UPDATE: The Colonial Parkway Murders

Transcript

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Speaker 1 Hi, crime junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers, and it is always a great day when I can bring you a case update.

Speaker 1 And if you have been following us on Instagram or you've seen some of the latest headlines in true crime news over the last 24 hours or so, you already know what I'm about to say.

Speaker 1 There has been a breakthrough in the infamous Colonial Parkway murders some 30 years later, thanks to DNA.

Speaker 1 Back in our baby crime junkie days of 2018, me and Britt released a two-part episode on the Colonial Parkway murders. If you haven't listened yet, don't worry.

Speaker 1 We're actually going to be attaching both parts to the end of this update. I do ask that you please be kind.

Speaker 1 I was a new podcaster and apparently also sick for one of the episodes, so it's a real throwback.

Speaker 1 Plus, anything that has happened over the last five years won't be included in that, but it is still a good refresher.

Speaker 1 And either way, whether you relisten or not, let me catch you up to speed for this new development. I'll give you a quick recap.

Speaker 1 So, back between 1986 and 1989, at least four couples were killed along the Colonial Parkway in Southeast Virginia.

Speaker 1 And it left the investigators and the public to believe that they were all connected.

Speaker 1 The remote, isolated area that the Colonial Parkway provided was known to be somewhat of like a lover's lane for couples, but over the years, it became a killer's hunting ground as they targeted each of the four couples while in their cars.

Speaker 1 It started in October of 1986 with Rebecca Dowski and Kathy Thomas. Then in 1987, David Knobling and Robin Edwards were found.

Speaker 1 Cassandra Haley in Richard Call's vehicle was found in 1988, but their bodies are still missing even to this day.

Speaker 1 And then finally, there was Anna Marie Phelps and Daniel Lauer, who were found in 1989.

Speaker 1 Now, although cause of death varied a bit between the victims, there were too many similarities for anyone to believe that this wasn't the doing of the same killer.

Speaker 1 And it led many to believe that there may be even more victims. But who was this serial killer? Or are there more than one killer?

Speaker 1 Well, as of yesterday, January 8th, 2024, we are one step closer to knowing the full truth. That's when police announced that Alan Wade Wilmer Sr.

Speaker 1 from the Northern Neck region of Virginia was a suspect in one of the double homicide cases along the Colonial Parkway. And that's the case of David Knobling and Robin Edwards.

Speaker 1 Although Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. has been named, it is too late for him to serve his time behind bars because back back in 2017, Wilmer died alone in his home at the age of 63.

Speaker 1 And he actually wasn't found until a month later. So because of how badly decomposed he was, back then they actually had to do some DNA testing in order to just ID his body.

Speaker 1 And so this peaked investigators' interest.

Speaker 1 See, it doesn't seem like they were onto him back then, but when he did finally become a suspect and they learned that he was ID back then with his DNA, that's when the Virginia State Police got an idea.

Speaker 1 Maybe they could just use that sample to compare against their evidence.

Speaker 1 Now, at this time, investigators won't announce what initial tip led them to him or when he became a suspect, which leaves me with obviously so many questions.

Speaker 1 Because, I mean, this guy had no felonies, no criminal record, hence why his DNA wasn't in a system like CODIS.

Speaker 1 But now, obviously, one of the biggest questions is, is he responsible for the other colonial Parkway cases? Well, we don't know yet.

Speaker 1 Virginia State Police spokesperson Corrine Geller said, quote, similarities in this series of double homicides that spanned a three-year period cannot be ignored.

Speaker 1 At this time, there's no forensic or physical evidence to link the Isle of White homicides to those other double murders.

Speaker 1 But what we do know is that if he were still alive today, he would be charged with a total of three murders. Yeah, you heard me right.

Speaker 1 Three, because along with two of the Colonial Parkway victims, he was also linked to a separate cold case after DNA testing tied him to the murder of Teresa Howell.

Speaker 1 29-year-old Teresa was last seen leaving a nightclub near Hampton, Virginia at 2.30 in the morning on July 1st, 1989. Her body was discovered later that day in a wooded area and she'd been strangled.

Speaker 1 Teresa had also been sexually assaulted, allowing investigators to collect DNA, which ultimately got traced back to Wilmer.

Speaker 1 Although he has since passed, the families of the three victims at least have some answers.

Speaker 1 That Virginia State Police spokesperson, Corrine Geller, shared a statement on behalf of the Knobling and Edwards families.

Speaker 1 It says, quote, for 36 years, our families have lived in a vacuum of the unknown.

Speaker 1 We have lived in the fear of worrying that a person capable of deliberately killing Robin and David could attack and kill another victim.

Speaker 1 Now we have a sense of relief and justice, knowing that he can no longer victimize another.

Speaker 1 His death will not allow us to seek out the answers to countless questions that have haunted us for so long, end quote.

Speaker 1 Now that Wilmer has been tied to at least three murders, the FBI is on a mission to find any other possible leads that can connect him to any other cases, which is where they need you and one of the big reasons we're pushing out this update.

Speaker 1 13 News Now posted a call out from authorities, and it says, quote, our agencies are still working to reconstruct the movements and encounters of Alan Wilmer Sr.

Speaker 1 So that's why we're asking for the public's help, said Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corrine Geller.

Speaker 1 Virginia State Police say Wilmer was a 5'5 muscular man who went by the nickname Pokey. He owned a business called Better Tree Service.

Speaker 1 He drove a distinctive blue 1966 Dodge Fargo pickup truck with the Virginia license plate EM-R-A-W, typically with a toolbox and clamming equipment in the back.

Speaker 1 He also had a wooden commercial fishing boat named the Denny Wade. Authorities say he often docked it around Gloucester and Middlesex counties, as well as the Northern Neck and Hampton Roads region.

Speaker 1 His trade during the 1980s was as a fisherman, farming mainly clams and oysters. End quote.
We're going to have pictures in the blog post of this episode for you guys to check out.

Speaker 1 So please, if any of his characteristics sound familiar, or if you knew him or had interactions with him, the FBI wants to hear from you. You can call them at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
That's 1-800-225-5324.

Speaker 1 You can also submit a tip online at tip.fbi.gov. And again, don't go anywhere.
You can listen to both part one and part two of our episode, Serial Killer, on the Colonial Parkway right now.

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Speaker 31 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 2 And I'm Britt, but I don't think you're Ashley Flowers. You do not sound good, girl.

Speaker 31 Yeah, it's rough. So I am the voice of what once was a healthy Ashley Flowers.
I'm struggling to make it through.

Speaker 31 And of course, I pick like the craziest case to get sick on because, Britt, as you know, we always do so much research, as much as we can on our cases.

Speaker 31 And even though our episodes are short, we try to pack them with facts. So most of our half-hour episodes take over 20 to 30 hours of researching and writing.

Speaker 31 But this case with eight victims, four crime scenes, and over 30 years of investigations is one that took me more than twice as long. My head is still spinning from all the information.

Speaker 31 And it is, again, like I picked the longest case to tell you guys while I'm sick. So I apologize for my voice.
But I would like to give a special thanks to one of the victims' brothers, Bill Thomas.

Speaker 31 He was kind enough to kind of help guide me in my research.

Speaker 31 And he pointed me to some of the best and most reliable sources to help tell his sister's story and the stories of these seven other families who are now all tied together in infamy through the colonial parkway.

Speaker 31 The Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile stretch of road running through some of the most historic spots in Virginia.

Speaker 31 It's two lanes separated by a grassy median that's beautiful in the day, but really eerie come nightfall.

Speaker 31 Without streetlights for miles, the night gave cover to very secret acts, some more sinister in nature than others.

Speaker 31 On Saturday night, October 12th, 1986, park rangers in the area got a report of a possible traffic accident. Passersby reported seeing a car off the side of an embankment.

Speaker 31 When they arrived on scene, they saw a car hanging over the side at a 45 degree angle, just like reported.

Speaker 31 A couple of rangers tried to like shimmy down this bluff area following the path that the car had created.

Speaker 31 They were slipping and sliding the whole way down, and the car would have gone over into the river, but not for this big patch of large bushes.

Speaker 31 When they reached the car, they saw that this was more than just a serious accident like they had anticipated. There were two people inside the car still.

Speaker 31 Fearing these two people had been hurt in the accident, not knowing how long they'd actually been in there, the Rangers smashed the back window to get to them.

Speaker 31 When the glass shattered, they saw a sight much worse than anything they had imagined. The passengers were dead, but it was clear their injuries weren't from any kind of vehicle accident.

Speaker 31 There were two women in the car, one who was laying in the back seat with her foot jammed between the driver's seat and the front door, and another woman in the hatchback.

Speaker 31 Both women's throats had been slit beyond ear to ear, with some blood pooling beneath each one of them. And the woman in the trunk had been almost nearly decapitated.
Oh my god.

Speaker 31 The Rangers knew right away that they weren't equipped for this case. and the same night the bodies were found they called in the FBI.

Speaker 31 When the FBI arrived, they took photos and then had the car towed back up to the road. As they processed the scene, the case became even more perplexing.
Inside the car, they found ID for two women.

Speaker 31 27-year-old Kathleen Thomas was the woman found in the hatchback and 21-year-old Rebecca Dowski was the woman in the back seat.

Speaker 31 They learned that the car they were both in belonged to Kathleen and inside was a mess.

Speaker 31 It was hard to make heads or tails of the crime scene because it was basically tipped over and everything inside had been kind of flung everywhere.

Speaker 31 They did find that the keys were still inside the car, somewhere on the driver's side, and on the passenger floor was a church flyer and a Carly Simon album.

Speaker 31 In the rear of the vehicle, they found a blue blazer on a hanger, a jacket, a gym bag, and shorts stained with blood, along with a blue cardboard carton of some kind.

Speaker 31 Now, there was something of interest actually on the victims. The killer had doused their bodies in diesel fuel, and there were matches that appeared to have been struck in and around the car.

Speaker 2 So I grew up on a farm and most of our vehicles use diesel fuel growing up. And one thing I do know is that it doesn't ignite like gasoline does.
Right.

Speaker 2 It has a much higher ignition point and you really have to almost prep it to be ignited. It doesn't just work like regular gasoline.

Speaker 31 Exactly. And that's why their bodies were incinerated.

Speaker 31 Whoever killed them was trying really hard to get rid of their bodies, pushing the car over the side, trying to light it on fire in an attempt to cover up their crime.

Speaker 31 But the diesel fuel in particular is a clue into the identity of the killer that I think a lot about.

Speaker 31 Did they use or come in contact with diesel fuel a lot without really knowing anything about it and how it worked?

Speaker 31 Or did they perhaps just like grab the wrong can thinking that they grabbed gasoline and they didn't discover their mistake until they were already at the crime scene.

Speaker 2 Well, and I kind of wonder too, did the killer bring the diesel with him as like part of the plan?

Speaker 2 Was it something he decided to do when he got there and he had on him, like his own vehicle uses diesel and he siphoned it out?

Speaker 2 Or after the car didn't fall, did he go get it and come back to the scene?

Speaker 31 I think all of those are plausible and all three ideas have been postulated by other investigators and authors. And to this day, no one really knows.

Speaker 31 Now, nothing inside the the car seemed to point to a specific suspect.

Speaker 31 So the investigating agents hoped that the autopsies would be able to reveal some clues as to why these women were attacked and who the perpetrator was. What the autopsy showed was heartbreaking.

Speaker 31 The women had been dead for at least 24 hours before being discovered. There was partially undigested food in their stomach, suggesting that they had eaten a meal shortly before their death.

Speaker 2 Do we know what kind of food it was?

Speaker 31 I don't, and I'm not sure if the investigators knew either.

Speaker 31 I would assume that this is a detail they would know, but I would think if they did, we would know more about their last movements and where they might have ate at, which you'll learn later we really don't.

Speaker 31 It was found out that both women had actually been strangled before having their throats cut.

Speaker 31 Now, there was speculation from people about whether they were strangled from the front or strangled from behind.

Speaker 31 And despite theories, I tend to think it was from behind based on a 1991 article where the lead FBI agent at the time was interviewed.

Speaker 31 He was the second agent to ever take over the case and the article specifically says strangled from behind.

Speaker 31 Now that could have been an assumption by the author or just like a stretch made, but until someone else has a better source or proof, I think that we have to rely on that.

Speaker 2 So they're strangled and then have their throat slit. That seems like overkill by a lot.

Speaker 31 I would agree. And using two types of method feels like a very passionate, hate-filled act.

Speaker 31 But you have to remember too, the killer tried to push the car into the river, then light it on fire, both acts which were unsuccessful.

Speaker 31 So I also think it could be actions of somebody who doesn't know what they're doing or like had this plan that just went totally awry.

Speaker 31 The cause of death for Kathleen and Becky, for both of them, was strangulation.

Speaker 31 So they were likely brain dead after the strangulation, but the autopsy showed that their hearts were still pumping blood at the time of their throat injuries.

Speaker 31 So what I'm thinking is if the killer was checking for a pulse, like he strangles them, he probably...

Speaker 2 They look dead.

Speaker 31 Yeah, they look dead, but he's still feeling a pulse. So he assumed they're still alive.
The strangulation didn't work. I can imagine that the killer is kind of like panicking and just spiraling.

Speaker 31 And maybe that's what's all part of it. Or again, like we said to begin with, maybe this really was just a crime of passion and he...

Speaker 31 whoever he or she was hated these women now during the autopsy they were able to find one tiny piece of physical evidence in Kathleen's hair.

Speaker 31 There was a one inch piece of plastic line or rope and investigators believe this was the type of rope used to kill both women and they think maybe it got left there if the killer had cut her throat while the line was still wrapped around her neck.

Speaker 31 Both women had signs of being handled roughly, bruises in a bunch of different places, and there was even a handprint on Kathleen's butt.

Speaker 31 Now, Kathleen also had at least one marking that appeared to be a defensive wound. She had this cut in the webbing of her hand between her thumb and her pointer finger.

Speaker 31 This could have either happened while she was grabbing at the rope around her neck or if she came in contact with a knife before she was strangled.

Speaker 2 So that was the only defensive wound?

Speaker 31 Yeah, and that's something that's baffling about this case.

Speaker 31 How a person or persons is able to get two strong, healthy women to comply and be overtaken with almost no defensive wounds is part of why I think this case has spawned so many crazy theories.

Speaker 31 Absolutely no one can explain it.

Speaker 2 I hate asking this question, but I know our listeners are probably wondering too.

Speaker 2 Was there any evidence of sexual assault?

Speaker 31 Actually, no, neither woman was sexually assaulted. But if it wasn't sex motivating this crime, investigators wondered what could have been driving the killer.

Speaker 31 And as they dig deeper into the lives of their victims, Kathleen and Becky, they wonder if maybe this wasn't a hate crime instead.

Speaker 31 You see, Kathleen and Becky were actually girlfriends, something that they didn't advertise back in the 80s because, well, it was the 80s and it was the 80s in Virginia.

Speaker 31 And there wasn't the same kind of open and accepting attitude towards gay and lesbian relationships that I like to believe exists today.

Speaker 2 Did either of their families know about the relationship?

Speaker 31 So Kathleen's family did. They had known for some time.
And Becky was actually Kathleen's second serious girlfriend. and they were looking forward to actually meeting her that Thanksgiving.

Speaker 31 Now, Becky's family, however, did not, and they for a long time had trouble really accepting it and wrapping their heads around it because Becky had been in a serious relationship with a man right before Kathleen, and she had never talked to her family about being gay.

Speaker 31 So, I think it was hard for them to like really grasp and believe since they were never able to talk to Becky about it.

Speaker 31 And I think all of this kind of fed into why they weren't super open about it. Being in a lesbian relationship was new for Becky.

Speaker 31 Kathleen was actually part of the second class ever of women to graduate from the Naval Academy.

Speaker 31 And her time in the Navy was hard, not just because she was a woman, but back then the military actively were investigating and searching for homosexuals to dishonorably discharge.

Speaker 31 And she'd been investigated in the past, which is why she ended up leaving the Navy and going to work as a stockbroker. So again, they're keeping this like kind of on the down low.

Speaker 31 Like they're in a relationship together. Some people know about it, but they're not open.

Speaker 31 And as investigators are learning more about their victims, a picture of their last days is starting to come together.

Speaker 31 Now, Kathleen was 27 and had her own apartment, but Becky was 21 and a student at William and Mary living in the dorms. And the dorms and the campus are like 45 minutes one way from Kathy's apartment.

Speaker 31 So it wasn't unusual for them to go out to the parkway on weeknights when they wanted to be alone or have privacy to be intimate.

Speaker 31 Now the last time the investigators could pin down the locations of both girls was Thursday, October 9th.

Speaker 2 And they were found on the 12th, right? Right. And then the coroner said they were dead at least 24 hours before their bodies were found, correct?

Speaker 31 Right. So on the 9th, they're last seen on the Williams and Mary campus.
We know that Becky was using a computer and Kathleen was seen with her at around 6.30.

Speaker 31 And around 6.30, she logs off, went to another hall where she logged on to a different computer to use the printer. This was the last time either of them were confirmed to have been seen.

Speaker 31 And I should note, this is Thursday right before a fall break and Becky had her car all packed up to go home.

Speaker 31 She had just one more day of classes on Friday the 10th, but she never showed up for them and her car sat unmoved, loaded with clothes to go home.

Speaker 31 Because Becky never showed up for classes and because they had food in their stomachs, the prevailing theory is that they likely died the same night that they were last seen.

Speaker 31 They probably went to grab dinner together. There's one unconfirmed sighting of them at a restaurant near the parkway and well away from campus.

Speaker 31 So the thought is maybe they ate there, but it's not confirmed.

Speaker 31 And then investigators are thinking maybe they went out to the parkway, which is a known lover's lane, a spot that they were very familiar with, to be alone that night, the night before Becky was gonna leave for fall break and they weren't gonna see each other for a while.

Speaker 31 So out there on that dark stretch of road, road, they encountered someone.

Speaker 31 Now, where exactly they encountered this person and how long the car really was hanging off that embankment are all still unknown to this day.

Speaker 31 But there is something I didn't mention about the car that I really need to point out. Because inside the car, along with the keys and the random items scattered about, was Kathleen's wallet.

Speaker 31 It was left out.

Speaker 2 Was anything taken from the wallet? Did it still have her money in it?

Speaker 31 Nothing was taken. Everything was still in it.

Speaker 2 What does that mean?

Speaker 31 Well, I don't really know for sure, but it's strange, and it's just one of those things to keep in the back of your mind as we continue to talk through this case and about how two girls, one a former Navy grad and the other, who, by the way, was an athlete, could be subdued and taken control of with little to no struggle.

Speaker 31 Because if you think about it, if you're in a car, not at a drive-thru, when is the only time you pull out your wallet?

Speaker 2 For a police officer.

Speaker 31 Yeah, if you think that you're being stopped by an authority figure, someone you'd willingly comply with until it was too late.

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Speaker 31 At first, this wallet thing didn't hold much significance. Surely this was a crime of passion.
So they looked at people in the women's lives.

Speaker 31 Could Kathleen's ex have been jealous enough to kill Kathleen and her new lover? This was a theory that investigators gave a lot of attention to, but one tiny problem.

Speaker 31 Kathleen's ex is actually the one who introduced her to Becky. She didn't care that they were together.
She was happy for them. So was it Becky's ex?

Speaker 31 According to the FBI, he was a, quote, hot-tempered Muslim man who didn't believe in homosexuality.

Speaker 2 I can only imagine the racial stereotyping that went on in that conversation.

Speaker 31 Oh, I'm sure. But he luckily had an alibi.
He was two hours away in DC around the time that they were thought to have gone missing. So he was removed from the suspect list, just like Kathleen's ex.

Speaker 31 So what now? They're out of exes. None of the family members are good suspects.
They have to start considering a stranger did this. But how on earth do you find a stranger?

Speaker 31 Well, lucky for the FBI, there was a new division. the behavioral analysis unit, which today we are all familiar with because of shows like Criminal Minds and Mindhunter.

Speaker 31 But in 1986, the BAU was in its infancy, but they pulled their team together to try and profile this killer. And here are a couple of things that they found most intriguing.

Speaker 31 That piece of plastic line or rope that was found in Kathleen's hair, it very well could have been nautical line.

Speaker 31 Additionally, diesel fuel that was poured on the bodies, a lot of boats tend to run on diesel fuel, whereas you don't find it in a lot of cars, sometimes in trucks, but not in your everyday car.

Speaker 31 Additionally, the cuts made to both women's necks were made with a extremely sharp knife, not just your average switchblade or kitchen knife. This one would be similar to the kind used to gut fish.

Speaker 2 I was going to suggest a fillet knife.

Speaker 31 Yeah, now all of this, the BAU said, pointed to some kind of waterman. Someone who works on boats, is somewhat of a nomad, lives paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 31 He could either hate women or he could hate lesbians specifically.

Speaker 31 There were a couple of suspects who came to the surface when this theory first came out, but no one panned out and no arrests ended up being made.

Speaker 31 When the the Xs didn't pan out and when no watermen seemed to fit the bill, the FBI started to look at those rangers that were first on the scene. This is when they started looking at that wallet.

Speaker 31 Could it have been some kind of authority figure? One in particular was named Clyde Yee. But Clyde was able to pass a polygraph and through that, he too was ruled out as a suspect.

Speaker 31 Slowly the leads dried up. As tragic as this case was, the investigators really believed it was an isolated incident.
They even said in a press conference that they were treating it as such.

Speaker 31 And whether it was destined to happen or already planned, or maybe, just maybe, that was a taunt to the madman watching.

Speaker 31 Months later, another crime would occur on the parkway, making everyone question whether Kathleen and Becky were just the first in a line of brutal killings on the parkway to come.

Speaker 31 It was September 20th, 1987, when by a total fluke, 14-year-old Robin Edwards meets 20-year-old David Knobling.

Speaker 31 The two had no reason for meeting and likely never would have if all the stars didn't align just so that night.

Speaker 31 If Robin hadn't have accepted a date to the movies from David's younger cousin Jason, if Judy, David's mom, wouldn't have gotten a migraine that night and asked David to drive Jason and Robin to the movies for her.

Speaker 31 If it wouldn't have rained, Robin probably would have rode in the back of the truck with Jason instead of riding in in the cab of the two-seater truck with David where they got to talking.

Speaker 31 If David hadn't have been currently off with his on-again, off-again, pregnant girlfriend, maybe he would have had plans that night with her and he wouldn't have been free to make plans to meet up later that night with Robin.

Speaker 31 The date that she was on with Jason seemed uneventful. The movie Robin and Jason were supposed to go see was sold out, so Robin, Jason, David, and David's brother all went to an arcade instead.

Speaker 31 Now, David's brother would recall how strange it was to learn that Robin and David were together later that same night because they said the whole night at the arcade.

Speaker 31 They didn't say a word to each other.

Speaker 31 Robin was with Jason the entire time and the only time Robin and David could have even talked would have been in the cab of the truck where tops they spent 20 minutes together.

Speaker 31 And no one knows exactly what was said, but something for sure was said because after everyone was dropped off at home for the evening, Robin by 1115 to meet Curfew and call her mom, and David around the same time to eat eat pizza and watch a movie with his family, the two ended up leaving their homes again.

Speaker 31 Robin snuck out, something she'd done many times before at her young age. But David, being 20 and adult, just grabbed his keys around midnight and said he was heading out.

Speaker 31 No one questioned him on where he was going, and this is something that his family would later come to regret.

Speaker 31 Not that this could have stopped him or changed what had happened, but nobody asked him, where are you going? Who are you meeting? When will we see you next? David never came home that next morning.

Speaker 31 And when Robin's dad checked her room at five in the morning that Sunday, she wasn't in bed either. Like I kind of alluded to before, Robin had a history of running away.

Speaker 31 When she was gone, her dad thought, oh gosh, this again. But she didn't take any of her clothes with her.
So this was a good sign to her dad that she'd be back soon.

Speaker 31 She was just blowing off some steam. Robin, after all, was like a very fiery one.
Britt, we've joked before about us being eight, going on 25, but Robin really was.

Speaker 31 From a very young age, she was running away. She was sexually active.
She even had a 21-year-old boyfriend by age 11.

Speaker 2 Whoa. Yeah.

Speaker 31 And none of this means that what happened to her was her fault. In fact, she was a child, and it's shocking to me that the older men she was engaging with didn't get in trouble.

Speaker 31 She is as much a victim as every person in our story, but I think it's something we can't ignore. Robin was 14 and David was 20, and it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 Maybe this is me trying to be naive, but do we know for sure that they were going to hook up?

Speaker 31 No, we definitely don't. And that's something like as I talk about the scene, we'll kind of learn later.

Speaker 31 There's stuff to suggest they were, like pieces of clothing missing, but there's nothing to prove that they took that off willingly and someone didn't force them to.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 31 The area they went to was just 20 miles from the parkway, and it was a place called Ragged Island. And like the rest of the parkway, it's known for two things, hooking up and low-level drug deals.

Speaker 31 So it's possible they went there to score weed and get high, or they could have gone there to hook up. Very unlikely that it was anything in between.

Speaker 31 So Robin's dad notices she's gone at about five, but her mom feels like something is wrong. And this doesn't feel like her normal runaway kind of situation.

Speaker 31 So by 7 a.m., her mom tries to report Robin missing to the police, but they won't let her. If they say it's too soon, plus it's the weekend.
There really wasn't anyone there to take the report.

Speaker 31 I mean, you have to remember it was a different time. They tell her to come back in on Monday if Robin still isn't back.
But Monday rolls around and there's no Robin.

Speaker 31 Instead, a truck is found on Ragged Island that would eventually link to Robin and give her parents answers as to where she was and what happened to her.

Speaker 31 In the early morning hours of Monday, a deputy on patrol was passing through the Ragged Island area when he saw a truck with its windshield wipers flaring and the door open.

Speaker 31 This was something that needed to be checked out. Like I mentioned, this is where a lot of like low-level drug deals happen.
So the officer wanted to get a closer look.

Speaker 31 What he found were the wipers were flaring, keys were in the ignition, set to accessory mode, the radio was left on, and inside the truck were two pairs of shoes, some other pieces of clothing, and a man's wallet.

Speaker 31 The deputy had a theory almost immediately. These kids probably undressed and went skinny dipping.

Speaker 34 Timeout.

Speaker 2 Skinny dipping? It's, what'd you say, September in Virginia?

Speaker 2 Do you have any idea what the weather was like that day?

Speaker 31 That night, it was actually 40 degrees. So their explanation made sense to nobody else.

Speaker 31 The morning that they found the truck, they notified David's mom because they knew who the truck was registered to. So they were able to track down the family.

Speaker 31 And his mom even left work and came to look at the site. And she said that it felt all just weird.
He loved that truck.

Speaker 31 He would never leave that truck unlocked, much less leave it with the doors open and the keys still inside. But I think it's hard to believe the worst case scenario is actually happening to you.

Speaker 31 So Judy went back to work thinking maybe her son was just being a little bit reckless. But there was something nagging at her, something itching the back of her brain, that key in the ignition.

Speaker 31 The key was turned to accessory mode and the radio was playing, like most cars would be set up to do. But Judy knew something.

Speaker 31 She knew that her son had wired the radio directly to the battery of the truck, so you didn't have to have the car on to play it. You just hit the on button.

Speaker 31 David would not have turned his car on to have the radio on that way. Whoever left the car on wasn't David.
His mom left work knowing something had happened to her son.

Speaker 31 David's mom, Judy, called her ex-husband and told him everything that was happening.

Speaker 31 Now, the authorities were still unconvinced that something sinister had happened, so the police asked that they take David's truck to their house.

Speaker 31 And that's when David's dad decided to do some searching himself.

Speaker 31 The tides were so high that he actually put on waders and was wading through the water looking for any sign of David, but he found nothing.

Speaker 31 Although the Rangers didn't process the truck like a crime scene right away, they do notice a pair of girls' shoes in the car.

Speaker 31 And it didn't take long to match those shoes to the missing persons report that Robin's mother had filed that Monday.

Speaker 31 By the next day, even the Rangers were starting to admit that this scene was looking suspicious. If they had gone skinny dipping, they should be back.

Speaker 31 If they had gone skinny dipping and got taken away or drowned, their bodies should be showing up. So they went to the home where David's truck was and processed it for fingerprints.

Speaker 31 They also started official searches where the car was found and along the water. A jogger was running when they saw a pile of clothing.

Speaker 31 As they approached, it became clear there was someone in that clothing.

Speaker 31 The bloated body of a young girl laying face down, shot once in the head, with her pants unbuttoned and her shirt pulled up to her neck.

Speaker 31 About 30 yards away from Robin is where they found David wearing only pants. He was tangled in tree roots and he had been shot once in the shoulder and once more in the head.

Speaker 31 Both families learned about the deaths of David and Robin on the news with horrible images to accompany descriptions of what happened to their loved ones.

Speaker 31 Now that investigators knew for sure this was a crime scene, they started to piece together what could have happened.

Speaker 31 From the injuries, they speculated that Robin was shot first and David tried to flee by climbing up the embankment.

Speaker 31 His killer likely shot him once in the shoulder to slow him down and then was able to catch up and shoot him again in the head to kill him.

Speaker 31 There was evidence that Robin had had sex before her death, but it's unknown if it was with David or with his attacker or with someone unknown.

Speaker 31 Because she was in the water so long, the DNA, at least at the time, wasn't useful. There was also evidence that she had been sodomized or had had anal sex the night that she was killed.

Speaker 31 Now, the autopsies in both of them showed that there were beans in their stomach, though neither one of them had had beans with any meal they ate with their families that night.

Speaker 31 So it's believed they could have either stopped at a Wendy's or a Taco Bell together before their death.

Speaker 31 It'd be great if there was like a witness who would come forward from a restaurant to say they saw them or interacted with them.

Speaker 31 If so, we might have more of a clue as to their movements that night, but no one claims to have seen them. We have no sightings of them at any restaurant.

Speaker 31 And after they each left their homes, the next thing we know is that they end up on Ragged Island. Police tried different theories on Versailles.

Speaker 31 David had been receiving death threats before the murder, so they checked into people in his life, even going through the guest book at his funeral, but that lead didn't go anywhere.

Speaker 31 Then they thought maybe the couple had just walked down to the water and encountered a killer, but that didn't make a lot of sense either. Why leave your shoes when it was so cold?

Speaker 31 And that area is like full with rocks and shells. Like it didn't make sense to walk down there barefoot.
And why, if you're going to, why leave your truck open with the keys inside?

Speaker 31 Some investigators think that maybe they were dropped into the water from a nearby bridge. But this is contested by other investigators who say there's no way that bridge is well lit, well traveled.

Speaker 31 There would have been way too much of a risk of being seen. And you'll see this a lot in this case.
Multiple agencies are involved.

Speaker 31 So there's all different agencies having different theories, all looking at the same thing, the same scene, and coming to different conclusions.

Speaker 31 There was one theory, though, that a lot of people got on board with for a while. Before this night, Robin had been approached by a low-level drug dealer at a party, and this guy's name was Mr.

Speaker 31 Washington. He wanted to hook up with Robin, but she had actually turned him down.

Speaker 31 And this, he said, really pissed him off because according to him, Robin was known for being promiscuous, which we knew. And this guy, in his mind, is like, who is she to make me the exception?

Speaker 31 Like, he, for whatever reason, felt like she owed it to him, which no one owes sex to anyone ever.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 31 But the investigators think it's a possibility that maybe Robin called him that night to buy weed.

Speaker 31 If her and David decided they were going to meet up and smoke weed, she knows this guy, obviously, like through acquaintances. And maybe when they met up, everything went wrong.

Speaker 2 Did they just think this because she had had this interaction with them or because this area was kind kind of known for drug deals and they were just kind of putting pieces of everything together.

Speaker 31 I think it's a little of both, but there was one big clue that was pointing to Washington. You see, he had a reputation for only having anal sex.
Didn't matter with who, men, women.

Speaker 31 So everything you mentioned combined with the fact that Robin had either been sodomized or had anal sex made him look even more suspicious.

Speaker 31 This lead felt like a really good one, but there was nothing putting Washington at the scene. They needed someone to turn on him, and they knew just who.

Speaker 31 Washington, you see, had this sidekick who always hung out with him. And this man had been actually raped by Washington before and he was scared to death of him.

Speaker 31 It took a long time, but they finally get this guy talking. But not long after he starts, he winds up dead after, quote, falling asleep on a railroad track.

Speaker 2 Wait, what?

Speaker 31 Yeah, I'm not sure if that's like a way you try to take your own life or if that's how someone shuts you up when you start talking.

Speaker 31 But the Washington lead died with that man, and police had to start looking at other options.

Speaker 31 And like in the case of Kathleen and Becky, whispers started about it being somebody with a badge, a real badge or a fake one.

Speaker 31 David's family said the only scenario that made sense to them would be if somebody pulled him over and he was complying with somebody he thought was of authority.

Speaker 31 There were some people who kind of fit this person in authority figure and they checked them out, but again, none that really fit the profile.

Speaker 31 There was another weird lead that came up kind of unexpectedly.

Speaker 31 This 28-year-old dishwasher with a record for forging checks put himself on police's radar by calling in a tip saying that he saw the kids that night get out of the car on their own, leave the door open, and then walk down the trail to the water.

Speaker 31 He said that at about 1.30 in the morning that night, he hears gunshots, so he decides to take off. Every time the authorities talked to him, his story changed.
And this guy was super fishy.

Speaker 31 I mean, sometimes he would like say he saw the kids with somebody, then the kids were alone, and then he was in a different place, and then he was like popping out of the bushes.

Speaker 31 Like none of it made sense. He had weird ties to guns as well.
And a handful of people think he could have been the guy. But again, there was no way to tie him to the case.

Speaker 31 And the last thing one of the investigators heard is that this suspect was deceased now.

Speaker 31 And this was the case over and over. Lead after lead would come in.
It would be vetted, seem really plausible.

Speaker 31 And investigators would get their hopes up just before having to start right back at the beginning. And right back at the beginning of this single case.

Speaker 31 Because at this point, it wasn't getting connected to Kathleen and Becky. Two couples, sure, but 20 miles apart, two very different methods of killing.
It was just a bad 12 months for the area.

Speaker 31 Had to be. They couldn't believe, didn't want to believe it was part of something more.

Speaker 31 But investigators were forced to when that very next spring, another couple near the parkway goes missing, and an all-too-familiar scene has the public very concerned.

Speaker 31 But I'll have to tell you about that next on Crime Junkie.

Speaker 31 If you want to see some of the pictures regarding this case, you can visit our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

Speaker 2 And be sure to follow us on social, at crimejunkiepod on Twitter, and at crimejunkiepodcast on Instagram.

Speaker 31 We'll be back with the second part of the Colonial Parkway murders.

Speaker 34 This episode of Crime Junkie was researched, written, and hosted by me with co-hosting by Britt Prewatt.

Speaker 34 All of our editing and sound production was done by David Flowers, and all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production.

Speaker 34 So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

Speaker 31 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

Speaker 2 And I'm Britt, and you sound like you're feeling better.

Speaker 1 Yes, I am back.

Speaker 31 And we left you hanging again, I know. But this was a story too big to tell in just one episode.
When we left off, there had been two sets of murders.

Speaker 31 Kathleen Thomas and Becky Dowski were found found with their throats slit in the back of Kathleen's Honda on the Colonial Parkway.

Speaker 31 Someone had attempted to push her Honda off the embankment and set fire to it, but the car got stuck in the bushes and the killer used diesel fuel instead of gasoline, which would not light with the matches that were left at the scene.

Speaker 31 Police couldn't connect the murders to anyone in the women's lives and they declared this an isolated incident.

Speaker 31 But less than a year later, another couple was killed just 20 miles from the parkway, Robin Edwards and David Knobling. The two had met the very same day they were murdered.

Speaker 31 No one knows exactly what the two were doing together that night, but a few days after David's truck was found and neither of them returned home, their bodies were found near the water.

Speaker 31 Robin shot once in the back of the head and David twice, appearing to have tried to flee.

Speaker 31 There were at least suspects in Robin and David's case, and with 20 miles between them and the first crime scene, investigators didn't initially connect the four victims.

Speaker 31 But a connection would become harder and harder to ignore come April of 1988 when another couple near the parkway goes missing, leaving only their vehicle behind.

Speaker 31 In a series of unfortunate events, much like the meeting of David and Robin, two more young kids had a chance meeting that would lead to them forever being linked.

Speaker 31 20-year-old Richard Keith Call, who just went by Keith, had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend in 1988.

Speaker 31 He was looking to get back out there when he asked out a pretty young girl he went to college with, 18-year-old Cassandra Lee Haley, who either went by Cassandra or sometimes Sandy.

Speaker 31 Cassandra had actually been secretly seeing somebody, but I'm not sure if it just wasn't that serious or if she was going out with another guy in an attempt to keep her other relationship under wraps.

Speaker 31 You see, she was actually dating an African-American young man who was one year younger than her.

Speaker 31 Nothing about this seems salacious to me or something you would need to hide, but it seems there was still some racial tension in Virginia back in the 80s because when her mom found out about their relationship, she had told Sandy or Cassandra to just be careful.

Speaker 31 All throughout high school, this young man whose name was Terry was the only boyfriend she ever had.

Speaker 31 And from what I read, I think she really cared for him, which is why I don't think her first date with Keith went well well at all.

Speaker 31 Keith and Sandy attended a party together in the University Square area, but everyone who was at that party said the two barely spoke to one another the whole night.

Speaker 31 Not that they had a fight or anything was weird or wrong, but they just spent the night talking to other people.

Speaker 31 So when they left that night around 1.30, their most likely destination would have been for Keith to drop Sandy back off at her house. But Sandy never made it home.
Her mother woke up around 2 a.m.

Speaker 31 and noticed her daughter hadn't arrived. She thought it was strange.
Usually, Sandy did such a good job communicating her plans with her family.

Speaker 31 If she was going to be gone for the night, she'd tell them. But she was 18.
She probably just forgot and it didn't really nag at her mom.

Speaker 31 Not the way something was nagging at Keith's ex-girlfriend anyway. Remember, they had just broken up a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 31 And so she said the night that he had gone out with Sandy, she had also gone out to a party. Sometime between 1.30 and 2 in the morning, she said she got this horrible sinking feeling in her stomach.

Speaker 31 She couldn't explain it, but it was so intense that she ended up leaving the party and going home. She thought it was just because she missed Keith so much.

Speaker 31 Maybe she could sleep it off, but it didn't work. That same night, Keith's brother Chris was actually driving home from a trip to Richmond.

Speaker 31 He was with a friend and they were riding down the Colonial Parkway sometime around 2.30 in the morning. And this is Sunday, April 10th now.
And that's when the strangest thing happened.

Speaker 31 Seemingly out of nowhere, a van pulls out of the woods and starts gaining on their car quickly.

Speaker 2 Totally normal. Right.

Speaker 31 Chris knew that the car was speeding. He'd actually gotten a ticket on the parkway before and he knew the speed limit was only 45.

Speaker 31 And he remembers making a comment to his friend that the van had to have been going at least 65 or 70. And this van is gaining on them.

Speaker 31 As they're driving, they both pass this car on the parkway that looks just like his brother's car, a red 1982 Toyota Celica.

Speaker 31 And after he passes the Toyota with the van just a short distance behind him and the van passes the Toyota, the van slows down. and does a U-turn to head back toward the car.

Speaker 31 And then the van never reappears in his rear view. He said at the time he passed it, the dome light was on, and he thought someone was likely in the car.
And he's no dummy.

Speaker 31 Everyone knows that the parkway is used for hooking up, and he thought someone was there hooking up. And heck, maybe even his own brother, but he's like not going to stop and say hello.

Speaker 31 That would be really awkward.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 31 Yeah. So a few short hours later, around 5 a.m., as morning starts to come, other drivers remember seeing the car parked on the parkway as well.
So 5 a.m., another car sees it at 6 a.m.

Speaker 31 By 7, another passerby sees the car, but this isn't just any motorist. This time, it's Keith's dad, and he knows his son's car.
What on earth would he be doing out here at 7 in the morning?

Speaker 31 So he's a dad. He doesn't feel awkward.
He actually does stop. He pulls into the turn off to check it out.

Speaker 31 When he gets out of the car, he notices that the driver's side door is slightly ajar and the seat was kind of folded forward a little. Now Keith's dad moves the seat back, takes in the scene.

Speaker 31 In the back, there's this gray jacket, some beer cans, and in the front seat, he sees Sandy's purse and his son's gold watch. There weren't any keys in sight.

Speaker 31 So although this scene seemed irresponsible, it didn't seem really alarming to him.

Speaker 31 He figured his son had been out late the night before with a girl and maybe the two were just out somewhere on the beach doing whatever it is teenagers or young adults do.

Speaker 2 Right, they just left their stuff there and kind of wandered off to fake out, hook up, whatever.

Speaker 1 Whatever, right.

Speaker 31 So, and plus his dad at this point is late for work. So Keith's an adult at like he's 20 at this time.
At least he knew where he was. So his dad sets off.

Speaker 31 Just an hour later, the car would be officially processed as a crime scene. But do you want to know what's really weird?

Speaker 2 What happened?

Speaker 31 When they officially logged the items in the car after Rangers had found it, there was more stuff in the car than when Keith's dad had found it.

Speaker 2 What? What else was in there?

Speaker 31 So, this time when Rangers officially say they found it, the keys were in the ignition. There were clothes in the front and back seat, almost all of Keith's clothes, some of Cassandra's clothes.

Speaker 31 The glove compartment is open, and none of that was like that when Keith's dad saw it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he specifically said the keys weren't anywhere to be seen.

Speaker 31 Right. And his dad even underwent hypnosis to see if maybe he was just misremembering, but he had the same exact memories.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. Does that mean that the killer came back?

Speaker 31 So that's the sensational version of this story and something that I've heard over and over or seen on at least like one-hour TV documentaries about this.

Speaker 31 But I think the real story is far less sensational and just a little more clumsy. The Park Rangers had actually come across the car before 7 a.m.
when Keith's dad drove by.

Speaker 31 I think they had the same thought that Keith's dad did. Oh, just these dumb kids leaving their car and their possessions.

Speaker 31 So maybe they took a bunch of stuff out thinking it would help them find out who the car belonged to.

Speaker 31 Or maybe they took the clothes thinking they were going to run into some naked kids on the beach and like they're going to need these.

Speaker 31 By the Rangers' own admission, they tried to put stuff back where they had found it once they realized this scene was something more.

Speaker 31 But in doing that, we have no real idea of what the scene actually looked like when it was first discovered, because by the time any real crime text got there, it had already been contaminated twice.

Speaker 31 Although Sandy's purse was there with her checkbook inside, her wallet was missing. This checkbook is what was able to lead the Rangers to her family to see if maybe she had come home.

Speaker 31 But of course, she hadn't. And Sandy's family knew something terrible had to have happened to her.

Speaker 31 Members of the family, along with the media, start to trickle onto the scene where the car was, and media started to broadcast this story over the radio.

Speaker 31 On the other side of one of those radios was one of the FBI agents who worked the Kathleen and Becky case. And he hears this broadcaster come over the radio.

Speaker 31 Two college students are missing after leaving their car abandoned. Park Rangers think the two went skinny dipping and possibly drowned.

Speaker 31 Immediately, this agent is like, no, no, they did not probably drown. He's baffled.
Why had no one called the FBI?

Speaker 31 The FBI was the one who was in in charge of the Kathleen and Becky scene, and this seemed so similar to that case. Why is he hearing about it on the radio?

Speaker 31 So this guy goes right into the office, pulls his team together, and goes out to the parkway to talk to the Rangers and try and work the scene.

Speaker 31 When the FBI got there, they said the Rangers were so rude, so defensive, and acted so odd. They thought they might have actually had something to do with it because of how weird they were being.

Speaker 31 And a lot like in the Kathleen Becky case where the wallet was taken out as if you were going to show someone your driver's license, this time Keith's glove box was open.

Speaker 2 You mean as if you were going for maybe your registration?

Speaker 31 Exactly. The FBI said later their behavior was just so weird.
They felt like, hey, we should all be on the same page. We should all want the same thing.

Speaker 31 Why are these Rangers being cagey and uncooperative?

Speaker 2 Do you think it was like a jurisdiction thing? I know we hear a lot of cases where local agencies don't want the FBI to come in and will withhold information from them and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Was it one of those situations?

Speaker 31 Oh, 100%. I'm sure that's exactly how they felt.
Like they were getting their toes stepped on. But also, like the Rangers got to take a little responsibility.

Speaker 31 The way the scene was handled was so sloppy. And the fact that no one on the Rangers team was connecting this to the other double murder that happened in the parkway, to me, is just like a flag.

Speaker 31 Like maybe you guys need help. You don't have the same resources that the FBI has.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I can also kind of see them wanting to cover it up because they did mess up a ton. They don't want the FBI to be like, dude, you guys, you guys screwed this up.

Speaker 31 Right. So, I mean, 100% they don't want that.
But also, again, that's what Mitt's making the FBI say, like, are you guys just like sloppy or did you have something to do with it?

Speaker 31 Is there a reason you don't want us coming in and taking a real look at it? Right. So, either way, the FBI takes over the case.

Speaker 31 Search dogs were brought in and used in the area to try and track down these kids' sense.

Speaker 31 Three different dogs were used. Three dogs all went the same route, straight to the water.

Speaker 31 So the handlers even take them out on boats because Preppet noses are so freaking magical that they can sometimes even smell stuff in the water. I just like, they're so great.
I can't.

Speaker 31 So all three dogs, they're out on the boats and all three of them pick the exact two same spots in the water. Two missing kids.
This feels like they're on to something.

Speaker 31 Based on where the dogs hit, the FBI brings in divers to search these two areas. And they come up with nothing.

Speaker 31 Weeks later, the body of a man was actually found in the water in about the same area. It was totally unrelated.
I think he had actually fallen or jumped off of a boat.

Speaker 31 So many people believe that is what the dogs were hitting on. And Keith and Sandy were likely never in the water to begin with.

Speaker 2 Wait, so now weeks have gone by and we still haven't found them, right?

Speaker 31 Not just weeks, Brett. To this day, Keith and Sandy have never been found.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 31 And this is what makes their case a little unusual. Despite the ground and water searches, there has been no trace of them.

Speaker 31 No one believes they just walked off naked, but no one has any kind of trail to follow them that might lead to their remains.

Speaker 31 The FBI's theory is that the two went to the parkway to drink and make out. They point to the empty beer cans and the clothing as proof of that.

Speaker 31 Then they think that someone used the ruse of authority to get them to try and give them their license or registration or whatever, and that they were marched off the scene somewhere else to be killed.

Speaker 2 So let's go back to the beer cans real quick. Were they for sure theirs? Were they ever tested or anything?

Speaker 31 I don't know this. So the FBI's theory is that they were drinking beer and making out.
So

Speaker 31 I have no real proof or I couldn't find any proof that the FBI actually did any any kind of testing on the beer cans, whether that's DNA or fingerprints.

Speaker 31 I have to assume at least maybe fingerprints because the kids aren't wearing gloves. So I would hope that they had done that.
I don't know if new testing is available to see if maybe,

Speaker 31 I mean, I think there were more than two cans. Maybe if there was anyone else.
I really don't know.

Speaker 2 And am I the only person who thinks it's a little bit weird that these two didn't talk to each other all night, but then suddenly decided to hook up?

Speaker 31 No. Okay.
Actually, this is something that gets brought up all the time.

Speaker 31 People say over and over, like, I don't think that that's why they were there because just like you said, they weren't talking to each other at the party.

Speaker 31 Everyone who's at the party says they weren't like flirting or again, not even talking to each other.

Speaker 31 So, everyone who is like either in their families or was at the party is like, I'm pretty sure he was just taking her home. Right.

Speaker 31 Also, Keith's ex-girlfriend said that she and Keith would never go to the parkway parkway to hook up. And Sandy's sister said that Sandy would have never gone there.
She hated the parkway.

Speaker 31 Okay, for argument's sake, let's say they did want to hook up. Why park there? It was so close to the roadway that even his own dad was able to recognize his car while just passing by.

Speaker 31 That is not privacy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's just like pulled over on the shoulder, right?

Speaker 31 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 31 A lot of people believe that they were driving somewhere, not even necessarily on the parkway, and got pulled over by somebody needing help, by somebody who seemed like an authority figure, and they could have either pulled over right there on the parkway or been somewhere completely different and had their car disposed of on the parkway.

Speaker 2 But what about all of their clothes?

Speaker 31 Well, some people say that this could have been one of the ways that their killer controlled them.

Speaker 31 You gotta remember, if we're talking about one person, it would be really hard to overtake two young, healthy people. The more vulnerable you can make them, the more control you would have.

Speaker 31 Like Sandy only had one boot found in the car. How hard would it be to run if you were wearing one shoe on and one shoe off? Like, I would imagine it would really throw you off.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And just for clarity's sake.

Speaker 2 The FBI have linked these cases to the other ones because of the similarities with the clothes and stuff like that, specifically with Robin and David's case, right?

Speaker 31 Actually, no. Well, at least not publicly.
The FBI is only in charge of two cases, the first one with Kathleen and Becky, and now this third case with Sandy and Keith.

Speaker 2 So they aren't involved with Robin and David's case at all?

Speaker 31 No, the state police are actually the ones who have the second case of Robin and David.

Speaker 31 So I think the FBI saw similarities between Kathleen and Becky and Keith and Sandy, but they were not not telling the public that there was a serial killer.

Speaker 2 I guess it makes sense. And the MOs are completely different.
Kathleen and Becky were both found in the car.

Speaker 2 The contents of the car were completely different. I can see why they wouldn't necessarily want to connect all of these.

Speaker 31 Well, yes, and but kind of no. The killer could have been evolving.
They're not that different. Like, yes, Kathleen and Becky's scene was a lot more violent.
They were still found.

Speaker 31 But if you remember, everything kind of went wrong in their case. The car got stuck.
The diesel fuel wouldn't ignite. The bodies were left in the car and so much potential evidence was left behind.

Speaker 31 I mean, even that plastic line that was found that Kathleen was strangled with is evidence that could have linked back to the killer. It was a really messy scene.

Speaker 31 So each time, I mean, if you look at these cases back to back, the killer is evolving. With Robin and David, they're found away from the car days later after being in the water.

Speaker 31 And evidence has been basically ruined and now in this case sandy and keith the bodies aren't found at all right they're outside of the car again and never found so the fbi has almost no leads to go on they tried everything to track down leads and i mean everything they found out that there were some russian satellites in the area that were taking pictures and it was a long shot but they thought maybe the satellite pictures caught something that night.

Speaker 31 So the FBI actually contacted the Russian government and they said, listen, we don't need to see anything else. We don't need to know why you're taking pictures.
We'll sign whatever you want.

Speaker 31 This isn't about governments or secrecy or spies. We just have a small window and we're trying to track down a killer.
Please let us see what you have.

Speaker 31 But of course, the Russian government refused. There was one kind of creepy lead that the FBI chased down that stood out to me.

Speaker 31 There is this guy driving around the parkway with an oversized truck and a vanity plate that says, eat them.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 31 Yeah, you heard me. Eat them.

Speaker 31 So investigators run down the plate and track down this guy. And the guy who owned it matches a description of a peeping Tom that had been reported in the area.

Speaker 31 The reports that came in of this stranger said that he would walk up on people as they were making out or hooking up.

Speaker 31 And there was one case of this peeping Tom walking up to a girl and a guy with long hair.

Speaker 31 And as they were kissing this guy comes up and is like are you girls having fun i don't know if that's how he sounds but like in my mind he's like real creepy

Speaker 31 so he's like are you girls having fun and then they turn around and this peeping tom realizes that it's not two girls it's a guy and a girl and so he backs off so this lead of course piques their interest because what if he was going around looking for two girls like in Kathleen and Becky's case.

Speaker 31 Yeah. So they look into this eat them guy who matches the description of this peeping Tom because if it's the same person, he's jumping to the top of their suspect list.

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Speaker 31 He lived in a trailer with his brother, who was also a suspect in another murder case, so getting sketchier. But the agents didn't really have anything on them.

Speaker 31 So they would just kind of do drive-bys and scope out the trailer, see what they were up to.

Speaker 31 And once when they do a drive-by, they see him washing the inside of his truck and cutting out the upholstery. Okay.
So they frantically try try to get a search warrant for that truck and trailer.

Speaker 31 Now they do get it, but they don't find anything in either the truck or the trailer that would connect this guy to the murders on the parkway.

Speaker 31 But he did have weapons and handcuffs and some pretty violent pornography.

Speaker 31 Police also found out that he was in the area the nights of some of the murders, and he fit the description of a waterman that they had profiled after the first killings.

Speaker 31 This guy made up multiple stories about the night of the murders, even though the investigators could put him in the area.

Speaker 31 Multiple agencies at the time thought that this guy looked good for it, but still, at the end of the day, there was no evidence and this guy ended up passing a polygraph, so he was let go.

Speaker 31 The FBI went back to looking at Rangers. They could easily pull someone over on the parkway and no one would even look twice or think it stood out.

Speaker 31 They pulled that same ranger again in the first case, Clyde Yee. But again, he passed another polygraph with no issues.

Speaker 31 But even though they couldn't pin it on a Ranger, they just couldn't shake the thoughts of those wallets being pulled out and the glove compartment being open.

Speaker 31 They kept thinking these kids were getting pulled over by someone.

Speaker 31 If it wasn't anyone in a real department, and they looked everywhere and said it wasn't, then it had to be somebody pretending to be affiliated with law enforcement.

Speaker 31 And there were some complaints at the time of people impersonating officers. Maybe that was their killer.

Speaker 31 There were these stories circulating in the community that were never fully confirmed, but supposedly there was this fake ranger with a blue light and an unmarked white car that would pull people over.

Speaker 31 And in one story, apparently he just looked at the person's license and told them to drive more slowly. And this sounds like a regular stop, but Rangers never use white unmarked cars.

Speaker 31 One woman even had a story that she got pulled over by this white unmarked car. And as she was parked, she got this weird feeling that overtook her that something was wrong.

Speaker 31 So she just drove off and nobody came after her. And that's how she knew that this guy wasn't legit.

Speaker 2 Be weird, be rude, girl.

Speaker 31 Right, 100%.

Speaker 2 Always. Great for her to get out of there.
But do we know that this is the killer? It seems like he's just like letting people go.

Speaker 31 Well, you know, I don't know. We're hearing these stories from maybe the people who got away.

Speaker 31 And I also don't know like the order of like when these stories happened if if this is our guy it could have been that he's doing this early on before he's ever killed anyone to see if he can get away with it can he look like a ranger can he get people to comply

Speaker 31 or it could be that this guy is pulling people over and looking for a specific kind of victim

Speaker 31 the fbi decided to try and take proactive measures just in case this impersonator was their guy they make an announcement to the public. Anyone pulling you over should be in uniform.

Speaker 31 And if you're stopped, let the police vehicle pull alongside you. Let them identify themselves before you actually roll down your window or get out of your car.

Speaker 2 And I would say that still holds true today.

Speaker 2 Plus, we now have cell phones, so you can call the police, verify a badge number, verify that there's an officer in the area, that this guy's legit.

Speaker 31 Oh, 100%. I think we even covered that on another case before.

Speaker 31 Like, there's nothing wrong, especially if you were like in a like desolate like area that's not well lit, you're not around other people.

Speaker 31 Nothing wrong with calling in and verifying that you're getting pulled over.

Speaker 31 They were never able to track down this phantom impersonator and every small lead they got, including psychics who said they felt Sandy is somewhere near a wooded park with a large clearing and barbed fencing, turned into another rabbit hole with no end in sight.

Speaker 31 Just like the cases before it, Keith and Sandy's case went cold. But this time, their families didn't even have the closure of knowing where their loved ones were.

Speaker 31 As seasons came and went that year in 1988 and turned into 1989, the community began to forget. Come September, there is little to no media attention about the cold cases.

Speaker 31 With the exception of the six families whose loved ones were missing or murdered, the public has moved on. Until another car carrying another couple shows up abandoned near the parkway.

Speaker 31 It's Labor Day weekend, 1989, when 18-year-old Anna Marie Phelps and 21-year-old Daniel Lauer pack up Daniel's car to make the trip from Amelia County to Virginia Beach.

Speaker 31 Virginia Beach is where Anna Maria lived with her boyfriend Clint, and Clint is actually Daniel's brother.

Speaker 31 Daniel had gone to the beach with his friend Joe Gotzi, Joe's wife, and their infant daughter for the holiday weekend.

Speaker 31 While Daniel's down there, he learns that his brother has hit a bit of a rough patch. He's lost his job, rent was hard to make, so the boys come up with this great idea.

Speaker 31 Daniel will move in with his brother. He can help with the rent, and this gives Daniel a fresh start too.
But he couldn't just stay.

Speaker 31 Like he needed to go home for one thing to get all of his stuff, and he also needed to drop off the godsies back at home. So that was the plan.

Speaker 31 He was going to go back to Amelia County and return the next day. Anna Maria, also being from the same area, decided that she would go with him just to keep him company.

Speaker 31 But then also, this would allow her to see her own family for a little bit. So they set off.

Speaker 31 Everyone gets dropped off at their respective homes and Daniel goes back to his to pack up all of his worldly possessions and collect the 800 bucks or so from his dad that he got for doing work for him.

Speaker 31 Daniel's mom gave him an extra electric blanket, because you know, moms.

Speaker 31 And within a few hours, he was ready to start his new life. Daniel picked up Anne Maria and the two left in his Chevy Nova at about 11.15 p.m.
on September 4th.

Speaker 31 It was a decent night that night, about 60 degrees, a little breezy, a little overcast. They should have arrived to Virginia Beach within just a couple of hours.
But 1.30 came and went, then 2.30.

Speaker 31 Clint started to grow nervous, and eventually he decided to get in his own car and look for them. Maybe he thought they had broken down somewhere along I-64 where they would have been traveling.

Speaker 31 So he drove a decent stretch of the road without seeing any sign of his brother's car. Clint decided to turn around just before a rest stop.

Speaker 31 What Clint didn't know, what he couldn't have known, is that that rest stop was where his brother's car was, pulled off an acceleration ramp, half on the road, half off, completely abandoned.

Speaker 31 When Clint arrives back home and they still aren't there, he phones his parents, who in turn phone the state police.

Speaker 31 A missing person's report is filed and comes into the office just as Daniel's Daniel's car was about to be towed. It had been found some hours earlier on the trucking side of the westbound rest stop.

Speaker 31 Like I mentioned, it was on the acceleration ramp, half on the road, half off, next to the exit and no parking sign, with the keys still in the ignition and the driver window rolled partly down.

Speaker 31 There was something else. Anna Maria had this marijuana roach clip with feathers on it that she always had with her.

Speaker 31 And this thing was clipped to the window, and it's not something she would ever have done. It was almost like a taunt, the police thought.
There were no signs of the kids, no sign of any struggle.

Speaker 31 They just vanished, poof, into thin air. Tracking dogs were brought in, but they couldn't detect the kids' scent coming anywhere from the vehicle.

Speaker 2 This is feeling a lot like the other cases. Maybe the car had just been abandoned there by someone else.

Speaker 31 Possibly. There were helicopters and ground searches for three days, but the kids weren't found.
When the car was processed, the state police said there were some items missing.

Speaker 31 Anna Maria's wallet with her ID and money, that $800 Daniel's dad had given him, and the blanket that he had gotten from his mom.

Speaker 2 Okay, at this point, it's the fourth couple. Please tell me they're connecting all the cases now.
Still not quite.

Speaker 31 So again, the state police has this one. They had the second case, but not the first and the third.

Speaker 31 And the state police actually came out and made a public statement that they believe this case was in no way linked to the others because of the proximity alone.

Speaker 31 So this one was a little farther away. It was about an hour's drive from the parkway.

Speaker 31 But even this statement though, they're saying it's not connected to the others, shows you that there's at least talk that the other three are connected.

Speaker 31 Everyone, I think all the public started to believe it. And even though the police and the FBI would never say serial killer, it's obviously something that they're thinking about.

Speaker 31 But the main reason they didn't connect this one was because, again, it was like an hour away from the parkway.

Speaker 2 I mean, killers can drive too, and it would make sense if he's already killed six people in the same place to move to maybe distance himself from it, you know?

Speaker 31 Yeah, I mean, an hour is not that far away, and everything about this just seems so familiar. So for almost a month, they weren't able to locate Daniel or Anna Maria.

Speaker 31 They didn't have any prime suspects and the leads were drying up quickly.

Speaker 31 But on October 21st, two turkey hunters were in a wooded area near a logging road just over one mile from the rest stop where the car was found when they came across some remains covered in the same brown electric blanket that Daniel's mom had given him the night he left.

Speaker 31 The two bodies were completely decomposed after being exposed to the elements for over six weeks. So there were very few ways to ID them or even determine a cause of death.

Speaker 31 It took two days to definitively ID Anna Maria with her dental records and a couple days more before they could get Daniels.

Speaker 31 The only wound found on either of the victims' skeletal remains was a singular cut made to one of Anna Maria's finger bones, indicating perhaps there was a knife involved in their deaths.

Speaker 31 The full remains were turned over to the Smithsonian to see if they could possibly come up with something more definitive or any more evidence, but those records are sealed.

Speaker 31 Other than the blanket, the only piece of physical evidence found around the bodies was a locket Anna Maria wore around her neck with pictures of her nephews in it.

Speaker 31 It was found 50 to 100 feet away from the bodies without the chain.

Speaker 31 And I think we should go back to the car for a second because now that the bodies are found and they prove to have no physical evidence, all police have is this car.

Speaker 31 Something I should point out is: I mentioned already that the car was found on the westbound side of the freeway. They would have been traveling east to go to Virginia Beach.

Speaker 31 So if they were gonna stop, logically, they should have stopped on the eastbound side of the rest stop.

Speaker 2 So that kind of plays into the theory that the killer abandoned the car, right? Right. They stop at the eastbound side, run into somebody there.

Speaker 2 Maybe they take them and then the killer comes back, moves their car to the other side, right?

Speaker 31 Maybe, but it seems like kind of risky, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 but it's a possibility, right?

Speaker 2 But there's also another option. Maybe they met them at the rest stop and forced them to go somewhere in their car.

Speaker 2 Then the killer ditched it.

Speaker 31 Okay, I have two problems with that theory. The first is that they tested the tires on Daniel's car and there was no dirt and no soil that matched the logging road where they were found off of.

Speaker 31 But again, for argument's sake, let's say that the killer still took the car with them in it, went to a second location, killed them, then used another car to take them to the burial site.

Speaker 31 So then he just wants to dump their car. So you're obviously not worried about it looking like they were the ones who abandoned it, or you would have dropped it off on the east side.

Speaker 31 So you just drop it off on the west side. Do you have your own car waiting there?

Speaker 31 Because that doesn't make sense because that would have meant that you parked on the west side, walked across the highway hoping maybe there would be two people you could overtake at a rest stop.

Speaker 31 Like that seems really unlikely.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, you're right. It does.

Speaker 31 So I think there are two viable options. Either one, there were two people who maybe came across them at the rest stop on the east side.
They took control of them.

Speaker 31 And one in Daniel's car, one in the killer's car. They drive off, do whatever they do, and then ditch Daniel's car and then take off together.
Or two,

Speaker 31 they were never stopped at a rest stop.

Speaker 31 And with the window rolled halfway down, they were pulled over somewhere and their car was just abandoned at a convenient place, which happened to be the westbound side of the highway.

Speaker 31 Daniel and Anna Maria were laid to rest, but there is no real rest for their families because the case is still unsolved. Depending on who you talk to, you'll hear different opinions.

Speaker 31 Some will say these were all horrible acts, but committed by completely different perpetrators, and the cases have no link to one another.

Speaker 31 A A private investigator named John Morris offered his services free of charge to reinvestigate the case, and that's the conclusion that he came to.

Speaker 31 He said, with Anna Maria and Daniel, he thought their friend Joe Gotzi had something to do with it. He was one of the few people who knew Daniel was coming into a chunk of money from his dad.

Speaker 31 It was one of the few cases where robberies seemed to have occurred. And he points to that blanket.
None of the other victims that were found were covered up.

Speaker 31 That's an act of remorse or of someone who, in a twisted way, cares for the victims because it's somebody that they know.

Speaker 31 The private investigator said Joe Godzi also had connections to a hunting club near the logging road where they were found. And that road wasn't just any kind of road.

Speaker 31 Apparently, it was pretty muddy and super easy for cars to get stuck back there. Whoever went back there likely knew the area.
They knew how to navigate it. They knew they could turn around.

Speaker 31 And the private investigator says the same thing about Robin and David's case. There's a clear suspect, that Washington guy.

Speaker 31 He says the bodies were never found in Sandy and Keith's case, making it so different from Kathleen and Becky's. So, in his mind, he says he can conclusively say that they're unrelated.

Speaker 31 But that's just one opinion. And the majority of opinions are a lot different.

Speaker 31 In the early 1990s, when this case was reinvestigated as a whole, looking at all four crime scenes, pulling together the FBI and the state police, they brought in a computer science expert to run the numbers.

Speaker 31 Double murders are super rare. Lover's lane type murders are super rare.

Speaker 31 What are the odds that four cases of double murders of young couples, or at least what would appear to be couples, would happen within a few years span in such close proximity?

Speaker 31 And the answer, the expert said, was, quote, you would have a five times greater chance of winning the Virginia lottery than finding these crimes are not related.

Speaker 31 If you look at the killings together, looking for a pattern, they all happened in the spring or the fall, all on weekends or holiday breaks.

Speaker 31 Could it have been, possibly, a college student or somebody affiliated with the university nearby?

Speaker 31 Because if you think about it, the murders only spanned over four years, the same time it takes to get the average person a degree. No students have ever been named as persons of interest.

Speaker 31 In fact, there are no named suspects to date for all of these like cases as a whole, if it's one person.

Speaker 31 All eight families are doing their best to keep their loved ones' stories alive and keep public interest until there's some resolution.

Speaker 31 Not too long ago, there was talk about using the new genealogical testing to possibly close these cases if there was any physical evidence that was still intact and usable.

Speaker 31 But the family hasn't gotten a firm answer from the FBI one way or another if this is going to be done.

Speaker 31 But what I would recommend to everybody is if you want updates on this case, I strongly recommend you follow the Facebook page run by Bill Thomas, Kathleen's brother.

Speaker 31 You just need to search colonial parkway murders on Facebook. You guys, we tried to stick to as much of the facts as we could in this two-parter, but these cases are rabbit holes.

Speaker 31 So for all of you who subscribe to our channel on Patreon, you'll see another full-length episode dropping in your feed tomorrow all about these cases and some of the crazy theories we couldn't get to on these main episodes.

Speaker 31 So, Crime Junkies, if you can't stop thinking about this case, you want to know all the theories, including the crazy ones, other murders, other serial killers this case might be connected to, check out our Patreon.

Speaker 31 You can find it by clicking on the word Patreon at the top of our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. And when you you sign up, you don't just get the Colonial Parkway bonus episode.

Speaker 31 You automatically get all of the bonus episodes we've been creating since July. It's hours and hours of content.

Speaker 31 And if you don't want to do Patreon, but you just want to learn more about this case, I highly recommend a book called A Special Kind of Evil: The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings.

Speaker 2 And don't forget, you can always follow us on social, on Twitter at CrimeJunkie Pod, and on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

Speaker 31 We will be back next week with a brand new episode.

Speaker 34 This episode of Crime Junkie was researched, written, and hosted by me with co-hosting by Britt Prewatt.

Speaker 34 All of our editing and sound production was done by David Flowers, and all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is is an audio Chuck production.

Speaker 34 So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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