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 Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. 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 Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we hope you enjoyed our Mind over Murder Live podcast
from the Yorktown Library, and today we wanted to spend a little bit of
time doing a debrief and a deconstruct and let you all know how something like
this comes together. And we also want to announce some future events and how
you can help us out as we attempt to move forward and grow the pod.
But we had a pretty big event, mister Thomas, And how would
you characterize it? Would you characterize it as a smashing success? Hard for
me to say whether or not it was a smashing success. I felt good
about it. And if you haven't listened, easy enough to go back and
listen to it. We recorded live at the Yorktown Library in Virginia on Monday,
April fifteenth. The actual podcast event ran on Mind Over Murder on the
following Monday. The twenty second Part two, which was the live question and
answer session with our audience, aired on Thursday, April twenty fifth. Easy
enough to go back and listen to those two episodes if you haven't had a
chance. Smashing success. I felt really good about it, Yeah, so
did I. It was unusual, of course, our first time ever doing
something something in front of a live audience, and there we were with a
room full of people. Yeah. The audience response was I was a little
overwhelmed by how many people were in the room, first of all, and
then you were saying a minute ago off air, like how many people were
actually listeners? Because we asked and almost everybody raised their hand, and I
was like, oh my gosh, like, I was afraid we were going
to end up having people who were just like, I don't know, I
just wandered in off the street. I wanted to see what you guys are
doing. But like almost every single hand shot up when we asked who has
listened to the podcast? It was like, Oh wow, I thought we
were going to have more of a mix. We were thrilled. I think
Beth our host for the New Yorktown Library, and they were amazing. She
and the staff did an incredible job and they took great care of us.
When she asked the question, and every hand in the room shot up.
That really surprised me because I thought we were going to be like you're saying,
Kristen introducing some folks to Mind over Murder and what we're about. And
the truth is we had one hundred people in the room, all of whom
weren't listeners, which surprised me. It was a really pleasant shock to look
out across the sea of faces and go, oh my god, all these
people do actually listen to the podcast. Yeah, that's crazy, because I
think we're used to coming across people like that, other than at crime Con
when I come across a listener in the wild. It usually is just like
one or two people. It has never been a collective group of like you
said, nearly one hundred people, all of whom would listen to the podcast.
Wow, this is mind blowing. One of the things that was a
pleasant surprise when we have to thank the audience for this, I think for
you and me and Joyce call Canada our special guest. The feedback from the
audience was so immediate. Obviously, when we're here talking on the podcast,
and it's often you and me or you and me and a guest, there's
no immediate feedback other than two or three people talking there with a room full
of people, and we were up on a little bit of a stage,
so we could see everybody putty clearly, and I think they could see us.
There was laughter and applause, and I don't know if I had thought
about that very much, but I hadn't really anticipated that people would respond in
such a visceral way. I actually wished I was trying to take notes as
we went, and like, I've got my notepad in front of me,
and it's things like okay, slow down because another one says. Two local
media camera crews OMG and then I've got like postcards underline, and I don't
know what that was for. I think you meant we wanted to emphasize,
which we did. Please take our postcards with Alan Wade Wilmer Senior's info.
Yes, And then I like I wrote down the names of everybody who spoke
at the Q and A. But I was sitting there at one point just
taking these notes and realizing, Wow, I wish I had been writing down
all of the places where people responded or applauded or laughed, because I don't
get laughs very often. I'm playing into a room full of teenagers largely,
so I don't get laughs very often. I should have written down or they
left at that how cool? I do know. One of the biggest rounds
of applause, though, was when we talked about putting Wilmer's DNA into CODIS,
and that the whole room broke up at that point. Yeah. I
think we're making a point, which is we just don't get why someone like
Alan Wade Wilmer Senior, a confirmed serial killer who's been dead since twenty seventeen.
As I said to a television person that I spoke to earlier today,
why in the world. Are we worried about this guy's civil rights? He's
been dead for what six years? Yeah, there was a lot of strong
sentiment and strong emotion in the room that evening, both up on the stage
from all of us, but then also definitely out in the audience too.
