You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley
and I'm Bill Thomas, and we are recording right before we get to go
to Savannah Crime Expo. And we are psyched, aren't we, Bill Thomas,
we are. I'm hard pressed to figure out how that all happened so
quickly, but here it is September and Savannah climax Bow is upon us.
We are really looking forward to this opportunity to hang out with some of the
top forensic minds. Doctor Henry Lee is going to be there. You've met
him, though, I think I have. I have. I've even had
my picture taken with him, and he's a lovely guy. Yeah, I
have not had a chance to meet him. I am looking forward to it.
So there's going to be all sorts of excellent forensic guests there and a
lot of our fellow colleagues in true crime podcasting. So I think it's going
to be a great time. And I get to see Savannah for the first
time, which I have never seen. I have been to Savannah once and
it is quite beautiful. Hopefully we'll have a little downtime, so tell the
folks about Savannah, Climax Bow. So Savannah Crime Expo is in Savannah,
and it is going to be an absolutely wonderful time. It is a one
day expo, so this is not like Crime Con unfortunately, but it is
one full day of different panels about the forensic aspects of true crime specifically,
So it is going to be one excellent event after another during the day.
And as soon as we heard about Savannah Crimeax bo, I know, I
immediately jumped on you and was like we gotta go. Yes, what we
do, and all of this is happening Saturday, September twenty fifth in Savannah,
Georgia, and it's going to be fantastic. So if you're in the
area or in the region, hit there now. Yes, definitely, check
Savannah Crimexpo dot com to see if there are still tickets available. We're going
to be there. Our good friend Mac is going to be there. Doctor
Henry Lee is going to be there. It's gonna be great fun, Doctor
Laura Pettler, Cheryl McCollum, and many other podcasters who are going to be
there as well. So it's a very interesting group of investigators, scientists,
forensic experts. It's going to be pretty cool. Yeah, it's gonna be
great. We're looking forward to that. And so the week that this airs,
we will be headed to Savannah. On Friday, I'm taking two days
off school so that I can drive down on one and drive back up the
other and spend some time in Savannah with my partner in true crime. That's
true. Savannah Crime Expo, Saturday, September twenty fifth, Be there or
be squared And if you are there, to take a look for us.
We do have a booth. We're going to have merch and a great big
banner and all sorts of wonderful stuff, so you'll be able to find us.
Just look for us. Absolutely, and we've gotten some nice notes from
other true crime podcasters and other folks saying, oh, I'm so looking forward
to meeting you guys and that kind of thing, which is really nice.
We look forward to hopefully seeing some of you as well. Yeah, absolutely,
So come have a selfie or something with us. I hate selfiees,
but I'll do it for my fans. My fans ask for it, and
I will do it. Why not? Why not? We do want to
continue to give a shout out to our friends at T Public who continue to
have sales on a fairly regular basis, so that all of you find people
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and the style. They have styles for women, men, soft cotton,
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Pamela, my partner, she likes the lightweight T shirts. It's all about
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our thumb logo, and then the other one says mind over Murder. And
then at the top and the bottom we added true crime podcast so that way
you don't have to answer that question, what's mind over Murder all about?
Then it gets started with, oh, I see it's a true crime podcast.
Tell me more. And then you can tell your friends or whoever staring
at you at the grocery store, what exactly is going on with your hoodie,
sweatshirt, T shirt? What have you? It sounds really excellent and
you can get any type of T shirt you want. I just ordered one
that is red with our cool yeah, old fashioned choice. Yeah, I
have one in light blue, and I have one in black, and so
now I figured let's just go ahead and try bright red. Wow, you're
much more fashion forward than I am. I have I don't know about that
white and light gray jim shirt. Yeah, like gray. I will say
this and everyone remember this. Be you single or coupled up, Wearing mind
Over Murder merchandise is a great way to meet interesting people in the produce section
at the grocery store. That is probably true. And if you happen to
be in a committed relationship like I am, you can smile and chat with
them. They might even be able to tell your smiling even through your mask.
