From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer, all mission controlled decant. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Heads up, fellow conspiracy realists. Tonight's episode explores at times graphic depictions of violence, murder, and assault. As such, this may not be appropriate for all listeners. We want to specifically thank Lorie Dollar who reached out some time ago to contact us about this story. Let's
get into it. Here are the facts. What is the Colonial Parkway? Have you guys? We talked about this off air. I think a couple of us drove through it in times gone by. But beautiful piece of land.
Yeah, it's in Virginia. According to the National Park Service. This is gorgeous and it has quite a bit of a history to it. Right connects some old towns.
It does it does the technical or the real name, the name it wears at home is way less interesting. State Route nine zero zero zero three. It's a twenty three mile stretch of road that goes in kind of a horizontal arc, linking, as you said, Matt, the historic Triangle of Virginia that would be Yorktown most famous from Hamilton, Williamsburg and Jamestown.
It's pretty cool. Again. I'm going off mostly information that's on that official you know, the official park Service website, but it's got let's say, let's say this, the reason why people seem to love it is because of that history and because it is such a scenic travel by foot kind of road or travel you know, you could drive it, but you can travel by foot, you can travel by bike, travel in other ways that if you're just there, even though you're kind of couched amidst a
bunch of city area, it does feel like maybe you're not in the city anymore.
It's picturesque, you know, and that doesn't happen all the time with big conurbations like here in Atlanta and our fair metropolis. We're all quite fortunate, except for Paul. We're all quite fortunate to see things like Doll's Head Trail, you know, or Sweet water. You can be in the midst of the city and then surround it by greenery, and that just doesn't happen everywhere, but it happens here on the Colonial Parkway. Yeah.
Boys, I can open my backyard, Open up to my backyard now, and I just see forest.
Are you seeing d what kind of Yeah?
All kinds of deer kyoks? We got it all back here. A black bear?
You got? You got a bear situation? Yeah, all right, Well, drop your pants, exhibit dominance just so it.
Knows, just like whip it back and oh wait, no, wait, what are we talking about?
Okay, to be clear, everyone, when you see a bear, regardless of the species, please know you cannot PvP it. It's not a vangalou and you also should not show it you're junk.
Are you sure? All right? I'll take your word.
I'm not a bear expert. Also, also, Noel, you have a you have a bit of a silence there, are you? Are you thinking back to times you fought a bear?
Oh my gosh, how could I forget those? The bear times? I was once a bit of a grizzly man askue figure. Thankfully I did not go the way of Timothy treadwell and I am with you today to podcast, but it was dicey there for a while.
Guys, we're glad you're here. Man you can't and we're glet you know, this stretch of road, this Colonial Parkway, calls to mind the car stuff road trip we mentioned occasionally where we took these historic parkways throughout different areas of the US, and it's entirely at this point for tourism. You know, the Colonial Parkway is not like the typical highway you might think of. It's not inundated with billboards. There's not a ton of strip malls and chain restaurants.
There aren't tolls, Semi trucks aren't allowed there. The speed limit's pretty low as well. So if you're in a hurry driving from point A to point Z, this is not for you. But if you are there at the right time of year and you like to kick back, touch grass, as people say, and check out some stunning views, then you take the Colonial Parkway.
Reach out and touch grass. That's the way. That's the way I like to think about it.
You're personal theskew.
Yeah, but it's uh, that's really good, bet.
Uh.
It is a Sunday drive kind of thing right back in the good old days. It's a wonderful Sunday drive. Which is kind of weird, guys, because this kind of thing, while picturesque, while beautiful in so many ways, it also there's kind of a dark side to something like this.
Oh yeah, in more ways than one. No construction means no light pollution means uh, when it gets dark out there, it gets start. There aren't even street lights whatsoever for very long stretches of this, and not even purple ones, not even purple or blue ones, right or whatever they are.
I trust you, guys, you'll tell me. But but there are also a ton of like you know, if you've ever been on a on a road in the US and a rural area, especially around mountains, you might see this thing where it says scenic overlook and there's a little pull off, like a little ovular or half of a circle kind of thing where you can just park your car for a minute, get your photographs, breathe in, smell the air, enjoy yourself. And this place is meant
to do that. It's purpose built for it. Since the first idea came around in the nineteen thirties, And what do we think when we hear the idea isolated places where cars can pull off, you can take a brief stop and enjoy the view. We all know people, so if you know people, you're probably not surprised. This parkway has also been for decades and decades even now it's a top tier lover's lane. Oh, teenagers and young adults.
Hmmm, a really good spot to grab a pint of ice cream and enjoy it by yourself in your little face. Oh oh yeah, I can do that too.
Such a good boy, Matt.
Only you you go up to lovers laying alone, just enjoy a nice pint.
Oh, Ben and Jerry's. Oh that makes it more suspicious.
But there is a little zodiac killer is man. I'm not gonna lie.
Sorry, it's a.
Shame ice cream eating session and you're doing it alone in nature as intended.
I'm sorry, officer, but my family can never learn about this. Butter Pecat you never know, so okay. So for decades this parkway was a known hook up location. The surrounding communities accepted this barely a secret. If you're a local, you know about it, and there wasn't much wrong with it. It's the kind of situation where it's peak Americana. Law enforcement might roll up and they might bust some kids out too late, you know, like to the earlier point.
They might be getting to a quick I won't say third base, but they might be playing shortstop, you know, in the front of the back seat. And then law enforcement will probably say, all right, if you're not drinking, you're not doing drugs, you guys, get out of here. I'm going to tell your parents, you know, go home, let the lesson be learned. But if we fast forward a few decades, what we see is the same isolation that made this perfect for young adults making out and
tourists hunting those amazing views. It also made it a perfect hunting ground for predators. And this is the story of the Colonial Parkway murders. Here's where it gets crazy. So what happened? What happened?
Well, we're not talking about predators like bears and you know, a cougar or two or something like that.
None of my grizzly skills would have come in handy at all.
No, we're talking about the most dangerous game. We're talking about humans hunting humans front and this is this is
really interesting, y'all. That it's a specific timeline, right, only a couple of years, what is it eighty six to eighty nine, three years where it appears that someone was hunting there and they had several I ben when I was looking, I found four couple or four couples I guess, or four individual instances that are confirmed, and then I was seeing on lists maybe a fifth one, but it wasn't connected to the parkway.
Yeah, And it's strange because even now in twenty twenty four, mid February, as we record, law enforcement will tell you there is no hard forensic evidence linking the groups of murders that are collectively called the Colonial Parkway murders. I mean, we do know these did not seem to be unrelated or one off situations. The mo was just too similar,
too close. The authorities and the public alike. While they have not officially called these all connected in terms of what they're looking for in investigations, they are apply treating them as such. They just can't rule out the possibility. In each event, there's a couple usually pretty young, at least one case of very disturbing age discrepancy, but young, and they're sitting in a vehicle somewhere on or near Colonial Parkway, including the actual interstate that bisects it, the
I sixty four. So they're murdered in different ways, stabbing, gunfire, strangulation, one potential victim probably drowning. There's never any evidence of burglary, and there's often but not always, no evidence of sexual assaults. So this might call to mind things like the Son of Sam murders. You know, the guy walks up to the car discharges a firearm.
In the ones where there is sexual assault that appears to have taken place. In what I've seen, Ben is that it is the female victim that was assaulted. Male victim often just killed, which does begin to lead you down the pathway of a male killer here in this instance.
Right, and the demographics we know about serial murderers do again show us that overwhelmingly serial predators who are apprehended are proven to commit homicides are going to be male. Please listen to that sentence closely, folks, because the big caveat is we only know about the ones who are caught. But yeah, like you're saying, the killer or killers also drove the victims' vehicles away from the site of the homicides in every case. That's the big imo. Yeah.
Yeah, so there's lots of wonder about we don't have to get into right now, but just that that feels like a very sophisticated move, right, because the moment, if you are a killer and you come across a couple, let's say that is making use of the Colonial Parkway, as we were saying, it is used in the past
as a makeout spot. You off would probably encounter them in their vehicle oftentimes or as we saw sometimes down we'll talk about it, but down by the water, right, which is another possibility where they're even more isolated moving that vehicle to slow down the discovery of those bodies. I think that's maybe one of the reasons why it feels like a more sophisticated serial killer than just random acts of violence. I think that the car thing is a big deal.
Premeditation, familiarity with the local geography, also not panicking, yeah, the part of the murderer. Yeah, it's there are a lot of disturbing puzzle pieces here. We also know that at this point the bodies of three couples have been recovered. There is one case generally grouped with the murders wherein a couple has disappeared, they have not been found to this state, no official confirmation of death, but the vast majority of people you speak with will believe that this
disappeared couple has also been murdered. Their bodies are just somewhere out in the marsh yet to be found, or maybe somewhere there in a river. We already see that there are a couple of wrinkles. There are additional homicides that have been tentatively linked to the four proven cases, and again the bedeviling thing law enforcement to this day says,
we're investigating these things. We are aware of their commonalities or appearing commonalities, but we have no hard forensic evidence linking these So maybe we take a break for a word from our sponsors. When we return, let's dig in. Let's look at the timeline, and you'll see why this is such a such a dilemma and an ongoing case. Even more than three decades later.
And we've returned, and we've gone over the big picture, let's start to look at individual cases, and Ben, I think we start with Rebecca and Kathy. So it's Rebecca Dawski and Kathy Thomas and This occurred on October twelfth, nineteen eighty six.
Yeah, they're on October twelfth, nineteen eighty six. A jogger is just going around their usual exercise and they clock something incredibly unusual. It's a white nineteen eighty Honda Civic and it looks like somebody was driving and then maybe swerve to avoid an animal or maybe just just had a misstep on the wheel. They are crashed in a Civic down an embankment at what is called the Cheatham Annex Overlook that's about seven miles or so east of Williamsburg.
And this car I think primarily stands out to the eye because of the white paint job. It's also just a few feet, like a very disturbing number of feet from dropping fifteen feet and plummeting into the York River. So if it's an accident, they had a close call.
Oh yeah, we really close call. Let's take ourselves just really quickly into the mind of somebody who may have tried to crash that car and hide it, especially if we're talking about the darkness that existed on the Colonial Parkway when the attack likely occurred at night. Maybe the person thought that vehicle was sufficiently hidden and nobody would see it. I think the color, as you said, Ben, I think the color and just being that close to
the embankment. I don't know. I feel like a person never wanted that vehicle to be discovered, but there were just factors that they didn't they didn't think about. I agree, and I think this is something that's going to come into play later as we go down the line about what this if it was one person, what they learned, and the way they put those lessons into.
Action, and now it evolves, right. I mean that's a question too, like what would you do if you are a jogger and you see a car that appears to have crashed. It's down a steep embankment, so it's going to take you a while to get there. You would probably contact the authorities. That's what this person did. A highway patrolman goes there, finds this white hat, A civic looks inside and finds the bodies of Kathleen Mary and Thomas Kathy to her friends and Rebecca Ann Dawski Becky
to her friends. These two, by the way, were in a romance antic relationship at the time, but they're not alive. When the authorities find them. Dawski is in the backseat and Thomas's body. For your familiar folks with a nineteen eighty Honda Civic, it's the hatchback. So Thomas's body is unceremoniously stuffed in the hatchback.
Gosh, what a undignified way to go, shoved in the hatchback of a nineteen eighty Honda Civic. I'm making light that this is very gruesome stuff. And the autopsy showed further grizzly details, including rope burns about the neck and wrists of both of the bodies, which were looked at as some telltale signs of strangulation. In addition, trigger warning here for folks that maybe are averse to cutting, like myself, their throats had been slashed as well, quite deeply, in fact,
so deeply that both bodies were nearly decapitated. That is just what a brutal detail. Strangled and slashed, it doesn't It just leads one to really start to think about the kind of pathology I guess of the assailants. You know, this is someone that this was not just a move of convenience or a move to make sure that they were dead. This was someone that had an aggressive, you know, streak a mile wide, not this Just strangulation alone wouldn't
indicate such. But to the investigators, all these details added up to the idea that the murderer's original plan could have possibly been interrupted. The bodies had also been doused in diesel, but not yet set on fire. So it seems as though something, you know, a wrench was thrown into the works here and there was a bit of panic that.
Sets perhaps a reasonable or not reasonable I would say, but logic set in the idea that igniting a car fire would draw attention much more quickly.
Right. Yeah. But the other thing that we know is that this killer, whoever they were, left behind fingerprints and not like they were wearing gloves when they were carrying out the murders, and then they took the gloves off and the accident left a fingerprint. No, the car, the back of the car at where the victims were. This car was covered in fingerprints, which again psychologically means dousing the car setting on fire would get rid of that evidence, right,
But it didn't happen for one reason or another. My mind takes me to whatever was happening was interrupted after like after the diesel has already been poured, after they've already been killed, they are where they are. This person was going to just set the car on fire, but then somebody's driving by got spooked and then decided to just drive it where they drove it.
There's also the potential for a tight timeline on the predator's side, which is needing to be somewhere so as to not arouse suspicion right, leveraging the time gap such that you have an alibi. Right. It works again in pre cell phone era, so there's you know, one of the other questions is why not push it the extra few feet into the river right on that embankment. There
are there are questions. It does seem like it does seem like early work, and it does seem as though the killer was indecisive in terms of what their security would be post event. But the fingerprints are interesting too, because they are all over the inside the outside of the car, their full fingerprints. They're what are called latent or partial prints as well. No signs of a robbery. Both victims have their person, they're intact, both victims are
fully clothed. Authorities find no sign of sexual assault. But there is one vital clue. I think it's huge for what we're going to see in the future. One of the victims, Thomas, managed to fight back to a pretty impressive degree, and the body was holding a clump of hair, presumably from her murderer.
Yep, that's Kathy Thomas, by the way. And let's just another quick thing if you're an investigator, this is the same sex couple in nineteen eighty six. So when you start to think about killer's motives, maybe that's something that factors in right weight, I have to Yeah, maybe this is a hate creme of some sort. Maybe that's the reason why this couple was targeted. Until a year later, another couple is targeted, and it seems to be a different set of circumstances and yet very similar.
And still some of that anger in the murdering. Right, this is not a surgical operation, right, it doesn't seem to be such, and there's still un answered questions. So, like you said, Matt, fast forward a year later we meet David Knobling and Robin Edwards. It's September twenty First, we'll go to the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge close to Smithfield. Any other day, it's a beautiful place.
September twenty first, nineteen eighty seven, a patrolman at the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge, which is pretty close to Smithfield, finds a black Ford Ranger in the parking area and the engine, the wipers, and the radio are all still running. This is an eerie scene. Some pieces of clothing are found inside. Both doors are open, the driver's window is partially rolled down. The car is identified as belonging to an individual named David Lee Nobling, a salesman, and his
wallet is discovered intact in the car. Authorities rule out, as in the other case, robbery. Then two days later, on September twenty third, nineteen eighty seven, Nobling's body washes up on the shore along with an additional body belonging to a fourteen year old by the name of Robin Margaret Edwards. The tide carried them onto the shore of the kind of beach area of this refuse his wildlife refuge.
The cadavers were about one hundred feet apart, both showing signs of fatal gunshot wounds execution style for Nobling in the back of the head, Edwards one in the head and one in the shoulder that likely would not have been the fatal blow. Both were clothed partially, and it appeared as though the water was not responsible for removing these items of clothes. Let me know, the water can be pretty rough and you know there's a lot of push and pull, and you know things can get removed
because of this. But the investigators did not believe that was the case here.
Yeah, and the story already astute listeners, you see, this story is already pretty disturbing without an active murderer. Think of those ages, Noel said. The salesman in this case is twenty years old. The body discovered with him was that of a fourteen year old child. The child Edwards, her jeens are unfastened, her bras positioned around her neck. Originally, investigators making some of the assumptions of the time are not sure whether sexual assault took place. They are presuming
Knobling Edwards had a sexual relationship. So to them, they're thinking, well, if this person already had a sexual encounter, does that mean that they may have been assaulted and we won't be able to tell due to the degradation of the bodies, et cetera. Et cetera. Later, they would conclude that Edwards had indeed been sexually assaulted by someone who was not Nobling or Noppling. The pair had last been seen on September ninth, Edwards snuck out of her family home to
meet Noppling at an arcade. And this is not If you look at the map, you'll see I said it was close to Smithfield, it's closer to Carrollton, and it's right on the edge of the James River across from Newport News. And this means the bodies are not technically found on the Colonial Parkway. But authorities don't exist in a vacuum. They're well aware of the two women who were killed last year, and they're saying both of these
murders occur in known Lover's Lane areas. And these two locations, by the way, are a scant half hour from each other via car.
Yeah, if you're if you're going across that one bridge, I was linking to that bend because it is really it is weirdly close, especially with the James River as the connector. Like if you could just draw a straight line, it's pretty dang close. I can see why it's connected.
And if you were familiar with all the snaking waterways and the non paved roads in the area, then you would have various methods of entering or leaving the.
Situation, like if you had a fishing boat or.
Something, perhaps yeah, yeah, perhaps, and then okay, so no public leads yet everything. Then these folks are doing good police work. Everything they're finding it's a dead end, it's a box canyon.
One more thing just to think about this when considering the gunshot wounds to these victims, execution style to the back of the head, to me, that speaks of the first shot that was fired to take out the mail of the two people that are standing there, or that you encounter. The shot to the head and shoulder to me speaks of someone probably trying to run away or a skree.
And then the driver's window partially rolled down is also perhaps not provable, but perhaps indicative of impersonation of a law officer exactly to get compliance, open the car door, get.
Out of the car, sir, on a btk ruse thing.
And so authorities are well aware something's happening. Fast forward less than a year this time, perhaps students of serial murderers will note this could be indicative of an escalating pattern. This is where we meet Cassandra Haley and Richard Cole.
On April tenth, nineteen eighty eight, authorities turned up a nineteen eighty two red Toyota celica on the York River overlook in Yorktown, and it's identified as belonging to a student by the name of Richard Keith Call and the very same day he and another student named Cassandra Lee Hayley are reported missing, twenty and eighteen years old, respectively. The couple was last seen at a party late in the night around one thirty am on April the tenth.
Returning back to the car, the keys were on the driver's seat, glasses and a watch remained on the dash. Pretty Much all of Cal's clothing is in the back of his car, along with some of Haley's, and the investigation would later prove that they were the very same clothes the couple were wearing earlier to the party. So, with the help of some police dogs, authorities tracked the couple's sense to the shoreline of the York River, and at first, perhaps with some validity, they assumed the couple
decided to go on a night swim and unfortunately drowned. Theoretically, it could certainly happen, Ben, wouldn't you say, I mean, you know, people are inebriated, not maybe at their at their sharpest, and conditions are perhaps more aggressive than they realize. There's a maybe a perhaps a current of some sort, you know, I mean, it's certainly a plausible scenario.
Yeah, because this goes out into the bay, and in comparison with the earlier murder from less than a year before, if you look at the area, you'll see that You'll see that there's like a study of a peninsula in the middle, and there are rivers to either side of it. This is on the other side of that middle peninsula to the to the previous murder. So it's clearly in the same area. And and you're absolutely right, nol it is regrettably plausible possible for people to simply drown while inebriate.
It's it's something that we looked at in our previous episode on the allegation of the Smiley Face killer. If you remember that one, right, all those college students, mostly male, who may have accidentally drowned or may have been murdered.
I'm looking at the map again, guys, just trying to understand it reminds me of the Lake Bury US a zodiac thing, trying to like figure out where they actually might have looked at the water and thought we could we should go swimming down there. When you put it in the overlook doesn't really give you a place that is, you know, titled the overlook, right, Yeah, it's.
Like overlook Point is probably the closest overlook point.
So, but that's actually going down to the York River State Park, like in that area. Is that what we're saying, or is it somewhere different from there?
It's yeah, you're you're you're on the money there.
Okay, So it does appear there's a place where you could take your vehicle down and park it and be right by the river. You know, in imagining you could just go in there and swim. As you guys said, like maybe you're little ineberated, you're feeling excited about being with each other. That makes a whole bunch of sense. And we do know other killers have targeted couples on beaches.
Right, yeah, because of the isolation there, right. And the thing is, like you were saying, no, they're able to follow the scent with the help of canine units to the shore of the river, at which case or in at which point the scent is lost. At this point, as we record February sixteenth, twenty twenty four, no trace of these individuals has been found. They have not been seen once ever in these subsequent decades. If they were found alive this year, Call would be around fifty six
years old. Hayley would be around fifty four years old. Wow. Yeah, that's a long time to be off the grid.
Let's go back to the potential boat thing, guys, Because the James River, if you come out around that peninsula as you were describing Ben, you've got the York River right on the other side. If you knew what you were doing, and you had access to a boat, and you saw some people swimming at night and you had bad intentions, if you could somehow get them on your boat, you could take them anywhere along the coast there in the Chesapeake Bay.
There's a lot of water. There is a lot of water there, and it's very difficult to search that amount of water. We know that due to the earlier proven murders. Investigators at the time were clocking similarities. They were primed to look for these, so they looked at the condition of the vehicle like you described Mel. Because of this, despite the bodies having never been recovered at this point, these two victims, Cal and Haley are presumed often to
be victims of the Colonial Parkway killer or killers. Well, hey, guys, what do you say.
We take a quick pause, hear a word from our sponsor, and then come back with more details of this chilling case.
And we've returned, guys, before we jump into the next victims. I had no idea that there was a place right in this area called the Great Dismal Swamp.
Is that like a magic car.
Or a place in like the Phantom tollbooth or something. It really does sound like a.
Yeah, does everyone call it that? Or is that like a matt thing.
It's called the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in the James River kind of flows feeds.
Into I thought you were talking about like in your neck of the woods.
No, no, no, it's like just I'm just looking at near Norfolk and Chesapeake can Anyway, Sorry, it's huge.
I love.
Maybe I'm saying it wrong. Maybe it's the Great Dismal Swamp. You know, or the d's mal.
I think it's dismal, dude, it's just on multiple levels. It's probably dismal.
I just imagine early settlers walking through like, ah, this place is dismal, Like, you know what.
I love those names. It's weird too when you look at speaking of like our earlier episode on Tara Nullius. It may be more for a ridiculous history thing we explore together, but I love those names where it's clear that whomever decided to name it at like the whatever European it was, they were severely unimpressed, you know.
Yeah, oh yeah.
Sometimes it's just pulled from their journal. It's like Mickey farted.
Just for fun. Dismal if you're looking at dictionary terms, means dreary, gloomy, or disgracefully bad.
Two stone.
So this sorry, I guess I just needed a light.
We needed some levity, yes, thank you. Because also swamp regions are swamp of wet land regions are very difficult to access right. Often you need a knowledge of the land and you need specific type of transit. Right you can't get to a lot of these places in say a gold nineteen seventy two Chevy Nova which was discovered abandoned at a rest stop in I sixty four on
September fifth, nineteen eighty nine. Again, Interstate sixty four intersects with the Colonial Parkway, and this vehicle that is discovered already pings some red flags for the investigators in the area, because, as you know, if you are a student of rest stops, it's a good place to abandon vehicles. They get left there all the time, and sometimes they're connected to with crime.
Sometimes just bad non criminal things happen. It doesn't necessarily mean there was a murder when you see an abandoned car, but it's a good place to leave.
One, exactly, and you know that potentially or in one of the earlier scenarios, the suspect appears to have driven a car, one of the victim's cars, right with that white vehicle that was found the first murders. So immediately I can imagine these investigators all the lights popping off. But what was the big deal with this one left at arrest stop that made it feel fishy?
Oh, the keys are in the ignition, the driver and passenger side doors are unlocked. This is very similar to what we were describing earlier. There's also dirt on the undercarriage and grass stains, indicating this vehicle was recently driven through the woods to this rest stop. A month passes and then the corpses of the people in that car are discovered. We're talking about Anna, Maria Phelps and Daniel Lawer, who is the owner of the car.
That's la u R if you're looking it up. They are found in the woods between Williamsburg and Richmond. And as we well, it's a little again, it's a little bit of a different area, isn't it. It's not right off the Colonial Parkway.
No, No, it's on a logging road.
Okay.
They're discovered by hunters in the kind of thing where like if you're familiar with hunting clubs stuff like that, then you know in your neck of the woods, the unpaved roads where you can drop your car and then go off in the while to find the deer or the black bear or whatever. And they're roughly one mile from this rest stop. They're covered in an electric blanket which is pulled from that Chevy Nova, and because more than a month has passed, the bodies are significantly decomposed.
It's difficult to determine, Well, it's basically impossible to determine the cause of death here. It's also very difficult to determine whether there was sexual assault. But like you were saying earlier, nol, the autopsy identifies things that appear to indicate emotionally involved homicide, right, anger of some sort. There are deep stab marks on Phelps's abdomen into the bone, So whomever was doing this probably continued harming the body after the person died. That's the thing.
Yeah, I mean, like with the whole strangulation versus decapitation and all of that, I mean, it really feels like someone's got a fetishistic kind of approach to these situations.
Or guys, I would are you in this one? It feels like there could be a crime of passion involved because of the relationships, the personal relationships and the one that may have potentially been violated in this scenario.
Right, Okay, So in that case, that's a good observation. Met So in that case, what you need to know about Annie Marie Phelps and Daniel Lower is that Anna Marie Phelps is dating Daniel Lower's brother. He is the boyfriend's brother. They are out there points unknown motives unknown when these deaths occur.
Yeah, and who knows what they were doing out there? But if there's an electric blanket out in the woods, they're on a drive in this area, who knows what they were doing out there. But I don't know if I was, if I was the investigator, I'm looking directly at the boyfriend.
Yeah, you would have to. We also don't know whether a mile is a long way to walk. Yeah, the girds and arrest stops. So we don't know if the electric blanket was on them when they died, or whether it was put over them as like an attempt to hide the scene of the murder or hide bodies.
Either way, what are they doing out where they were? Whatever happened? Right?
And what a terrible situation for the boyfriend.
Oh my god, because he's probably again if this is a serial murderer, he has nothing to do with it, but he's definitely going to be the top of the list of people that investigators look at.
Three terrible realizations. My girlfriend's dead, my sibling's dead. I don't know what they were doing in the woods. There are additional victims suspected but yet not yet confirmed. Opinions differ on whether these deaths should be grouped as part of the larger umbrella the Colonial Parkway murders. It's things
like the deaths of Mike Margaret and Donald Hall. They were found on August twenty first, nineteen eighty four, about three hundred yards from a apartment complex in Henrico, Virginia, and due to the similarities in their deaths the location, the discovery of a vehicle abandoned passenger door open keys in the ignition, some detectives maintained that this may be the first actual incident of Colonial Parkway murders, but again
not officially attached. Same way with a guy swere we I believe we may have mentioned on a previous episode, Brian Pettinger and Lourie Powell. I swear I feel like we mentioned them because because he is last seen at a dance club December fourth, eighty seven, and when they find his body, he had been bound. He had been thrown into the James River, likely while still alive. Actually they're convinced he was alive and he drowned in there, only for his body to be recovered by fishermen two
months later. It occurs in the area the Colonial Parkway around the same time the other proven homicides occur. Wow, it just goes on and it's a dangerous dark rabbit hole. We're talking about people like Laurie Compton also goes missing. We're talking about possible links to the Shenandoah National Park murders with Julianne, Marie Williams, Lauris Salisbury, Wes why nots And in each of those cases there's also troubling similarity.
And the question is are those similarities that we see as observers or that investigators see, or are they actually illustrative of the same killer. With this point, with tons of unanswered questions, we have to get to the suspects because imagine how heartbreaking it is to go for three plus decades with no lead at all. Right, and it
seemed like everything was a dead end. Yet another series of cold cases in the United States that will remain unsolved until just last month, January of twenty twenty four, there was a break in the case, which is astonishing.
Oh yeah, it's pretty mind blowing. There is a potential person as a primary suspect that may actually be linked to at least a few of these homicides. Should we just say his name. Yes, yes, this person is named Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior Wilmeer. He is considered the prime suspect in three of the homicides David Nobling. I think as we're referring to him as Robin Edwards, and then who's the third one.
The third homicide is considered unrelated to what we call the Colonial Parkway murders.
Okay, and that person is Teresa Lynn Spa Howell, who was twenty nine years old.
Yeah, so there's Howell and Edwards. Wilmer will never be prosecuted because Wilmer passed away in December twenty seventeen, sixty three years old, cause of death hardening of the arteries. He was well known. He was a local as a clam and oyster fishermen. His friends called him Pokey. That was his street name. Investigators, this is still really really strange, guys. Investigators get his DNA after his death, and all they'll say about it publicly is they went through legal channels.
He was not a convicted felon, so as DNA his info was not in any law enforcement database. He also wasn't military.
That makes sense why they had one hundred fingerprints, but they couldn't I d anybody because there was no His prints were never in any of the databases. Oh wow, they were looking for a ghost. And yeah, I wonder how long they were looking at him though as a potential.
We still don't know. Virginia State Police have the full press conference online. Do watch it if you can. We'll play a clip at the end here. But we got this courtesy of WTVR CBS six out of Virginia. And what they tell us is, like reporters have asked, we don't know exactly when they started looking at this guy for it. In every announcement from the authorities, the investigators also take pains to say they are convinced this guy was a murderer. He would be charged for these homicides
were he alive. He knew. This is where it gets kind of true Detective Season one. He was intimately familiar with the land. He knew the woods, he knew the waters. He had he had a boat that didnny wade. He owned a tree cutting business called a Burst of Creativity better Tree Services.
Interesting, he was mobile.
He was informed he had something he had something like primitive obsect.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I'm thinking about timing now, because if these are his primary things, I don't know when you go fishing for those, for that particular wildlife, right, what times that you have to be out there, But I'm assuming that's early mornings often and sometimes late at night after it gets dark. To get those oysters and clams.
It's probably early morning, late night, which means you would who, no matter who's in your life personally, right, you're going to be out later than normal, and that time might vary, and you might be up super early and that time might vary. Sorry, just thinking things.
I mean, it's incredibly important, you know. Again, are saying, Look, there's no conclusive forensic evidence linking other murders to these three that we're convinced this guy committed. And so the three other active cases of the Colonial Parkway's murders, they're unresolved today. People are still searching for answers. Could these all be the actions of Wilmer and they just haven't been conclusively tied to that monster. Could there be other
active killers? Someone impersonating law enforcement, something that could explain the seemingly the seeming compliance on the part of the victims. Wallets out stuff on the dash present, ID get out of the car, etc.
That's what I was gonna say. This is one of the David noveling. Robin Edwards case is one of the ones where the car was left like that, and there are several other that have that very similar aspect to them. It does make you wonder if he was involved with all of those Niche okay.
And he can't be questioned just beyond the reach of mortal law. But that doesn't mean the investigations are done. There is more to do. A break in a case like this can be a watershed moment for even more investigations, right, So maybe maybe we can go out this way. Going to the experts from that press conference we mentioned, there's a pretty impactful clip from Brian Dugan coming out of the Norfolk office in the FBI. He's a special agent.
So before we before we play this clip again once more, shout out WTVR CBS six, who made the clip available in its entirety. Here is special Agent Brian Dugan.
Well, these tragedies occurred decades ago. I recognize how much pain followed them throughout those years without any answers. There still may be more families out there hoping to close their chapters as well. That's why we're asking the public
to take a good look at the suspects photos. If you had any encounters with him or his vehicle or watercraft, hunted with him, farmed oysters or clams docked next Touman Marinas, spent time with him on a personal basis or at work, or even romantically to some point, we want to hear
from you. We're also interested in hearing from the public about areas where Wilmer had worked in both as a fisherman and tree cutter, Locations where he may have been known to hunt, or bars, clubs or lounges he frequented. A piece of information, no matter how small, could be useful to investigators to submit a report. We're encouraging the public to call the FBI's tip line one eight hundred, call FBI or mid a tip online at tips dot
FBI dot gov. Alternatively, you can also contact the State Police via email at Questions at vsp dot Virginia dot gov.
And we're gonna pause here because Dugan goes on to what we believe is perhaps the most impactful part of this press conference, where he is directly call putting out what we call a call to action. People knew this guy, he was in a hunting club, he did have phishing buddies. Could they come forward?
Yeah, we would they have any information? Right? How secretive was he about his actions? If he was in fact taking these actions? And I think this is something what you're about to hear, this is something that could be applied to any murder case, any really any criminal activity case. This is it's just a really good point, and it's said really well.
We recognize relationships and loyalties change over time, as do people and their perspectives. There are occasions where people who may have had knowledge of the incident did not feel comfortable coming forward with the information at the time. This may have been due to close relationships with persons involved, or out of concern of their own safety, reputation, or
standing amongst friends. Even though mister Wilmer is deceased, we want to know, We want you to know, is not too late to come forward.
Yeah, and this happens with any sort of crime. And you know, it's very easy, unfortunately devilishly easy, to hear something like this, not be directly involved and think, well, of course I would do the right thing I would say if I saw something screwy. But we have to realize there is tremendous social pressure, often not to rock the vote. Uh. And with that in mind, these cases
remain unsolved. Thank you again to Lori Dollar. Our thoughts are with the families and survivors of these murders, and we hope that there will be just as found the investigations continue. We would like to hear from you. We try to be easy to find online.
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