And so that's something I think we want to get into. But let me
ask you a question. Your old hat at live events by now, because
you do them all the time, and you've spoken a crime con plenty,
You've done any number of different things. How was this both similar to and
different from the other times in which you've spoken live over the last couple of
years. Both you and Joyce had said beforehand we had grabbed a really quick
dinner, and both of you had said you were very nervous. And I
don't usually get nervous. I do get a heightened sense of Okay, this
is important and I want to do a good job. I want to connect
with this audience. You know, you never know when you go out and
talk to could be a dozen people, it could be several hundred. It
doesn't really make me nervous, although I'm a little kind of keyed up for
it. Samped, Yeah, Bamped, I find generally, if I can
focus, work the talking points and make the key points that I want to
make as part of my commentary or whatever it is, usually I'll settle down
pretty quickly. There was a little bit of a heightened emotion though in the
early going. We're using a PowerPoint presentation that you put together, and thank
you. I thought it was great. In the early going. You had
asked me to talk about Kathy, and I know where my triggers are in
terms of when I can feel the emotion welling up inside me. For me,
I don't think this will surprise anybody. It's my sister and my family,
and so I know when I've been interviewed any number of times when people
ask me about what was it like for you? I handled that one pretty
well at the What was it like for your parents? And both of my
mom and dad are gone? Now that one's really difficult, even all these
years later, because I'm able to tap back into what that was like back
then. Interestingly, at this recent live event, early on were talking through
the various aspects of the Colonial Parkway murders, and my sister, Kathy and
Rebecca Dowski are the first two victims. A lot of times. We start
off with incident number one and you'd ask me to talk a little bit about
Kathy. And we had this wonderful picture that you use which is a little
bit different than the photographs we often use, which is a picture of Kathy
at her Naval Academy graduation. So this is a very proud moment for my
family, and as we talked about in the podcast before, Kathy's part of
a legacy. My father, my older brother Richard, and younger sister Kathy
are the first father son daughter graduates of the Naval Academy. So I'm looking
at this joyful picture of Kathy and it was a little bit of a struggle.
I remember thinking, oh man, this is hard, and I could,
you know, I could feel myself not breaking down in tears, but
I could feel tears welling up. And I remember thinking at that moment,
oh my gosh, we got two hours to do this thing, two hours
to go. I hope the whole thing is not like this for me.
Now. It did settle down after that, but that part was really difficult.
Yeah, And it's funny. The first time that we met, you
were here doing a documentary film shoot for a documentary that I don't think ever
aired, but I remember going to I met you at an interview that you
were doing over in Kings Now I remember this, Yeah, but I remember
that filmmaker in particular, was really trying to push your emotional buttons, and
it was pissing me off because it was like, don't freaking don't do that
to him, because she was asking questions that were designed to elicit an emotional
response, and I could tell she was going for it. I was like,
don't do that to him. That's not cool. And that was not
my intention with choosing that photo of Kathy. Yeah, and I did show
it to you ahead of time, by the way, so like I don't
want you guys thinking that I jumped on this. This wasn't a surprise.
Bill looked at all of our stuff ahead of time. He knew. But
I that first time that I met you and she was trying to push all
your buttons, I was like, this is not cool, Like that's not
how you treat somebody. I remember that producer Mary. I don't want to
throw her under the bus. She's a wonderful and very talented television prece and
actually she shot some beautiful footage oh yeah, I don't know that evening and
might have been the next day. We were driving in the car and she
was interviewing me with her from the passengers heat me driving and we're talking about
Parkway murders, and if I'm not mistaken, we were driving along the parkway.
She did some really good work. But having done a lot of interviews,
you know where those hot buttons are, and you also know when they're
trying to push your buttons. That's always something that I've struggled with in the
years that we've worked together, is the fact that true crime, as much
as it is built on advocacy and justice, it is also built a lot
on entertainment, and that does not always sit one hundred percent right with me.
And I think you probably have those same reservations as well, probably even
more so for you because you were the brother of a murder victim. So
there are definitely times where we're doing this for the best possible reasons and the
best possible intentions. But there are also people who have told us, oh,
yeah, go to sleep listening to your podcast every night, Noel,
I don't know how I feel about that. Don't feed yourself a diet of
crime before you go to bed. It doesn't do anything good for me.
It's always a little weird. It would never occur to me to fall asleep
listening to a true crime podcast. Not a criticism of anybody else or our
own stuff either, Like I wouldn't fall asleep to us My gosh, No,
it just doesn't fit within my comfort zone. If I was going to
fall asleep, I do either rather just fall asleep in a nice quiet room
or maybe with very soft background instrumental only music on. Yeah, beyond that,
I don't think I'd want to fall asleep, certainly not listening to a
true crime podcast. We're going to crime con here in a couple of weeks,
and there are for every person there who is a passionate advocate for justice
and finding the truth, there are also just as many people who are there
because that is their entertainment, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that.
It just sits a little uneasy with me some days. Some days I
have more success with it than others. And that's definitely something that kind of
comes up when we're preparing for an event like this, because we do have
people who are there who feel very passionately about cases that they feel we need
to talk more about cases that they feel have gone unresolved. But then there
are also people who are there just because they love the podcast and it's a
good form of entertainment for them. So I'm still like, as a content
producer, still trying to feel my way around the fact that there are people
who this is entertainment for them. It's just a little weird for me.
I'm not trying to be judging about it now. I actually found once we
got through that first part of the podcast where we were talking about Kathy and
Becky. Yeah, they're the first of four double homicides, and so typically
we talk about one, two, three, four. The case is confusing
enough as it is, if we start to jump around chronologically, I think
that makes it even more confusing. Yeah, and we try to walk people
through the basics of the Colonial Parkway murders. Inevitably we start with Kathy Thomas
and Rebecca Udowski first. I do remember feeling a great deal of relief when
we got through that part of it and off that slide in the PowerPoint and
we moved on. The Other thing too, is that there probably was some
heightened emotion because we've never presented in a situation where you have one hundred people,
row upon row of people staring up at you. Now, the truth
is, as we gave it some time, they were incredibly supportive. They
laughed, they cried, they asked fantastic questions, they applauded. We didn't
know that any of that stuff. I have, no, and that doesn't
definitely add to the rush a little bit too. But yeah, presenting live
in front of a group of people, and yes, I'm a public school
teacher and I present live in front of a group of people every single time,
every day. Yeah, Okay, that teaching in front of teenagers is
not this. That is not what we did. And it is a very
different feeling because I know that every person who I mentioned, from my parents
to my boyfriend, to my friends, who was like, are you nervous,
And I'm like, yes, I'm nervous, and they're like, but
why you do this every day? No, I don't do that every day.
Don't do that every day. It's different. Let me give anything different.
Some years back, I was asked to teach at the college level for
Belmont University, who have a music business program that's quite successful in Nashville.
And they were doing something they called Belmont East. They were establishing a beachhead
in New York City where I was based working for ASKAP, and I was
asked to teach a class. I'd never taught a class before. Now.
I enjoyed high school and undergrad and grad school, and I like teaching.
I like being taught. I didn't know whether or not I would enjoy teaching.
My dad, who since passed away after his naval career, went on
to get a master's degree and a doctorate, and he was a college professor
and I heard him speak several times, and he was a fantastic speaker and
a great educator. He won Favorite Professor several years in a row at the
University of Massachusetts at Lowell. But I remember him coaching me a little bit
because he knew I was going to be teaching this class in New York and
it was once a week. And after I taught one or two classes,
I was talking to my dad and I said to my father, you didn't
tell me how much fun this could be. Because I started to get comfortable.
You find a bit more of your groove, and it is exciting when
you're talking to people that are very interested in what you're talking about, and
they want to hear more and they're encouraging you. I don't know the high
school students are as good about this, but no, not generally. That
room for the people at New Yorktown Library were absolutely wonderful. They were very
kind, and I wasn't expecting people to be rude, right, but I
wasn't quite a expecting such a warm response from it. It was room full
of people. Yeah, it was beyond, I think anything that it expected.
So the other time that I had actually got up and presented with you
was at Savannah CRIMEX though, and I had a mess for that. It
was like I was pacing like an absolute maniac right at the time, and
I was nervous. This wasn't that, but that is largely because and your
Joyce was nervous, and I was trying very hard to help her not be
nervous, right, And the only way I could do that is try to
play it cool for myself. So I was trying to be a sort of
a breezy Oh, this is fine, nothing to worry about. I don't
know, well I succeeded. You settled down right away, though I did,
and I didn't expect that. I did not expect that at all.
I figured I was going to be a wreck the whole entire time. But
I was really surprised to like, by the time we were done and I
called my boyfriend and called my parents and let them know how i'd done,
I was driving home on claud and I like, I freaking killed it.
Yeah, I played it. It was amazing. We did an amazing job.
Check us out. We were so fantastic. Yeah, So I wrote
that high of we killed it. We slayed it for the rest of that
evening, which was about a half hour drive home through a raging thunderstorm.
It was incredibly rainy. It was crazy. Oh my gosh, it was
crazy. And then that same little accomplished high continued for about half of the
next day, and then I had to deal with teenagers and it went away,
and they were that it makes me look forward to May thirteenth, which
is our next live event back at the Old Town Library. You surprised me.
You said that there are people who are rsvping. Some of them went
to the first one, so we're going to have to switch up the content
a bit. And of course, the second half of the program is a
Q and A, which we'll talk about in a minute. That first experience
on April fifteenth makes me look forward to May thirteenth that much more. Yes,
agreed, absolutely, and it public speaking. This is not a thing
that I like to do, but that one went surprisingly well and I am
looking forward to do that and then to being able to meet and greet with
people at Crime Con on Creators Row. That's always a lot of fun too.
Yeah. So, and there were people there on April fifteenth that were
very kind. They came up to us afterwards, they wanted to say hello.
They asked for autographs, which I still am not completely comfortable with,
but I know that blows my mind every time, why would you want my
autograph? At the same time, I very much appreciate it, and they
were terrific and they wanted to talk and they wanted to talk more about the
case. I got pulled off for a little bit because there was another television
crew that wanted to do an interview, so I had to spin off for
a couple of minutes and do a brief interview with them. The people there
were very energized and enthusiastic, and they thanked this and told us. They
thought it was a terrific conversation. You and I have been podcast partners now
for over four years. Sometimes you'll confess to me that particular things on the
public speaking make you nervous, but you always do great. Yeah, and
that's a home boy. You can just chalk that up to any number of
things. Impostor syndrome, low self esteem, all of those. Just pick
your psychological hang up, and that's probably what contributes to that. I picture
you in your room looking at yourself in the mirror, saying I'm a fraud,
I'm a fake, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, every
day, at least once a day, every day. None of those things
are true. You do understand that, Yeah, that is the whole crux
of imposter syndrome. Yes, absolutely, I get that. But yeah,
this is for someone who is and this is I think some of what is
interesting about our partnership. You are an extrovert. You are an extroverts extrovert,
and I am an introvert. And it took a little bit to get
you to understand what that means for me when I'm at crime con or someplace
like that, because that does mean Kristen has to go away from crowds now
for thirty minutes, to go be quiet. No, and we've talked about
this before. Crime Clown's a great example of that Savannah Crime Expo and some
of the other public speaking things that we've done at the end of the afternoon
heading into the evening, and we've talked to probably hundreds of people over the
course of the day. You actually have said several times, I just need
to go to my room and be quiet for half an hour. Yes,
whereas I'm like completely jazzed by talking to all those people. And what am
I saying? Let's go down to the bar. Now, I'm not a
drinker. I'm going to go down there and have my diet coke, which
isn't good for you. But if anything, all that interaction with people makes
me want to go out and talk to more people. Yeah, this is
the most classic example of extrovert business. Introvert. I spent years in retail,
I spent years in the theater. I can do funny, approachable,
in enthusiastic, I can do all those things. That is a mask,
not real Kristin. Real Kristin really just wants to be quiet for a couple
of hours. And it has been interesting to me though that over the last
couple of years of going to crime coning media and talking to people, I
actually can take off the introvert mask entirely. I genuinely am jazzed when we
got back from the when we finished the Clue Awards in Orlando and then went
out with the folks from Athram. Could have stayed out a couple more hours.
That would have been great. I wouldn't have minded. That's not normally
me. I don't normally do that. It's interesting. Pamela, my partner,
is an artist and she does quite successfully now online training with students from
all over the world, mostly adults, mostly women. Interestingly, but she'll
have close to one hundred people watching her and paying for the privilege of learning
about watercolor. She really enjoys it, but she finds the whole thing very
fatiguing, because Camel is a lot like me. Yeah, she finds it
exhausting, and even though she loves teaching and loves seeing people learn more about
artistry and how to execute via watercolor, she finds the whole thing exhausting,
and she's like, you, I just need to chill out for a while
here. This has taken a lot of energy to put on that performance,
whereas with me, I'm like, yeah, let's go. You're listening to
mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors,
we're back here at mindover Murder. Before we get back to the podcast,
just wanted to remind you that we have a go fundme effort going on right
now. This campaign is designed to help us raise funds to help promote Mind
over Murder and specifically to push the Colonial Parkway murders investigation forward. We'd love
it if you could support us in any way that you can. Any donation
from five dollars to whatever you can afford is very much appreciated and will be
incredibly helpful. The link is in the show notes and in our social media
pages. As always, thanks for your support. Now back to mind over
Murders. And that's exactly what it is. This is, like I say,
classic introvert, extrovert. But we really did have a wonderful time,
and I feel like now is probably a pretty good time to thank everybody who
did show up. Because there were people from Lancaster County, there were people
who drove down from Northern Virginia, like, I got a shout out to
Robert and Michelle, who both drove down from Northern Virginia, then had to
drive home to Northern Virginia, which is about two hours in a driving rainstorm.
Yeah, it was crazy. Oh my gosh. Wow. If I
go to Northern Virginia for a friend's book signing or something like that, I
stay over night because I can't deal with drive up, go to an event,
drive back by mad Props to them for coming and hanging out with us
and being so enthusiastic and warm and wonderful and then being like, I guess
I got to drive home now, Oh my gosh, yeah wow. I
was blown away by how geographically diverse the group was. They were really from
all over the place, and there were a bunch of people who came down
from Lancaster County. Interestingly, in the Q and A section I had originally
interpreted our first speaker, a guy named Bill. My recollection is that his
observations felt very strongly worded because I was asking us about the Mary Harding case,
and he was being challenging that they'd like to see more publicity and more
discussion even on our part regarding the Mary Harding murder, which is an unsolved
murder from nineteen eighty five which happened up in Lancaster County. When I went
back and listened to the podcast a few days later in order to put the
edit together, I didn't interpret it in quite the same way. It didn't
seem strongly worded. It might have been that maybe I wasn't anticipating because he
basically started with kind of a statement strongly worded, which is he's perfectly correct
in saying that the Mary Harding case needs more attention and that there's a possibility
that this could tie into Alan Wade Wilmer and other suspects in Lancaster County because
there are strong connections between the Wilmer family and the Mary Harding case. His
observations and his comments felt you can tell that from his perspective, and I
think his wife was with him as well, that they were friends with the
Hardings, and they knew this moment and they're still heartbroken. And I can
definitely put myself in their place as someone who is also looking for answers in
a case that's more than thirty years old. The observations and thoughtful questions of
the audience were very impactful for me that night, and then going back and
listening to the show a couple of days later. In order to put the
edit together, we do try to preserve the linearity of the conversation. So
what you hear is basically what we got. Yeah, we don't edit out
sentences, phrases, speeches, or anything like that. It literally is just
Bill going in and making us both sound better than we actually are. It
is what it is. I listened to the podcast when the new episodes come
out, and I'm frequently going, wow, I sound pretty good, and
I'm like, okay, But that's because Bill made you sound good. It
is not necessarily that you sound that way in real life. You just ask
any of your students. It is that Bill makes me sound better. But
yeah, we do not when we edit, we do not ever cut out
sentences, phrases, or anything else. Like the conversation flows way that it
was originally presented. I could tell that there were some people who wish that
we had spent more time talking about cases other than the Colonial Parkway murders,
and boy, we wish we had enough time to be able to cover everything
that we think. Ellen Wade Wilmer Senior might possibly have his hands in the
reason that we limited the scope of our discussion to the eight Parkway cases Teresa
Howell and our two Parkway adjacent ones, Lorien Powell and Prime Pattenger is just
because we are aware that there are so many more potential victims out there,
but we are trying not to overstep, and we are trying to allow the
investigation to unfold. We are assuming. Maybe this is a big assumption on
my part, Bill, and you can correct me if I'm not speaking for
you. I have to assume, so that I can sleep better at night,
that law enforcement is working very hard to try to figure out every I
noticed the eye roll. I have to assume that law enforcement is working very
hard to try to uncover everything that Wilmer might be involved in. I don't
want to overstep, and I don't want to overreach, which is why I
try to maybe scale back a little bit of what I am willing to accuse
him of. That is also me. I tend to play things safe,
and I know you are much more likely of the two of us to stir
the pots. And considering the fact that Mind over Murder is an audio podcast,
I will say that, yes, I did just roll my eyes.
I do want to be respectful if I could do it all over again.
And the good news is on May thirteenth, we get a chance to do
it all over again. One thing I will commit to is actually Bill and
some of the other speakers who tended to be at the front end, and
by the way, I think that's because they felt strongly about what they wanted
to say, which is fine. I think their points were valid, and
I think, yeah, no, I agree with that too. Next time
around, which is coming up soon, I will acknowledge that there are a
number of other unsolved murders and that it would only take a few sentences to
say that it is a very peculiar phenomenon that there are so many rapes and
murders that have gone unsolved in Lancaster County. As one of our people said,
she mentioned that there were only like ten thousand some people living in Lancaster
County. I think at that time. It's a beautiful, rural, gorgeous
stretch of Virginia, but not that many people live there. It's farmland,
it's forest, and it's these incredibly beautiful rivers and inlets off the Chesapeake Bay.
The fact that there are so many unsolved rapes and murders in Lancaster County
stretching back forty years, if not longer, that is very disturbing, and
it's also very peculiar to have so many unsolved cases in this gorgeous area that's
not known as a high crime area. I do want to spend a couple
of minutes next time on Mind over Murdered Live talking about that, because I
think their point was totally spot on on some level. Folks that live in
Lancaster County or used to live in Lancaster County, I know a number of
them have approached us and they've said that they feel like there's been a media
spotlight shining on them since the Wilmer news broke. Some of it's not very
flattering to this beautiful county, and I understand that people don't want to think
of their beautiful small town as being a dangerous place to live, or that
this is a place where people are raped and murdered and their cases go unsolved.
I actually hope that this discussion that we're involved in helps to shine that
media spotlight on Lancaster County with an eye towards solving some of these cases,
but I would like to spend a few minutes at a minimum. I know
we have to cover the Colonial Parkway murders, which is what we're there for,
but I do want to acknowledge the fact that people from Lancaster County and
across Virginia are asking what about our cases and what about all these unsolved cases?
And there does seem to be this very weird cluster of unsolved cases that
have direct ties to the Wilmers, and that is disturbing. It is,
for sure. It was really a very interesting, very thought provoking evening,
and I am glad that we were able to not only present our thoughts.
And I'm sure law enforcement didn't appreciate our action plan that we laid out for
them, but hey, by the way, that was the Kristin Dilly action
plan. It was the Kristin Dilly action plan. Yes, I'm sure they
didn't necessarily appreciate that I was basically telling them, here's how to do your
job. But I also like the fact that we were able to listen to
other people's concerns, answer questions where we could, and in some cases we
can't answer questions with regard to the status of certain cases. Because we're not
investigators, we don't know these things. But everybody who brought up a concern
or a question up some really excellent valid points. That includes people who wanted
to know how can we help you moving forward? And for some of these
things we don't have answers. We've had people ask a number of times,
how can we convince law enforcement to test the evidence or whatever? And we
can't. There is nothing that we can do to convince law enforcement to do
anything that they don't want to do. We'd had a couple of people send
us messages asking is there an advocacy group that's not us that can advocate for
evidence testing or using different types of DNA testing or genetic genealogy. And again,
some of that is a valid question, but some of that is just
so far outside of our wheelhouse. I don't think I would begin to know
how to answer that. And the other thing is it's worth reminding everybody we
have offered the Colonial Parkway murders families have offered to raise funds to pay for
advanced forensic testing, and we've been turned down flat. We have been told
the federal government, which is the FBI and the Department of Justice cannot accept
gifts of this type. I'm quoting them directly now. I think that's absurd.
There could be some workarounds via the Virginia State Police. The good news
in all of this is that as a result, I think of the success
of the testing of the evidence in the Robin Edwards rape kit, which led
directly to the identification of Alan Wade Wilmer Senior after all these years, and
then that led directly to connecting Wilmer to the murder of Teresa Howell. And
these are fantastic outcomes. We're getting answers now for families that have been looking
for answers for more than thirty years. Our sense is that there is more
optimism and enthusiasm and energy on the part of the law enforcement agencies to test
untested evidence compare notes. Yes, of course we'd like Wilmer's DNA in the
CODA system, but failing that, they have told us they are doing one
to one comparison, so they are going back and this is they is.
Law enforcement agencies across Virginia, as we are told, are testing evidence applying
for sake grants, getting the sexual assault kit initiative grants and comparing notes about
what they're finding in terms of offender profiles. This may lead to connections to
Wilmer and other suspects, and I think this is a win all the way
around. As I said at our live event, I'm more optimistic today than
I have been in several years that we're going to see more progress in the
Colonial Parkway murders and these other unsolved murders. So I think there's some cause
for optimism. We did say that we would try to come back to our
listeners, the in person listeners and you folks listening on the podcast, and
thank you for that. One of the things that we decided to do was
to start a go fund me to ask for your financial support in any amount
that you can provide. It can be five dollars. If we get five
dollars from every listener to this podcast, we'd be in great shape. And
we want to use that money for things like covering the costs of our live
event. We went out and we printed not Law Enforcement the Colonial Parkay murders.
Families paid to have those Wilmer postcards printed up. You heard us ask
about them, and hopefully those of you that are able to attend our upcoming
events, will take a stack of these postcards and pass them out. You
had a request from someone they wanted digital copies of the postcards, and we'll
put those up on our social media again so that they could pass them along
electronically to people that were participating in community groups that might know something about Alan
Wade Wilmer, Senior, our identified suspect. Yeah, the costs for printing
the postcards and everything else do you come from out of our funds that they
are not being covered by anyone other than the Parkway families. This also helps
us to cover travel costs. Bill does have to drive down here from Connecticut,
and I'm sure that's a bit of a haul. Even though you've got
a wonderfully sporty and I'm pretty sure gass economical car, Bill still has travel
costs that he needs to consider. And then when we do our large events
like your Crime Podcast Fest or Savannah Crime Expo or Crime con everything that we
pay for that comes out of our pocket, that becomes a little hard for
us to be able to balance. Anything that you can contribute to the GoFundMe
to help us defray some of our costs we truly appreciate. We have had
people ask and we've already addressed this, but I want to make sure that
we address it again one more time, just to make very clear. We've
had people ask is there a GoFundMe for evidence testing? We do not have
control of the evidence. We cannot raise funds for evidence testing. The government
has said they will not accept gifts of that nature. We cannot force them
to do that, and we don't have control of the evidence that we could
send out to a private lab. We thank everybody who has made this chin
Ris offer of can we please support evidence testing? Financially, we don't have
a way to responsibly do that. Unfortunately, the fact that you have even
offered means the world to us, and we thank you very much for that.
So the advertising that you hear on the podcast helps offset these expenses amazing,
The advertising is not that lucrative. At the same time, if we
can ever find a way to get to a place where we can fund private
testing of evidence, we would absolutely do it. So if that opportunity presents
itself in the future, we'll definitely come back to you with that. But
we're right now trying to do everything we can to keep this case moving.
And this won't surprise anybody. I said it at our event on April fifteenth.
Part of the reason why we're doing these live events and these television interviews
and these print interviews is we want to keep pressure on law enforcement to keep
putting resources into the Colonial Parkway murders and unsolved murders across Virginia and across the
country. The fact that we filled a room full of people who are passionate
and focused and interested and ready to help in any way that they can is
a demonstration of the fact that the community is interested in seeing these cases solve.
And this is not something that's unique to the Colonial Parkway murders, but
those are the cases that we're talking about. We want to just keep reminding
our French and law enforcement that people in Virginia and across the country are looking
for answers. And I would tongue al most firmly in cheek like to tell
the FBI and the VSP that the best way to get Bill Thomas to shut
up is to solve this case already, and you will not have to listen
to him talk about the issues inhering in this case anymore so please, if
that is what you want, solve the case, get it done. Then
we can just transition over to the two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides
across the United States, exactly talking about these eight or so murders in the
Colonial Parkway murders, there's so much more to talk about. I feel like
we need to go ahead and take on the tailan Al murders. There's a
whole bunch of stuff there. We've got a list of cases a mile long
that we want to cover, and we've done a lot of emails recently where
people are suggesting other cases to us as well. We're very interested in hearing
from people. There are a lot of people whose hearts are broken and they're
looking for answers, and it's pretty easy, I think, for us to
identify with them, because there we are. It's just a different name,
a different face, a different town, all the same issues, pushing back
against what feels a bureaucracy that sometimes doesn't appear as caring as it should be.
Well, if you'd like to come to our upcoming live event at the
Yorktown Library, there are still spots available. That is on May thirteenth,
Christian's birthday at the Yorktown Library. Well, a way to celebrate your birth
Yeah, that's that is your way that you decided there, mister Thomas.
I did tell you it was my birthday and you said it'll be fun,
so I said sure. But the nice people at the Yorktown Library had openings
and they just coincided with your birthday. They did, so we will do
that, and there are still spots available, though I would go ahead and
try to secure my spot sooner rather than later. Although we were very pleasantly
surprised that despite having a room full of people, they were able to accommodate
every person who walked up and said, Hey, can I get into this
event? Yep, they told us quietly. They always keep a small number
of seats available for walk ups. So every single person that said, oh
I really want to go to this thing tonight, but you're sold out whatever,
we said, come anyway, and they man to squeeze everybody in and
that was great. And there's nothing like a sold out show. It can
be one hundred person, beautiful room in gorgeous library. There's nothing like being
in a room that's full of like minded people. Absolutely, so please do
come to our event at the Yorktown Library on May thirteenth. If you are
planning on going to Crime Con, which is May thirtieth through June second,
we are going to be appearing on a Creator's Row. I guess they've decided
to rename it. It's not podcast row anymore, it's Creator's Row, and
so we will be there. We will be hanging out with our friend Cheryl
McCollum from Zone seven, Jess got Morgan from body Bags, and all of
our other closest podcasting friends and companions. So if you are planning on being
in Nashville, please do come find us. We will have every variety of
postcarded sticker that you could want, and we're going to be debuting some merch
as well. Exciting, very exciting. So May thirteenth, on Monday evening,
six to eight pm at the Yorktown Library. We look forward to seeing
you there for round two of Mind Over Murder Live. That is going to
do it for this episode of Mind Over Murder not Live. Thank you so
much for listening. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a
production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas
and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music
is by Kevin mcleoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space
Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You
can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally,
you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas. Five six.
Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder No