders”

Daily Press - “Man claiming FBI targeted him deported”

Daily Press - “1 body is missing woman’s” (01)

Daily Press - “1 body is missing woman’s” (02)

Daily Press - “I-64 body found to be of young black woman” (01)

Daily Press - “I-64 body found to be of young black woman” (02)

Daily Press - “2nd body is that of Amelia man” (01)

Daily Press - “2nd body is that of Amelia man” (02)

Daily Press - “Smithsonian helps investigate deaths” (01)

Daily Press - “Smithsonian helps investigate deaths” (02)

Daily Press - “Cause of pair’s death still mystery, parents say”

Daily Press - “Cutting wounds caused woman’s death, tests show”

Daily Press - “Weight given to notion of serial killer” (01)

Daily Press - “Weight given to notion of serial killer” (02)

Daily Press - “Serial killer sought” (01)

Daily Press - “Serial killer sought” (02)

The News Leader - “State psychologist says Colonial Parkway killer is still at large”

Daily Press - “FBI looks for link in hiker deaths” (01)

Daily Press - “FBI looks for link in hiker deaths” (02)

Daily Press - “No link found to parkway killings” (01)

Daily Press - “No link found to parkway killings” (02)

Daily Press - “Living with the Unknown” (01)

Daily Press - “Living with the Unknown” (02)

Daily Press - “Cases still unsolved” (01)

Daily Press - “Cases still unsolved” (02)

WTKR - “Sensitive FBI photos from Colonial Parkway murders leaked to the public”

WTKR - “FBI takes new approach in hunt for Colonial Parkway killer”

The Free Lance-Star - “Unsolved slayings in Virginia”

WAVY - “Is note a break in Colonial Parkway murders?”

WTVR - “New Investigator Looking into the Colonial Parkway Murders”

WTKR - “New details published in Colonial Parkway murders”

WTKR - “New suspects in the Colonial Parkway murders a shock to victims’ families”

Huffington Post - “Fred Atwell, Controversial Figure In Colonial Parkway Murders, Arrested In Georgia”

Daily Press - “Man pleads guilty to Parkway murders fund scam”

WTVR - “UPDATE: Man convicted of scamming Colonial Parkway murder victims’ families”

FBI - “Man Who Shot Two on Blue Ridge Parkway Sentenced”

The Daily Progress - “Parkway shooting suspect pleads not guilty”

Richmond Times-Dispatch - “Blue Ridge Parkway shooter gets more prison time after emotional testimony”

WHSV - “Court Documents: Jackson Confessed to Parkway Shooting”

WTKR - “Unsolved: Colonial Parkway murders near 30th anniversary as families hold out hope”

WTVR - “Authorities have ‘potential perpetrator DNA’ in Colonial Parkway murders, family says”

Daily Press - “Former deputy’s death leaves Parkway victims’ families wondering what he knew”

Daily Press - “Investigators still haunted by unsolved Colonial Parkway Murders”

The New York Times - “Sooner or Later Your Cousin’s DNA Is Going to Solve a Murder”