And by the way, we do have mind Over Murder mask. Yes,
I don't have one of those yet. No, I don't have one
either, but I think I'm going to order one more, probably not to
wear one I'm at school, because I don't want people to be like,
why are you chewing podcast merchandise in school? Why are you promoting your podcast
while teaching America's youth. Yeah, I think I might want to get a
mind Over Murder mask. You know, Yeah, me too. We'll see
if we can get it here in time for Savannah cromex Bow. Why not.
Thank you all very much for your ongoing support, and perhaps we should
get into our discussion a continued discussion from last week. We are picking up
with our discussion about Patricia Cornwell's novel All That Remains, which does seem to
be based on the Colonial Parkway murders. We started last week doing a comparative
analysis. My AP students would know that it is called a rhetorical analysis if
they're listening and they're understanding what I'm saying, and I don't know that's the
truth. Is this the part when I go harump and say, seems to
be based on the Colonial Parkway murders. I'm judistick with seems to be based
on the Colonial Parkway murders. Thank you counselor for keeping us out of jail
or something. Yeah, you guys will note that we are trying very hard
not to incur the wrath of anybody with way more money than we have.
So everything is seems to be or could be, or is possibly based on
but we're not sure, okay, so tell us more. Kristin Delhi,
we had left off and we both rolled our eyes at each other and says,
oh my gosh, we're only on chapter five when there's fourteen chapters.
It did stuff, though, so stay with us. I think it is.
Last time. When we left off, we did talk about the first
four chapters of the novel and the striking resemblances between the fictional murders of Deborah
Harvey and Fred Cheney and the actual murders of Anna, Maria Phelps and Daniel
Lauer. Chapter five, I think is one of the more interesting ones in
the book because it does go into a I'm not going to say alarming amount
of detail, but a lot of detail that is very reminiscent of photos from
the Phelps Lower crime scene that both of us have seen. Yeah, I
would say that's quite true. So for chapter five, Kay and Pete Marino
do get called into the woods to respond to the call to recover the bodies
of Deborah Harvey and Fred Cheney, and I think some of her best narrative
power here are on display because she goes into quite a lot of detail about
this particular crime scene. It matches up as I said earlier, I think
pretty well with the photos that we have seen from the Phelps Lower crime scene,
even right down to the descriptions of investigators in foul weather gear and wearing
boots, trumping the woods in the middle of a rainy afternoon. And I
know most folks have not seen the crime scene photos thankfully, although yeah,
some of the crime scene photos actually have appeared in public. Kristen, you
actually put up a photograph from the crime scene which shows them the real life
investigators and Marcella Fierro, the chief medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia,
upon whom the case Scarpetta character is based. They show them really out in
the woods wearing their foul weather gear, and so the descriptions from the book
are extremely close to reality. We have the bodies relying to each other,
face down, in a small clearing about a quarter of a mile from the
muddy logging road where we left our cars. They were so badly decomposed they
were partially skeletonized. The long bones of arms and legs protruded like dirty gray
sticks from rotted clothing scattered with leaves. Skulls were detached and had been nudged
or rolled, probably by small predators of foot or two away. It is
easy to read that description and imagine corresponding crime scene photos if you have seen
them, or if you have watched episode four of The Lovers Lane Murders,
which does cover the phelpslowercase and which does unfortunately include some of those crime scene
photos. She does include some details that are true only to the murders in
the book, not to actual real life. She describes both bodies as having
neither shoes nor socks on. That is not true to the best of our
knowledge, and Deborah Harvey is shown having a purse with her at the scene.
Again to the best of our knowledge, that is not true of the
Phelpslower crime scene. Anna Maria did have two purses with her, and neither
of them were found with her remains or were recovered with her body. Scarpetta
does go into cause of death, at least as far as she is able
to. She says, as for what happened to the couple, I could
not tell. There were no ligatures indicating strangulation. I saw no obvious fractures
or holes that might have meant blows or bullets. Male and female were quietly
together in death. The bones of her left arm slipped under his right,
as she had been holding on to him at the end. Empty eye sockets
gaping as rain moved over their skulls. I mean, very evocative photo there,
you can picture it. I can almost match it up with some of
the crime scene photos. We never do have a conclusive cause of death for
Daniel and Anna Maria. It was determined that Anna Maria was stabbed because there
was a slice mark on the bone in her hand, and they do go
a little bit more into depth on that later in the book when Scarpetta has
to take the bones from Deborah r to the Smithsonian Institute. But we do
not have an actual cause of death for either Anna Maria or Daniel. It
is just listed as homicide. The Smithsonian detail, though, is exactly what
happened in real life. So here again we have this very strong parallel between
what it's supposed to be a work of fiction and what we know to be
the real story of Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lower's death. We don't know
everything, but for instance, it's very striking that the Smithsonian is utilized to
analyze the bones and that a nick mark is found on the fictional character Deborah
Harvey's left index finger, which lines up pretty closely with our real life experience
in the Phelps lower murder. Absolutely, and we did find out through some
reporting that the doctor at the Smithsonian who did examine Anna Maria Phelps's fingerbone was
a gentleman by the name of doctor Douglas Uba Laker, and he did determine
that there was a knife slice to her finger. Through chapter six, there
is more about that Smithsonian detail, and you get a sense of where the
story is going to go in terms of resolution when they start delving into potential
theories. Last episode we covered some of the different theories that have come up
about this case, some of which are true only to the world of the
book, and some of which are true in real life. Cornwell does create
a detail that exists only in fiction. We have absolutely no indication that this
particular detail that we're about to talk about exists in real life. But she
does create a calling card that is left by the killer at each of the
couple's crime scenes. That is, a Jack of Heart's playing card left on
each of the bodies at each of the crime scenes. To the best of
our knowledge, and Bill, please correct me if I'm wrong, there is
nothing even remotely similar to that in real life. Correct. No, I
don't think so, certainly, never heard about it. So you do get
some political conspiracy type storylines in chapter six that deals with potential political motives for
murdering Deborah Harvey as a retaliation for the work that her mother is doing as
the drugs are But there was a line that I particularly connected with in chapter
six. It's just a feeling that I sometimes get when I'm feeling paranoid about
this case and its chances of being solved, and it is a line that
comes from Abbey Turnbull, and I'll be interested to know if you ever feel
this way about it. Bill. Abbey's line is I swear to God case
something is being covered up, something the FBI, the government doesn't want the
public to ever find out, you mark my words. Even if these killing
stop, these cases will never be solved if the FBI has their way about
it. It's an interesting observation. On my darkest days, I can understand
what this fictional character Abbey is talking about. I had some conversations with a
well informed Holli who has been working with us on the Colonial Parkway murders for
decades recently, and I asked her if the FBI would ever fail to solve
the Colonial Parkway murders because of their embarrassment about the Colonial Parkway murders, and
sadly she said yes, and where the two of us were going in this
conversation was the following. Any fair tell of the Colonial Parkway murders story to
date results in a significant amount of embarrassment to the FBN. FBI has not
solved this case, which will now stretch into thirty five years. This October
that will be the thirty fifth anniversary of the first murder in the Colonial Parkway
murders, that of Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Doowski. And then further, they
seem to have dropped the ball investigatively any number of times, well as failing
to follow up on leads. Right now we are waiting for test results from
forensic evidence that was sent to the Quantico Lab one year ago. That's how
slow and what a low priority the Colonial Parkway murders in real life are turning
into. Further, there's no way around this. There are all of these
problems clear problems in the Colonial Parkway murders. The lack of coordination with local
law enforcement, the obvious friction between departments, the way that other investigative agencies
have told us on and off the record that they were frozen out of the
Colonial Parkway murders. The FBI took the attitude where the FBI, you guys,
butt out, and so agencies that could have been helpful to the FBI
were pushed aside by investigators from the bureau. And then we have the situation
with the leaked crime scene photos. In two thousand and nine, that story
broke about the FBI losing control of seventy eight hoglygraphic crime scene photos and failing
to follow up and collect those crime scene photos. Those photos are out in
the public now. Obviously not every person that listens to this podcast around the
world can see those photographs, but they're out there. Some of them are
on the Worldwide Web, and some of them, if you know where to
look, are to be found. And it's very disturbing to me, as
the brother of a murder victim, that this has happened. As we talked
about a couple of weeks ago, we also have the embarrassment of Kathy and
Becky's rape kits being thrown away and burned as medical waste eight years after the
fact, and Marcella Fierro again the real life case Scarpetta, the Chief Medical
Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, said to me, mister Thomas, you
never throw away evidence in an unsolved murder case. The FBI had Kathy Thomas
and Rebecca Doowski's rape kits burned as medical waste eight years after their murders.
This is unacceptable. So what you can see is problem after problem in the
Colonial Parkway murders investigation. What I find very painful and I struggle with this
is would the FBI fail to put resources into the Colonial Parkway murders investigation at
this point because it's politically embarrassing to the FBI. I want to be proven
wrong, But the only way I'm going to be proven wrong is if the
FBI continues to put resources into this case. And let me tell you something.
Waiting a year, literally a year for forensic results, and now the
FBI has sent in additional evidence for testing, is that going to take a
year as well? They are moving at glacial speed in terms of this investigation.
And it really upset me several months ago for this long time colleague to
tell me that she's concerned that the FBI might not solve the Colonial Parkway murders
because the Colonial Parkway murders are embarrassing for the Bureau. That is unacceptable to
me. I agreed. When I read that quote from the Abbe Turnbull character,
I definitely marked it in my copy of the book, and I made
sure to send it to you because there are times when I who am I'm
not a family member, but I have worked on this case for a while
an hour seven years. I think if I feel this way at times,
I can't imagine what you all go through on a daily basis dealing with for
your family and Beckys, it is thirty five years this year. I can't
even imagine it. As soon as I saw that, I was like,
yeah, let me let me send that to build and super bill things.
I talked at length with another family member from one of the other Colonial Parkway
murders earlier today, and without getting into specifics, we talked twice at length
today and I'm not speaking for her, but I think she feels the same
way. She is fed up and disgusted with the foot dragging and the endless
excuses and the fact there's always a new case which we understand to be handed
thirty five years worth of excuses as to why our case is always the lowest
possible priority at the FBI. It's infuriating, it's insulting, it's unacceptable,
and the delays in the forensics lab are ridiculous too, especially when you consider
that the FBI has long said that Quantico is the top state of the art
forensics lab. Are you sure? Why do you need a year to test
a piece of evidence? Then? I will maintain that the quantical lab,
in my opinion, is grossly overwork and understaffed. Probably yeah, if something,
I understand that an urgent case where lives are at stake is going to
take precedence over the Colonial Parkway murders. Our case is thirty one to thirty
four years old. I get it. I haven't lost my perspective completely.
But the idea that a low priority case like ours would take a year to
at test results, I'm sorry, that's insane. I could see a month
or two, maybe three, or with everything else that's going on, I
understand that. I'm not expecting that a thirty plus year old murder case,
however heinous, is going to be the top priority for FBI Quantico. But
a year, and every single time before that it was always at least six
months, if not long. And I've been reminded so many times I can't
even count anymore by FBI agents saying this is a cold case. And it's
like, yeah, I know, I know, it's a cold case.
You don't need to remind me every single time. How does a case grow
cold? It grows cold because it's not being given any kind of priority treatment.
You're listening to Mind over Murder. Will be right back after this word
from our sponsors. We're back here at Mind Over Murder. One of the
things that I like most about the next chapter of the book is that it
does give us an opportunity to talk about something that you and I have had
a number of questions about prior to this, but that we haven't really gone
into detail about, and that is the use of psychics in the Colonial Parkway
investigation. And we have had people both ask if that has been done,
and we have within recent memory head people offer to provide their services in this
way. So in chapter seven of All That Remains, you do have Scarpetta
and Marino visiting a woman named Hilda Osomac, described as a psychic who has
worked with the FBI before and who lives in South Carolina. As soon as
I read that name, I thought, I wonder if they mean Dorothy Allison.
Because Dorothy Allison was a New Jersey psychic. She was a housewife who
just happened to have this particular rare gift, who did help law enforcement on
kidnapping and missing persons cases. In fact, she was consulted on some of
the really big cases. She was consulted on Patty Hurst on Atlanta child murders.
I know I'm missing a couple of big ones that Dorothy Allison. She
was actually a psychic that the FBI was willing to approach and to take her
help. And so I thought it was very interesting that when she mentioned the
Hilda Alsame character, I immediately went to issus Dorothy Allison. Dorothy Allison in
real life was not without controversy. Some people were very critical of her.
They felt that she tended to focus on the highest profile cases and really put
herself out there in a way as to increase her visibility. Interestingly, for
the most part, except for paying her expenses, which were pretty limited,
he watched the budget very carefully. She didn't accept fees for her work.
She did ask that they cover her travel expenses. She did do work on
some very prominent cases, and I know that York Pacosa County now Major Ron
Montgomery worked with Dorothy Allison, and she did consult on the Colonial Parkway murders.
I don't know a lot about what she said to the law enforcement investigators
who worked this case. But we're actually going to try to circle back.
Dorothy herself has passed away. Some of the family members and some of the
longtime investigators remember when she consulted on the case. We're going to try to
see if we can find out more about this. But the Hilda Osomac character
in all that remains appears to be based on the real life Dorothy Allison,
who did actually consult on the Colonial Parkway murders. And I did do some
digging for I don't know if I've mentioned it before what my casebook actually looks
like, but I do have a pretty large book of articles and reporting on
this case that I keep in chronological order in my room. And as soon
as I heard Dorothy Allison, I was like, I think I have an
article about her. Let me check with digging through my file, and you
did, and I did. There is some reporting from the Daily Press from
June of nineteen eighty eight, and Ron Montgomery is quoted as saying that he
said, there are very few leads in this case. I don't think I
will ever reveal what Dorothy has told me, which of course made me immediately
go, oh, what does she tell you? Whid she tell you?
Major Montgomery? Would you tell you? He may or may not tell us.
We are in touch Major Montgomery, and we can ask the question.
He doesn't have to answer it. He did say that he is impressed with
her abilities and is willing to accept help from any place it comes from.
So people have asked us before, have you considered a psychic? So yes,
a psychic has been considered and consulted. As to more than that,
Have we had more than one psychic on the case. I believe so.
Actually, there was a television series and again we are going back, but
there is a television serials Sensing Murder, and I think that may have been
Dorothy Allisons. I'm not sure. And there was another psychic who was also
consultant. I think it maybe Dorothy Allison and another woman. I think both
of them were consulted on the case. It's been a long time since that
television show aired, and of course some of these independent television shows are hard
to find, and I'm not certain I've laid eyes on that Sensing Murder episode
since it ran many years ago. Now. I'm hoping though, that someone
who's listening can dig that up somehow or another. Maybe somebody recorded it,
probably on VHS or Beta. Yeah, I think there's another one. Real
Stories of the Highway Patrol did a piece on the Klio Parkway murders and I
haven't been able to lay my eyes on that one either. Anybody happens to
have that one. I saw it when it aired and I don't think i've
seen it since. Oh. Speaking of television, the Lovers Lane Murders television
series is now appearing in more territories around the world. And we've got a
very nice email which we haven't even had time to respond to yet from a
listener to this podcast who is in Australia who's now just seen the television series,
and that precipitated a bunch of questions, really good question, which is
why we haven't answered your email yet, and we do apologize, but for
our international listeners check now, because sometimes television series that appears in one territory
some six seven months later, and then we're right about at that time.
Now we'll start to appear in other territories. There was an Australian series that
some friends of mine consulted on about the Ivan Malat case, which is a
series of unsolved homicides down in Australia. And interestingly that series has just shown
up on A and E here in the United States, so I'll be making
some time to watch this Ivan Milat. It's like a three or four part
series on this unsolved Australian case. And now our Australian and New Zealand fans
can see the lovers Lane Murders television series on the Colonial Parkway murders. Hence
our inquiries from our friends down Under, and by the way, for people
who are seeing this for the first time, please do send us in your
questions. Just because we've talked about the lovers Lane murders before, we are
still happy to talk about it again and again. And people always have great
questions and their perspective is obviously going to be very fresh and they would have
just seen the series, and we promise will be good about answering in replying
to questions for the next couple chapters. Of all that remains, you get
a lot more of the political conspiracy government sponsored murder subplot, a lot of
the subpositions there continue to move forward through chapters eight and nine, and nothing
closely resembles real life or the case itself happens through those chapters. What is
of note is chapter ten, where you get a return to the theory about
the rogue CIA agent from Camp Perry that's stocking and murdering people. I will
add something here though, but Richard Cornwall does a lot of research for her
books, and she's got fantastic real world connections to government agencies. For example,
it's often mentioned that she has access at the highest level in various aspects
of the government, and so, for example, things that the average person
wouldn't have access to, like special training at FBI Quantico and direct access to
key players within government agencies. There is something interesting that she outlines here,
which are the maneuvers and what would you call them, like exercises training?
Yeah, tell us about what Cornwell puts out here about the agents in training
at CIA Camp Perry leaving and practicing some of the skills in public. What
is it? She says, they do? She says, I'm sure it
comes as no surprise that the CIA is privy to most of what goes on
around their training facility. They know a lot more than anyone might imagine,
And in fact, local settings and citizens are routinely incorporated into maneuvers surveillance.
For example, officers in training at Camp Perry some practice surveillance using local citizens
as guinea pigs for lack of a better term. Officers set up surveillance operations
in public places restaurants, bars, shopping centers. They tell people in cars
on foot, take photographs, and so on. No one is ever aware
this is going on, of course, and there's no harm done it except
the local citizens wouldn't be keen unknowing they're being tailed, watched, were captured
on film. And as someone who lives near Camp Perry, yikes. And
for those of you who don't live nearby, Camp Perry is right there on
the Colonial Parkway, a couple of miles away from the location where we believe
some of the Colonial Parkway murders took place. Growing up in this area,
Camp Perry has always been like the worst kept secret, because anybody who lives
here and who works in the military or just has lived here long enough,
we know about Camp Perry. We know it's there. They're not trying to
hide it. They're not saying don't look over here, and you won't see
a secret government military base. But it is. And it's not a secret
that it's CIA's main training facility either, but it is very much like a
place that is shrouded in mystery. You can drive along on my thirty five
minute commute home from my job. When I don't take the Parkway, I
do take Interstate sixty four, and that runs along the border of Camp Perry,
and you can see the chain length fence separating sixty four from Camp Perry.
You can see all of the patrol cars, the jeeps that Perry uses
that say Base Police or base patrol on them. It's pretty common over in
my neck of the woods, and I think in a lot of other people's
too, especially those along the Parkway, to hear when they're doing heavy ordinance
practice. You can be sitting outside on the porch on a Saturday, it's
nice and sunny, you're reading the book, and you're hearing explosions, and
so that's Camp Perry. They're Camp Perry. They're just doing stuff over there.
I don't know what they're doing. They're blowing a lot of stuff up.
I'm hoping they're practicing for World War three or something like that over there.
It's not a secret, but it's a little alarming to hear that they
may actually be out doing maneuvers. I don't like that. And helicopters fly
in and out of Camp Perry regularly. They also have a full size airport,
so heavy aircraft can fly in and out of Camp Perry undetected and often
do. The comings and goings and the activity behind the fence at Camp Perry
are off limits to the public. There have been rumors for years. We're
not buying into the rogue CIA theory, and I actually think that District Cornwell
may be responsible for the promotion of that theory, that somehow this CIA agent
is responsible for the Colonial Parkway murders. This idea that agents and training leave
the base and go out and practice some of the techniques, following people surreptitiously
taking pictures and that sort of thing. Over the years, I've heard that
they would go to shopping centers and malls and they would go to colonial Williamsburg
and downtown Williamsburg places like that and try these techniques out. They don't harm
the public or interact with the public really in any kind of direct way.
As far as we know, they are supposedly out trying out their techniques.
And if that is the case, which we have no reason to doubt,
it is really just only one step beyond that to this terrifying idea that what
if somebody's out there practicing killing people? That's a place you don't want your
mind to go. But I would say that any person in Williamsburg who has
ever thought or expounded upon the theory what if it's a road camp Perry Agent,
I think it's pretty safe to say they probably got that idea from this
book, I would agree. And it is a really compelling story. It
truly is. I hope that it is not true. I one percent hope
that it is not true. So how else does the book parallel? Really?
In chapter eleven, we do end up meeting a set of characters who
are pretty similar to Thomas and Rebecca Dowski. In chapter eleven, is Scarpetta
and Marino are following this trail of hydroshock bullets that were pulled out of Daborah
Harvey. They find out that there was a couple named Jill Harrington and Elizabeth
Mott who were murdered in Williamsburg eight years prior to the events of the book,
in a manner that makes case Scarpetta very suspicious. The characters of Jill
Harrington and Elizabeth Mott are again they are similar enough to make you go but
they are also they're not carbon copies. Their crime scene is very different from
Kathy and Becky's crime scene. They're found shot to death in a cemetery on
a Friday night in September, as opposed to the circumstances of Kathy and Becky's
death, which was being found in the trunk of Kathy's car on the Parkway
in October. But there are some similarities in terms of cause of death.
Both had knife injuries, they were both found at the wrists, and they
both disappeared after being seen at a bar called the Anchor Bar and Grill in
Williamsburg, which sounds pretty similar to me to the Yorktown Pub, which is
where there were unconfirmed reports putting Kathy and Becky before their murder. You also
have the description of both women as being fit and athletic, which we know
does apply both to Kathy and Becky. There is only one odd clue that
appears just in the book as opposed to anything that parallels real life. That
is that at the crime scene there is a copious amount of blood in the
backseat of the victim's car, and while there was blood in Kathy's car,
it was not enough blood to indicate that either woman was killed in the car
or that their assailant had injured themselves in the commission of the crime. The
characters of Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mutt are definitely enough to give you pause.
Bills, since you are Kathy's brother, what were your thoughts when you first
read about this lesbian couple. There are some additional striking similarities. The Jill
Harrington character is described as having defensive cuts to both far arms and hands,
contusions and lacerations on her face. Apparently she had put up one held the
struggle, ending up with her being stabbed eleven times. Quoting from the book,
page two forty. The stabbed eleven times part is not accurate, but
those other descriptors are very close to how Kat was found. It does appear
that Kathy Thomas struggled with their attacker and ended up with a significant amount of
violence aimed at her, perhaps as a result of her standing up for them.
Although Becky in real life did not suffer as many wounds that would probably
originate from a struggle or a fight, this description of the Jill and Elizabeth
characters does sound like Kathy and Becky's autopsies and descriptions of how they were found.
In the amount of violence directed at Kathy in particular, it really does
sound similar, and in the next chapter we do get some more details about
the women, and again they do not track one hundred percent with Kathy and
Becky, but they do have some similarity. Elizabeth was working in sales for
a local computer company and doing extremely well. Jill had just finished law school
at William and Mary and had gone to work for a small firm in Williamsburg.
Again, there's some pretty strong parallels. You know, Kathy was working,
she had left the Navy a few months prior. She was working as
a stockbroker for a stock broke rage in Virginia Beach. And Becky in real
life was just wrapping up her senior year at William and Mary. So there's
some still some very strong parallels here. It almost reads like this is the
Colonial Parkway Murders, with a few tweaks to the details just enough to shift
it from the realm of nonfiction to fiction. There was a speech that Abbey
Turnbull, the character, has dealt with the loss of her sister to murder
several years previous, and so she makes this speech about living with the murder
of her sister, which I think is designed to give the perspective of families
of murder victims. And of course when I read something like that, my
first immediate thought is whether or not that does ring true? Are you and
the other families? So she says, when you're going through something like this,
you don't know what you're doing, even if you think you do,
and no one can really understand what it's like unless they've suffered the same thing.
You feel isolated. You go places and people avoid you, are afraid
to meet your eyes and make conversation because they don't know what to say.
You feel as if you're living inside a cave. You're afraid to be alone,
afraid to be with others, afraid to be awake, afraid to go
to sleep because of how awful it feels. When morning comes, you run
like hell and you wear yourself out. As I look back, I can
see that everything since Hennah did was half crazy. Do you feel like she's
hit the nail on the head there or only some of it? I do.
For years, I divided the world up into two categories, those that
knew Kathy and knew about our loss and everyone else. So that first group,
the people that knew Kathy and knew my family and therefore had known that
Kathey and Becky had been murdered, That became a finite group of people,
and then there was everyone else. For most of that time, I did
not talk about Kathy's murder, and that may be hard to believe now because
I talked about it a lot. But for years, the whole topic of
Kathy and Becky's murder felt like the ultimate conversation stopper fit came up in conversation
with people that didn't know Kathy and didn't know my family and didn't know the
story, it always felt like it brought the conversation to a screeching halt,
and then people would ask questions they weren't being insensitive. I don't think they
were being rude, but it was really difficult then to move on from that
subject. So picture yourself at a dinner party, and this was me.
Now, I'd be at a dinner party or a gathering or whatever, and
if it came up, I'd WinCE inside because I would know that the next
fifteen minutes if we were lucky, or three hours if we weren't, was
going to end up being consumed by this conversay just seemed to bring everything to
a screeching halt while we talked about this horrible thing that had happened. So
a lot of times I would deflect. If it came up how many kids
were in my family, I would say three, which is not true.
It's four. Kathy is the August of four, or I wasn't completely comfortable
with that. I would say four. But then if people said, oh,
I know your brother, I know you both your brothers. Do you
have another brother? Do you have another sister? I didn't want to deny
her existence, but sometimes I would say I would often say she died in
an accident, or that's a conversation for another And most people are smart enough
to figure out that you really don't want to talk about it sure, or
sometimes I just smile and say I don't really want to talk about it,
And again, most people are sensitive enough to realize I'm a grown man,
but I clearly don't want to talk about this right now, because it seemed
to completely suck the oxygen out of the room every single time it came up,
so until I got heavily involved in the case in two thousand and nine,
So for twenty three years, I didn't really talk about it except with
someone that knew Kathy from before. They might say, how you're doing,
how are your parents? That kind of thing, how are your brother's doing?
And they didn't just mean how's their health? They meant how are they
coping? And then a lot of friends of mine who worked with me over
the years in the music business and the entertainment business that knew me during those
twenty three years after Kathy died, but before I got more heavily involved in
the case in two thousand and nine. I can't count how many people,
hundreds of people have said to me I never knew this because I never talked
about it. So I get what the fictional character of Abby is talking about.
They're afraid to meet your eyes and make conversation because they don't know what
to say. And I didn't want to be the person that people avoided.
I have had some friends though, over the years that just could not deal,
which made me very said one of my college roommates. I remember a
few years after Kathy, we hadn't talked in a while, and he called
to check in, and he knew my family and everything, and he didn't
know about Kathy's death, and we were talking and I got to Kathy and
I told him what had happened, and he just couldn't deal. And that's
actually the last time I ever spoke to him. And I really like this
guy. I'd love to reconnect with him someday. I don't know. He
clearly felt terrible and he felt awkward. I think it was over the phone,
but we never spoke again, and all the years later, I've still
never spoken to him. And I'm not mad at him or anything like that.
As a matter of fact, I still consider him a good friend and
we were roommates senior year in college, and he's a fantastic person. I
would love to reconnect with him. But it ended on that really awkward note,
So that feeling like you can't bring this subject up without it sucking all
the oxygen out of the room. I totally get where Abby is coming from.
My guess is, by the way, this iswell's probably very well researched
conversation. This feels like she's talking to someone that's really suffered this kind of
loss. Yeah, and this rings very true for me, especially the first
year after Cathy died. I barely remember while went on. A lot of
what this Abbey character says fields pretty spot on for me. When you come
in from someone who did have a friend who was murdered, it is weird
trying to talk to the family of someone who has been murdered because you don't
know what to say, right, You're trying to tread on eggshells. What
is okay for me to say? Can I memorialize this person by talking about
them or is it better not to? Can I mention the good, funny,
interesting stories that I remember? Can I share photos? Or is it
just better to tuck it away and not talk about it. It is really
hard to know how to approach. The only suggestion I would make is to
ask your friend and say, how do they feel about this sort of thing?
If it makes it worse for them. Then perhaps you keep your conversation
short. When people say there are no words, I think all you really
have to say if someone hits you with something like this is I'm so sorry.
Yeah. I don't think it's necessary to draw a parallel between the law
is in your life and these kind of profound losses, particularly, I think
for parents who've lost loved ones, which is my mother said at the time,
is out of the natural order of things. Funny, I was just
reading over the weekend about siblings losing siblings like we've done, and the fact
that seems to be an underacknowledged profound loss. We're going to continue our analysis
of Patricia Cornwell's All that Remains in our next episode. Thank you so much
for listening to mind Over Murder, and we'll see you next time. Mind
Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive
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Five six. Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder.