UPDATE: The Colonial Parkway Murders
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Hi, crime junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers, and it is always a great day when I can bring you a case update. 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.

There has been a breakthrough in the infamous Colonial Parkway murders some 30 years later, thanks to DNA. 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, we're actually going to be attaching both parts to the end of this update.

I do ask that you please be kind. I was a new podcaster and apparently also sick for one of the episodes, so it's a real throwback. Plus, anything that has happened over the last five years won't be included in that, but it is still a good refresher. And either way, whether you re-listen or not, let me catch you up to speed for this new development. I'll give you a quick recap. So,

So back between 1986 and 1989, at least four couples were killed along the Colonial Parkway in southeast Virginia. And it left the investigators and the public to believe that they were all connected. 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.

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

Cassandra Haley and Richard Call's vehicle was found in 1988, but their bodies are still missing even to this day. And then finally, there was Anna Marie Phelps and Daniel Lauer, who were found in 1989. 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. 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? 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. 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.

Although Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. has been named, it is too late for him to serve his time behind bars because back in 2017, Wilmer died alone in his home at the age of 63. 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. And so this piqued investigators' interest.

See, it doesn't seem like they were on to him back then. But when he did finally become a suspect and they learned that he was ID'd back then with his DNA, that's when the Virginia State Police got an idea. Maybe they could just use that sample to compare against their evidence.

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 because, I mean, this guy had no felonies, no criminal record, hence why his DNA wasn't in a system like CODIS. But now, obviously, one of the biggest questions is, is he responsible for the other Colonial Parkway cases? Well, we don't know yet.

Virginia State Police spokesperson Corrine Geller said, quote, similarities in this series of double homicides that spanned a three-year period cannot be ignored. At this time, there's no forensic or physical evidence to link the Isle of Wight homicides to those other double murders. 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.

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. 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.

Teresa had also been sexually assaulted, allowing investigators to collect DNA, which ultimately got traced back to Wilmer. Although he has since passed, the families of the three victims at least have some answers. That Virginia State Police spokesperson, Corrine Geller, shared a statement on behalf of the Nobling and Edwards families. It says, quote,

For 36 years, our families have lived in a vacuum of the unknown. We have lived in the fear of worrying that a person capable of deliberately killing Robin and David could attack and kill another victim. Now we have a sense of relief and justice, knowing that he can no longer victimize another. His death will not allow us to seek out the answers to countless questions that have haunted us for so long, end quote.

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. 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., so that's why we're asking for the public's help, said Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corrine Geller. 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. He drove a distinctive blue 1966 Dodge Fargo pickup truck with

with the Virginia license plate EM-RAW, typically with a toolbox and clamming equipment in the back. 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. 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. So please, if any of his characteristics sound familiar, or if you knew him or had interactions with him, the FBI want to hear from you. You can call them at 1-800-CALL-FBI. That's 1-800-225-5324. 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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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers. And

And I'm Brit, but I don't think you're Ashley Flowers. You do not sound good, girl. Yeah, it's rough. So I am the voice of what once was a healthy Ashley Flowers. I'm struggling to make it through. And of course, I pick like the craziest case to get sick on because...

But as you know, we always do so much research, as much as we can on our cases. 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. 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. 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 victim's brothers, Bill Thomas. He was kind enough to kind of help guide me in my research, 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. ♪

The Colonial Parkway is a 23-mile stretch of road running through some of the most historic spots in Virginia. It's two lanes separated by a grassy median that's beautiful in the day, but really eerie come nightfall. Without streetlights for miles, the night gave cover to very secret acts, some more sinister in nature than others.

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.

When they arrive on scene, they saw a car hanging over the side at a 45 degree angle, just like reported. A couple of rangers tried to like shimmy down this bluff area following the path that the car had created. 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. When

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. 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.

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. 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.

Oh my God.

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. 27-year-old Kathleen Thomas was the woman found in the hatchback, and 21-year-old Rebecca Dowski was the woman in the backseat.

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

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.

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. So I grew up on a farm, and most of our vehicles used diesel fuel growing up. And one thing I do know is that it doesn't ignite like gasoline does. 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. Exactly. And that's why their bodies were incinerated. 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 attempt to cover up their crime. But the diesel fuel in particular is a clue into the identity of the killer that I think a lot about.

Did they use or come in contact with diesel fuel a lot without really knowing anything about it and how it worked? 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? Well, and I kind of wonder, too, did the killer bring the diesel with him as like part of the plan? 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?

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

Now, nothing inside the car seemed to point to a specific suspect. So the investigating agents hope that the autopsies will be able to reveal some clues as to why these women were attacked and who the perpetrator was. What the autopsy showed was heartbreaking.

Do we know what kind of food it was? I don't, and I'm not sure if the investigators knew either. 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.

It was found out that both women had actually been strangled before having their throats cut. Now, there was speculation from people about whether they were strangled from the front or strangled from behind. 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.

He was the second agent to ever take over the case and the article specifically says strangled from behind. 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. So they're strangled and then have their throats slit. That seems like overkill by a lot. I would agree. And using two types of method feels like a very passionate, hate-filled act.

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. 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.

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

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

and 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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

So that was the only defensive wound? Yeah, and that's something that's baffling about this case. 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. Absolutely no one can explain it. I hate asking this question, but I know our listeners are probably wondering too. Was there any evidence of sexual assault?

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.

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. 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. And there wasn't the same kind of open and accepting attitude towards gay and lesbian relationships that I like to believe exists today. Did either of their families know about the relationship? No.

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.

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. 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.

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. Kathleen was actually part of the second class ever of women to graduate from the Naval Academy. 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. And she'd been investigated in the

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. Like they're in a relationship together. Some people know about it, but they're not open. And as investigators are learning more about their victims, a picture of their last days is starting to come together. 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. 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. Now, the last time the investigators could pin down the locations of both girls was Thursday, October 9th.

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? Right. So on the 9th, their last scene on the Williams and Mary campus. We know that Becky was using a computer and Kathleen was seen with her at around 630. And around 630, 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. And I should note, this is Thursday, right before a fall break, and Becky had her car all packed up to go home. 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.

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. 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.

so the thought is maybe they ate there but it's not confirmed 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 going to leave for fall break and they weren't going to see each other for a while so

Out there on that dark stretch of road, they encountered someone. 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. 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. It was left out. Was anything taken from the wallet? Did it still have her money in it? Nothing was taken. Everything was taken.

everything was still in it. What does that mean? 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. 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?

for a police officer. 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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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. 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. 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? According to the FBI, he was a, quote, hot-tempered Muslim man who didn't believe in homosexuality. I can only imagine the racial stereotyping that went on in that conversation. Oh, I'm sure. But he luckily had an alibi. He was two hours away in D.C. around the time that they were thought to have gone missing. So he was removed from the suspect list, just like Kathleen's ex.

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

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. 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.

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

Additionally, the cuts made to both women's necks were made with an extremely sharp knife, not just your average switchblade or kitchen knife. This one would be similar to the kind used to gut fish. I was going to suggest a fillet knife. 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. He could either hate women or he could hate lesbians specifically.

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. When the X's 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 start looking at that wallet. 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. 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.

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

It was September 20th, 1987, when by a total fluke, 14-year-old Robin Edwards meets 20-year-old David Knobling. The two had no reason for meeting and likely never would have if all the stars didn't align just so that night. 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.

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

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. Now,

Now, David's brother would recall how strange it was to learn that Robin and David were together later that same night because they spent the whole night at the arcade. They didn't say a word to each other. 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.

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 pizza and watch a movie with his family. The two ended up leaving their homes again. 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.

No one questioned him on where he was going. And this is something that his family would later come to regret. 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 and when Robin's dad checked her room at 5 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. 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. 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. From a very young age, she was running away. She was sexually active. She even had a 21-year-old boyfriend by age 11.

Whoa. Yeah. 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. 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.

Maybe this is me trying to be naive, but do we know for sure that they were going to hook up? No, we definitely don't. And that's something like as I talk about the scene, we'll kind of...

later, 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. Okay. 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. So it's possible they went there to score weed and get high, or they could have gone there to hook up and

very unlikely that it was anything in between.

So Robin's dad notices she's gone at about 5, but her mom feels like something is wrong, and this doesn't feel like her normal runaway kind of situation. So by 7 a.m., her mom tries to report Robin missing to the police, but they won't let her. They say it's too soon, plus it's the weekend, there really wasn't anyone there to take the report. 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.

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

Time out. Skinny dipping? It's, what'd you say, September in Virginia? Yeah.

Do you have any idea what the weather was like that day? That night, it was actually 40 degrees. So their explanation made sense to nobody else. 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. 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. 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. 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 she didn't

That key in the ignition. 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. 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. 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. David's mom, Judy, called her ex-husband and told him everything that was happening. Now, the authorities were still unconvinced that something sinister had happened, so the police asked that they take David's truck to their house.

And that's when David's dad decided to do some searching himself. 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. 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. And it didn't take long to match those shoes to the missing persons report that Robin's mother had filed that Monday.

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

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. Now that investigators knew for sure this was a crime scene, they started to piece together what could have happened. From the injuries, they speculated that Robin was shot first and David tried to flee by climbing up the embankment. 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.

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

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. So it's believed they could have either stopped at a Wendy's or a Taco Bell together before their death. 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. If so, we might have more of a clue as to their movements that night, but no.

no one claims to have seen them we have no sightings of them at any restaurant 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 for size 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

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? 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? 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. There would have been way too much of a risk of being seen. And

And you'll see this a lot in this case. Multiple agencies are involved, so there's all different agencies having different theories, all looking at the same thing, the same scene, and coming to different conclusions. 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. Washington.

Right.

But the investigators think it's a possibility that maybe Robin called him that night to buy weed. If her and David decide they were going to meet up and smoke weed, she knows this guy, obviously like through acquaintances, and she knows this guy.

And maybe when they met up, everything went wrong. Did they just think this because she had had this interaction with them or because this area was kind of known for drug deals and they were just kind of putting pieces of everything together? 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. So everything you mentioned combined with the fact that Robin had either been sodomized or had anal sex is

made him look even more suspicious. 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. 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. 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. Wait, what? 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. But the Washington lead died with that man and police had to start looking at other options. 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? 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. 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.

There was another weird lead that came up kind of unexpectedly. 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. 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. 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. 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. And the last thing one of the investigators heard is that this suspect was deceased now.

And this was the case over and over. Lead after lead would come in. It would be vetted, seem really plausible, 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. 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. Had to be. They couldn't believe, didn't want to believe it was part of something more. 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.

But I'll have to tell you about that next on Crime Junkie. If you want to see some of the pictures regarding this case, you can visit our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on social, at Crime Junkie Pod on Twitter, and at Crime Junkie Podcast on Instagram. We'll be back with the second part of the Colonial Parkway Murders. ♪

This episode of Crime Junkie was researched, written, and hosted by me, with co-hosting by Britt Prewatt. 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 AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And you sound like you're feeling better. Yes, I am back. 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. Kathleen Thomas and Becky Dowski were found with their throats slit in the back of Kathleen's Honda on the Colonial Parkway.

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.

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

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

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. 20-year-old Richard Keith Call, who just went by Keith, had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend in 1988. 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. 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 attempt to keep her other relationship under wraps. You see,

She was actually dating an African-American young man who was one year younger than her. 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. All throughout high school, this young man whose name was Terry was the only boyfriend she ever had.

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

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. 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. 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. Not the way something was nagging at Keith's ex-girlfriend anyway.

Remember, they had just broken up a couple of weeks ago. 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. 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. 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. 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. Seemingly out of nowhere,

Totally normal. Right. 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. 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.

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. 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 again.

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. 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. That would be really awkward. Yeah.

Right.

and he knows his son's car. What on earth would he be doing out here at seven in the morning? So he's a dad, he doesn't feel awkward. He actually does stop. He pulls into the turnoff to check it out. 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. 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. So although the scene seemed irresponsible, it didn't seem really alarming to him. 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. Right. They just left their stuff there and kind of wandered off to make out, hook up, whatever. Whatever. Right. So, and plus his dad at this point is late for work. So he's an adult at,

Like, he's 20 at this time. At least he knew where he was. So his dad sets off. Just an hour later, the car would be officially processed as a crime scene.

But do you want to know what's really weird? What happened? 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. What? What else was in there? 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, everything.

The glove compartment is open, and none of that was like that when Keith's dad saw it. Yeah, he specifically said the keys weren't anywhere to be seen. Right, and his dad even underwent hypnosis to see if maybe he was just misremembering, but he had the same exact memories. Oh my god, does that mean that the killer came back? Yeah.

So that's the sensational version of this story and something that I've heard over and over or seen on these like one hour TV documentaries about this. 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. I think they had the same thought that Keith's dad did. Oh, just these dumb kids leaving their car and their possessions. And they're like,

So maybe they took a bunch of stuff out thinking it would help them find out who the car belonged to. 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. By the ranger's own admission, they tried to put stuff back.

where they had found it once they realized this scene was something more. 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. 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. But of course, she hadn't. And Sandy's family knew something terrible had to have happened to her. 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. 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. Two college students are missing after leaving their car abandoned. Park rangers think the two went skinny dipping and possibly drowned. Immediately, this agent is like, no, no, they did not probably drown. He's baffled. Why had no one called the FBI? The FBI was the one who was 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?

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. 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. 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. You mean as if you were going for maybe your registration? 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. Why are these rangers being cagey and uncooperative? 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 withhold information from them and stuff like that. Was it one of those situations? Yeah.

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

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 to like the FBI to be like, dude, you guys, you guys screwed this up. Right. So, I mean, 100% they don't want that. But also, again, that's what makes making the FBI say like, are you guys just like sloppy or did you have something to do with it? 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. Search dogs were brought in and used in the area to try and track down these kids' scents.

Three different dogs were used. Three dogs all went the same route, straight to the water. So the handlers even take them out on boats because preppinoses are so freaking magical that they can sometimes even smell stuff in the water. I just, like, they're so great. So all three dogs are 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 onto something. Based on where the dogs hit, the FBI brings in divers to search these two areas and they come up with nothing.

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. 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. Wait, so now weeks have gone by and we still haven't found them, right? Not just weeks, Britt. To this day.

Keith and Sandy have never been found. And this is what makes their case a little unusual. Despite the ground and water searches, there has been no trace of them. 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.

So let's go back to the beer cans real quick.

Were they for sure theirs? Were they ever tested or anything? I don't know this. So the FBI's theory is that they were drinking beer and making out. So I have no real proof or I couldn't find any proof that the FBI actually did any kind of testing on the beer cans, whether that's DNA or fingerprints. I have to assume at least maybe fingerprints because, you know, the kids aren't wearing gloves anymore.

So I would hope that they had done that. I don't know if new testing is available to see if maybe, I mean, I think there were more than two cans. Maybe if there was anyone else, I really don't know. 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? No. Okay. Actually, this is something that gets brought up

up all the time. 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. Everyone who's at the party says they weren't like flirting or again, not even talking to each other. So everyone who is like either in their families or was at the party is like, I'm

I'm pretty sure he was just taking her home. Right. Also, Keith's ex-girlfriend said that she and Keith would never go to the parkway to hook up. And Sandy's sister said that Sandy would have never gone there. She hated the parkway. 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. That is not privacy. Yeah, that's just like pulled over on the shoulder, right? Yeah, exactly. 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. But what about all of their clothes? Well, some people say that this could have been one of the ways that their killer controlled them. You've got to 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. 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. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And just for clarity's sake, 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?

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. So they aren't involved with Robin and David's case at all? No, the state police are actually the ones who have the second case of Robin and David.

So I think the FBI saw similarities between Kathleen and Becky and Keith and Sandy, but they were not telling the public that there was a serial killer. I guess it makes sense. And the MOs are completely different. Kathy and Becky were both found in the car.

the contents of the car were completely different. I can see why they wouldn't necessarily want to connect all of these. Well, yes, 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.

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. 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. 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 and evidence has been basically ruined. And now in this case, Sandy and Keith, the bodies aren't found at all. 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. 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. 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. But of course, the Russian government refused.

There was one kind of creepy lead that the FBI chased down that stood out to me. There is this guy driving around the parkway with an oversized truck and a vanity plate that says, eat them. I'm sorry, what? Yeah, you heard me. Eat them. 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.

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

And there was one case of this peeping Tom walking up to a girl and a guy with long hair. 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. 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? 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. eBay Motors is here for the ride with some elbow grease and a whole lot of love.

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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. So they would just kind of do drive-bys and scope out the trailer, see what they were up to. 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 to get a search warrant for that truck and trailer. Okay.

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

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

They pulled that same ranger again in the first case, Clyde Yee. But again, he passed another polygraph with no issues. 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. They kept thinking these kids were getting pulled over by someone. 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. And there were some complaints at the time of people impersonating officers. Maybe that was their killer. 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. 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. One woman even had a story that she got pulled over by this white unmarked car.

car and as she was parked she got this weird feeling that overtook her that something was wrong so she just drove off.

And nobody came after her. And that's how she knew that this guy wasn't legit. Be weird. Be rude, girl. Right. 100%. Always. Great for her to get out there. But do we know that this is the killer? It seems like he's just like letting people go. Well, you know, I don't know. We're hearing these stories from maybe the people who got away. And I also don't know like the order of like when these stories happened. 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? Or it could be that this guy is pulling people over and looking for a specific kind of victim.

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. 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. And I would say that still holds true today. Yeah.

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. Oh, 100%. I think we even covered that on another case before. 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. Nothing wrong with calling in and verifying that you're getting pulled over.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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. Virginia Beach is where Anna Maria lived with her boyfriend, Clint, and Clint is actually Daniel's brother. Daniel had gone to the beach with his friend Joe Godsey, Joe's wife, and their infant daughter for the holiday weekend.

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. 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. Like he needed to go home for one thing to get all this stuff. And he also needed to drop off the godsies back at home.

So that was the plan. 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. But then also this would allow her to see her own family for a little bit. So they set off. 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.

Daniel's mom gave him an extra electric blanket because, you know, moms. And within a few hours, he was ready to start his new life. Daniel picked up Ann Maria and the two left in his Chevy Nova at about 11.15 p.m. on September 4th.

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. 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. 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. 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.

When Clint arrives back home and they still aren't there, he phones his parents, who in turn phone the state police. A missing persons report is filed and comes into the office just as Daniel's car was about to be towed. It had been found some hours earlier on the trucking side of the westbound rest stop.

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.

There was something else. Anna Maria had this marijuana roach clip with feathers on it that she always had with her. 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. They just vanished, poof, into thin air.

Tracking dogs were brought in, but they couldn't detect the kid's scent coming anywhere from the vehicle. This is feeling a lot like the other cases. Maybe the car had just been abandoned there by someone else. 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.

Okay, at this point, it's the fourth couple. Please tell me they're connecting all the cases now. Still.

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

So this one was a little farther away. It was about an hour's drive from the parkway. 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. 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. But the main reason they didn't connect this one was because, again, it was like an hour away from the parkway.

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

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. It took two days to definitively ID Anna Maria with her dental records and a couple days more before they could get Daniel's.

The only wound found on either of the victim's 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.

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

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.

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. So if they were going to stop, logically, they should have stopped on the eastbound side of the rest stop. 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,

Maybe they take them and then the killer comes back, moves their car to the other side, right? Maybe, but it seems like kind of risky, right? Yeah, but it's a possibility, right? But there's also another option. Maybe they met them at the rest stop and forced them to go somewhere in their car. Then the killer ditched it.

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.

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

Like that seems really unlikely. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It does. 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. 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, they were never stopped at a rest stop.

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

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. He said with Anna Maria and Daniel, he thought their friend Joe Godsey 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. It was one of the few cases where robbery seemed to have occurred. And he points to that blanket. None of the other victims that were found were covered up.

That's an act of remorse or of someone who in a twisted way cares for the victims and

Because it's somebody that they know. The private investigator said Joe Godsey 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. 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. And the private investigator says the same thing about Robin and David's case. There's a clear suspect, that Washington guy.

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

Double murders are super rare. Lovers lane type murders are super rare. 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 year span in such close proximity?

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. 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. Could it have been possibly murder?

a college student or somebody affiliated with the university nearby. 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. In fact, there are no named suspects to date for all of these cases as a whole, if it's one person.

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

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

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.

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. You can find it by clicking on the word Patreon at the top of our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And when you sign up, you don't just get the Colonial Parkway bonus episode. You automatically get all of the bonus episodes we've been creating since July. It's hours and hours of content. And if you want to know more,

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. And don't forget, you can always follow us on social. On Twitter at Crime Junkie Pod and on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We will be back next week with a brand new episode.

This episode of Crime Junkie was researched, written, and hosted by me with co-hosting by Britt Prewatt. 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 AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?