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 of a Murderer. I'm Kristin
Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by Blaine Pardo, author
of a Special Kind of Evil, the Book of record on the Colonial Parkway
Murders. Blaine, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for
having me on. Do you start by telling us how you became aware of
the Colonial Parkway murders and when you decided to write a book about it?
Back around, I want to say twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, my daughter
and I had finished our last book on my unsolved murder in Michigan, and
we were looking for something closer to home, and we started taking a look
at various crimes that were unsolved in Virginia, and the Colonial Parkway murders rose
to the top. And as I started going through it, I've never tackled
a serial killer before, and that had some appeal, etc. And as
we started taking a look more and more at it, there wasn't a lot
of material actually out there at the time about this case. That's changed in
the last two or three years at least, if not five years, And
so we started a two year research junket to start actually working on this and
interview started with interviews with family members that we were able to track down,
and that led us. That got us a little more motivated as we started
that process. Then that led us to doing some more digging and speaking with
former law enforcement and things on those lines try to get as much information as
we could out there about the cases. Yeah, I remember you and I
spending a fair amount of time on the phone talking about the case, and
you were really building your knowledge base and then moving out to talk to family
members and potential witnesses law enforcement. You really worked the research side of the
thing very Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We met some fantastic
people along the way, and people I still keep in contact with present company
included. But it was fun in some respects to do this because you felt
like you were actually making a little bit of a difference. Getting a book
out there about a case like this actually generates tips, it generates leads,
It keeps it in the public's eye, and you need that on a case
that's this old because it's so easy, especially in these days where we've cut
money to law enforcement, which almost always hits the cold case files. Keeping
the information out there and keeping people talking about it is the best way to
make sure that actions take it on the part of law enforcement. So let's
steer back to three weeks ago. Now, what was your first reaction when
you viewed the January eighth press conference they announced this link between Alan Wade Wilmer
Senior, and they indicated that he was responsible as a result of DNA testing
for the deaths of Robin Edwards, David Nobling, and Teresa Howell. What
was your first reaction. I got to be honestly, the very first thing
when I saw it, and I got bombarded by people going to You're watching
the press conference, and I'm like, what press conference? And by the
time I got to it, at At already wrapped. And then by the
time I saw it it was post conference. But when I was watching it,
the first thing it hit at me was when I saw the truck.
I literally had a chill go down my spine because we had talked to earth
Wells about that vehicle and about Wilmer. I didn't have his name at that
point. Earth couldn't remember his name specifically. Stumbled through it. I dug
up my notes on our interview just a couple of days ago to go back
over it again to see did I miss something, And he couldn't remember exactly
what the guy's name was. But we had changed the license plate in the
book because he said, we cleared this guy, And he said, are
you going to put the license plate in? And I said that would be
my preference, and he goes, if you do that, people are going
to harass this guy if he's kept the license plate. We said, we
have cleared this guy, and we changed it. It made sense to do
that, and we do that occasionally with witnesses and things on those lines.
But when I saw that truck, I had a chill go down my spine.
I was like, Oh my god. The FBI they had this guy,
They had him under surveillance, they confronted him, they gathered evidence from
Alan Wilmer Senior, and they went through all of this and they polygraphed the
guy and let him go. And now it turns out that was on the
Call Haley case, but now he's implicated in a different one of the Colonial
Parkway murders and an additional murder trees Owl, which now I'm caught in this
quandary, and I'm sure you probably felt the same way, Billy. In
your mind, you start going, so, is this person now part of
the Colonial Parkway murders or are is it accept do you treat it as a
separate murder and things on those lines, and you start trying to go,
oh my god, now that they've got him on these cases, can they
now nail this guy on all of the other cases or any of the other
cases. He was the prime suspect on Paul Haley, And we're talking four
days after all of this was when the FBI started hounding this guy. I
was stunned and I was really shocked at the FBI didn't come right out and
say this guy was on our radar that. I went back through the conference
twice going are they going to say that? Or did anybody ask that question?
It was very hard to hear the press questions, period, and that
I believe was deliberate. There's two things. Having run a lot of press
conferences, you either put a microphone out where the reporters are so the audience
can hear the questions or standard protocol, which was not done in this press
conference is if you don't put a microphone out where people can hear the questions
being asked by the reporters, you repeat the question. And they didn't do
that either. Now the question was actually asked by Andy Fox twice. Yeah,
it just was frustrating. I've been a little displeased with the response to
that because from where I sat, there's a lot of implicy You look at
the whole Waterman theory, which really came up with the death of your sister.
They took a look that's when they formulated this profile that it had to
be a waterman. There was a nautical line. That was the word that
IRV Wells used, nautical that was used in the first pair of murders.
There was a very sharp knife which they characterized as the type of knife that
could have been used by a waterman. You had diesel fuel being used in
that first crime, and a lot of watermen they don't buy their diesel fuel
down at the docks. They buy it and at gas stations, etc.
Because it's much cheaper to do so and transport it. And that was how
that all formulated in the first place. And it was with the third pair
of murders they started cracking that again with Carl Hayley looking at that profile and
hearing they had somebody that was a known stalker on the parkway and who was
confrontational with people. The example that the IRV gave me was he confronted one
couple because he thought it was two girls kissing, and that made me immediately
think of your sister and Becky. It's like you just go, Wow,
what is this? How did you miss this all this time? You had
access to better material than I did. I was relying on IRV Wells In
an interview decades later. The FBI's had this information for some time. I
found it a little disingenuous. I really was hoping they would have said more
about we've been looking into this guy. Why do you think that they failed
to announce that at the press conference because they didn't announce that he was a
lead suspect. They did not announce, Hey, we'd been looking at this
guy for a while. Why do you think they kept it quiet? I
think they're worried about the reputation in the FBI. I hate seeing stuff like
that because I don't know. I have to guess if I'm making a guess.
They're protecting the repute FBI, and I understand that, but let's be
open and honest with the families here, especially the call Heally families, and
say, look, this was the guy we had on our radar and we
dropped that ball. And I don't I haven't talked to Joyce specifically about this,
but I don't think that's been the case. I don't think they've been
open and honest one hundred percent on this. And maybe it's because they're still
doing a very active investigation and they're at some point going to reveal everything.
But I got to be honest with you, I'm getting stonewalled on my foyer
requests for these allegedly closed cases across the board at this point, and it's
getting frustrating as someone who wants to write the last chapter or two of this
book. Explain for our listeners, Blaine, if you would, what a
foyer request is and how it works. Government agencies, usually with the exception
of Congress, are required to respond to what's called a Freedom of Information Act
request, which is anybody who's assistant can make a request of the FBI of
Virginia State Police, of local law enforcement and say I desire a copy of
this information because it's public information. Now. On closed cases, generally,
I found nobody releases very much information. Usually with the FBI, you get
what's called ViCAP information, which is their tracking database for tracking crimes, and
they usually enter like a lot of detail about the crime scene and investigative officers
and stuff into that. I've gotten that on the Freeway phantom case with no
problem, which with a closed case is you can get the entire file,
you can get photographs, you can get all of the information. They usually
redact out people's addresses, social security numbers, drivers, license numbers. You
can't give away somebody's birthday and name because that can backfire and be used for
information theft. They usually redact the files and send them to you, and
I've got tons of those things that I use for other cases. I filed
immediately when this started. I started filing foyer requests because I said, okay,
you've closed Nobbling, you've closed Edwards, and you closed Teresa Howell and
they said so at the press conference, that's what they said, this is
the guy we would be trying. So I filed foier request. Now,
Virginia state law allows them owning agency in this case of Virginia State Police,
to withhold information. The foil law allows them to do that. They took
the stand with me in the response. I got back to say these cases
aren't closed, and I was like, that's not what you just told everyone
in the world. Yeah, I said. I reached out to Isle of
Wight and I said, no, I know the sheriff of the White conducted
investigation because I interviewed it. Yes, I remember that. So I filed
a foyer with them and they said, we don't have any files related to
this. Kise. I'm sorry. I don't believe that that is. I've
met with Isle of Wight years later and had some very good conversations with them.
I remember meeting with Lieutenant Tommy Potter and other folks and them responding this
way years later. I don't believe that to be factually correct. Isle of
Wight does have files. They investigated the murder of Robin Edwards and David Knobling.
Ultimately it became a Virginia State Police case. As we understand it,
and I know you covered this in the book Blame. Isle of Wight didn't
have the resources. It was a very small department back then, and Isle
of Wight was kind of a quiet, very beautiful bit of a backwater in
the eighties. So they handed the case off. But they have files.
I know they have files. I know they did too, and I found
that disingenuous. I reached out to Hampton and Hampton said they're going to respond,
which I was surprised, and that's on the Teresa Hall case. So
what I got back from him a week ago, I hadn't looked at immediately
when I got it, because it said we're sending you the incident report.
And what I got was an incident report that doesn't even have her name on
it. Wow, it is almost like I got back a blank form.
No investigative officers, no description of the murder, nothing, It is a
blank form. There's this whole mechanism that's being applied here of we're not going
to release that information, and I find that a little bit frustrating, obviously,
But there's ways around that, and I'm trying to pursue some of those
kind of back avenues to get what I want. I did get some good
response from Lancaster, at least their police department when I asked about Alan Wilmer
and what Keith will I asked for what are their arrest records? And they
didn't give me the incident reports, but they did give me a list of
what they've been arrested for. Very interesting. Yeah, I want to know,
Yeah, we would love to know. Yes, please please, let's
go over this. Yes, let's go over it. Well, let's okay,
this is I haven't made this public before we get the scoop. Days
all get the scoop. Everybody who's listening to the podcast start Johnstown. Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior. On the twenty ninth of October nineteen eighty one, was
charged with curse and abuse. On the same day, he was also charged
with assault and battery. William Keith Wilmer has been was charged on November eighteenth,
nineteen seventy one, with indecent language on the phone. On September eighth,
nineteen eighty three, he was charged with make making an obscene phone call.
On the twenty second of October nineteen eighty three, he was also charged
with making an obscene phone call. Now we know the latter two of those
calls. If you look at that article in the Washingtonian on murder on the
Rappahannock, we know that those two calls were specifically mentioned that he was calling
someone who worked at a bank, So we know those two calls. These
guys, really they have. I say, it's an unremarkable arrest report.
I've never been arrested, so I have nothing on my report, and I'm
sure most of you do either. So I look at it go. These
are huge arrest reports, but there's something there. What I look at is
what are the dates, because are there tiger dates with any of these that
align to the Colonial Parkway. Meers and my genealogist Gene has also been looking
at the dates of his divorce, birthday, mother's death day, all of
that stuff, because I know, Bill, you and I talked about this.
It's like the day my mother died. Every time it comes up every
year, the anniversary, I have an emotional day. Yeah, without questioning,
me too. Me too, as a matter of fact. And I
took a look at all those and none of those dates aligned any of the
Colonial park wimers. So I don't think it's a trigger date for these guys.
I don't know. And I'm looking at both of these guys for a
reason because while Allen Wade Wilmer Senior was the one implicated by DNA and these
three murders, there's always been a theory that there's two people that may have
been involved with the Colonial Parkway murders. You read that article on murder on
the Rappahannock, you start wondering, okay, as William Keith Wilmer in any
way possibly tied to this was to say a thing that the two brothers went
out and did. And when you look at the article murder on their Rappahannock,
which we do recommend and we'll link in the show notes for this conversation.
It's very clear that this man, Emerson Stevens, did not kill Mary
Harding and dump her body on the Rappahannock River. Keith Wilmer is mentioned specifically
and by name as a suspect in this horrific homicide, which is still unsolved
after all these years. Yeah. I took a look at that, and
I think the most chilling thing for me, and I'm sure it was for
you and Kristen as well. When you see the way the body was weighed
down in the river, the men block and chain, it's hard not to
think of Keith and Cassandra from Colonial Parkway murders. Clearly the FBI thought their
bodies had been dumped in the river. Now you're looking at someone who had
access to a boat, who potentially we don't know for sure that Keith Wilmer
was involved with that crime, but he certainly is implicated in the article with
it. Who weighed down a body before in the river? Did he get
better at it? And this time he knew where to or to use a
better way to attach the weights or whatever. It certainly does add up why
we haven't no one stumbled across with all the construction that's been going on down
in that area, no one's ever stumbled across a shallow grave with human remains
in it, especially now that we know we're working with a suspect who's a
waterman. The rivers for folks that haven't been to the Colonial Parkway, the
James and York Rivers are right there, and clearly if we look at Kathy
Thomas and Rebeccadowski, there's an attempt to push Kathy's Honda into the York River
that's followed a year later by Robin Edwards and David Nobling. We know their
bodies were dumped in the water. That's the James, and we now know
that Alan Wade Wilmer Senior is responsible for their deaths. Then we move forward
about what eight months or so and Keith calling Cassandra Haley, and here Wilmer
again is clearly linked, not necessarily yet, but he is clearly suspect number
one as you referred to him. Yeah, in that disappearance, and the
river's right there. I'm sorry, Kristin, go ahead, I was going
to say, and if you look too at the crimes that are bracketing Ragged
Island and Keith Colinus Sander Haley. I'm wondering if he has anything to do
with the disappearance of Brian Pattinger and Laurian Powell, both of whom were found
in the river. So I do think there's a good possibility that he finally
figured out here's how I weigh a body down and make a body disappear in
a body of water. Yeah, we've been Bill and I were talking a
little bit before the show about this. I think we've really got to do
what it's called geographic profiling on this and look at all the places where the
victims were last seen, plot those on the map. Then you plot as
well where the bodies were found. You plot where known in this case,
we now have a suspect can be plotted if you do all of that.
There's a very sophisticated program that have been written that look at traffic patterns and
things along those lines to really then sketch out what the sphere is and where
the heart of that sphere is, because that's usually a place where one of
the killers has some sort of connection to be it. Things on those lines.
And there's a guy by the name Arosso who's written the book on geographic
profiling, and it's absolutely phenomenal to go through it. It's a science all
on its own. It's fascinating to go through. But it's very useful to
pin down a little bit too, of what the range of these guys are.
Everybody has always said, and I'm sure you guys have heard this time
and time again. They say the last two murders, they always say those
probably weren't the Colonial Parkway murderer. They always throw in ragged island and go,
that probably wasn't the Colonial Parkway murder because it's not on the Colonial Parkway.
And for people who don't live down there or who haven't driven that area
or know the area, we're talking twenty minutes, it's twenty five minutes.
And that's in present day traffic. Mind. You to get to these locations.
And now that you know where these guys live, which is up in
the Northern Neck, up in Lancaster, and you start looking at their geographic
range, suddenly you go, wait, their range is pretty big. And
if I was in law enforcement right now, I'd be dusting off every single
unsolved murder and taking it, putting it under the microscope and going could these
guys have one of these guys at least Alan Wilmer be responsible for that.
And one of the things that's very clear in the FBI and Virginia State Police
and Hampton PD said this as well, was that Alan Wade Wilmer was highly
transient. He often lived on his boat, which puts him right in the
middle of the tidewater area where the Colonial Parking murders epicenter is. So he's
living on his boat for weeks or months at a time, docked right nearby
and working those waterways. Yeah, you worked out a Gloucester. He literally
was a quarter mile to a half mile from where two of the murder seats
I shouldn't say murder seats, one murder scene and one car abandonment scene in
the case of Paul Hanley blame. We have so many listener questions for you
that we want to go ahead and jump right in. Everybook is so enthusiastic
to know that you were going to be on the podcast, So I think
we're just going to try to do as many as we can sure sure,
and go from there. So I'll come see it and read you the question
and the first name of the listener and we'll just go from there. If
we need to, we'll do a speed round. So the first question is
from Heather who asks, was Alan Wade Wilmer Senior at the top of your
personal list of who you feel was responsible after writing this book? And then
she follows it up with did you even have a top list? He was
not at the top of my list, And I really, if I was
an arrogant bastard, I would say, oh, yes, he was all
long, I'm going to be honest here, he was not at the top
of my list. I have gotten so many tips over Ron Little and Steve
Blackman over the years. They were given Blackman's recent criminal history and stuff,
they were higher on my list. Not so much Ron Little, but definitely
Steve Blackman's name has come up so many times it was hard for me to
not think of them as potential targets in this. Yeah, but there was
a lot of people that There's a lot of people in various cases as tied
to the Colonial Parkway murder, a lot of potential suspects that were on the
radar that I was like, at least worth taking another look at, and
this was one of those. This was one that was worth taking another look
at Haley asks, do you think Alan Wade Wilmer Senior is responsible for all
of the Colonial Parkway murders? I don't know for sure. The boy it
needs to be explored. Whether he did it alone, I don't know.
I think it's certainly now possible. Now that we have a name, we
need to take a more serious look at what other evidence can tie this person
to this. And I think a very logical place to go, in my
opinion, is go back to that list of everybody that was at the party
at University Square apartments. Go out there and say this guy, did you
see him in the parking lot, did you see him at the party?
Did you see him floating around? Did you see this truck anywhere? Now
that you've got a tangible piece of evidence with these photographs, you can go
back to all of those people. And I would be very disappointed if the
FBI wasn't calling up every single one of them and going back to that.
I think they've got to do that. I think they've got to also take
a look at all of the instances where someone was confronting someone on the parkway,
because that's how Alan Wade Senior got into this in the first place.
He was very aggressive and confronting people on the parkway. Now that you've got
his picture and stuff, go back to all of those cases. And again,
now it's even worse because you're doing with the park police, which is
a full different subject with me. They're making the FBI look good. That's
my view of the park police is they make the FBI look really good.
You need to go back on all of those and start. You have to
pry this case back open and expose it to the new evidence and go,
hey, did somebody see this? People are coming out of the woodward Blayane
and I know what's happening with you as well. Kristin and I are hearing
from a number of people and they are coming forward now, and they are
saying, I was accosted by that man, short, muscular driving in some
cases the exact same truck that we've seen in the pres materials, this blue
green work truck nineteen sixty six Dodge, which was very distinctive and old in
nineteen eighty eight. Yeah, and they're coming forward, and what's really frustrating
is they have told me they reported this to the National Park Service and the
FBI back when it happened after the murders. So the disconnect here in this
case is just baffling. How did Alan Wade Wilmer slide when so many people
were coming forward and saying I had a very scary or uncomfortable encounter with this
man where he came up to us and demanded driver's licenses. He wasn't wearing
a cop uniform. He was typically wearing like a mechanics uniform which a waterman
might wear. Behaving incredibly aggressively towards these couples. They live to tell the
tale. But you're absolutely right, it's imperative that the FBI go back and
reinterview all the people that were at that party. There's a big discussion going
on as we speak on the Keith Call Cassandra Haley page on Facebook run by
our friends from the Call family, and there's a number of people that were
there at the party who were saying, I was there that night, I
saw Keith and Sandy. These people need to be reinterviewed. Yes, they
absolutely do. I'm hoping and praying that's exactly what the FBI and the Virginia
State Police are doing. I know if I was in charge of this case,
That's what I would be doing. I would be doing a forensic diagnosis
of every aspect of this family's life. I'd be praying every credit card report
that has ever been produced for these guys. I would be looking for every
bit of information to formulate the case. I certainly hope that's the case.
I don't know if that is, but I would certainly hope that would be
the case. 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. Do you
think this is from Patricia Marie and Patricia says, do you think that if
it wasn't for earth Wells telling you that Wilmer was the first suspect in the
Call Haley murder and you putting the information in your book, that the FBI
might not have eventually fessed up to it. Other people knew about that,
and I've talked during the writing of the book. I talked to Bill about
this, and Bill was aware of it. I also talked with the call
family about this, and they were aware of it. Other people knew about
it. I think I know Andy Fox used the book to pose his articles
in question Andy carries around a dog eared copy of this book everywhere he goes.
I think the book made it so that they had to respond to it
because it was out there and there is no way around it. I don't
know if their response was fully appropriate. I think they needed to be a
little more open and honest personally. They have, on numerous occasions with school
shootings come out and said, oh, this person was on our radar.
We dropped the ball. I really think the families deserve that statement from them,
that this guy was on our radar, we dropped the ball. I
don't think they're ready to do that yet, and I don't know why other
than they're protecting their reputation. Yeah, the FBI seems to be having a
bit of a problem with transparency in this particular case, and I certainly hope
that they begin to become more transparent about it in the future. Next question
is from Heather, who says Alan Wade Wilmer Senior died at the end of
the same year the book was published. Is there any possibility Alan Wade Wilmer
Senior read your book and spooked. I'm going to I'm going to phrase this
in two different ways. I doubt he didn't look like the reading kind of
guy from the pictures I saw. He's not. I have started to go
through because I took pictures every time we did an event. I'm starting to
go through those pictures now to see if any if him or his brother were
actually in the audience of any of our public events, because we had two
hundred people show up on some of these events. Yeah, I remember,
yeah, Yeah, I remember your event at the Yorktown Library that was a
sellout. Yeah. We took a lot of pictures of the audience because you
never know who might show up. I will say this, on several occasions,
the FBI has reached out to me and asked if I could get a
list of everybody who's read my book. And Amazon doesn't give us that it's
sacred. It's sacred material for obvious reasons, and it's weird that they asked
me on two occasions for that, So clearly I think they they want to
check that avenue as well. Add something there. I don't know, let
me add something there if I may. I'm not sure that Wilmer has read
the book, but he has an extensive family of children and grandchildren. Now
his kids would be in their forties now and married, and they have kids
of their own, some of whom are in their twenties now. Yeah,
I don't think it's out of the question. And you guys did a great
job with the publicity when you and Victoria worked the media, and you went
out and you did book talks, you did book signings, you appeared in
a variety of places. There were a lot of articles written, in a
lot of media coverage in Virginia. Of course, you're talking about a Virginia
case. I don't think it's out of the question that someone on the Northern
Neck became aware of the fact that there was a book about the Colonial Parkway
murders which was creating quite a splash in twenty seventeen book was published. I
don't think it's out of the question that someone said, have you looked at
this book and if you turn to page two O four, that's when you
tell the story about the waterman. Yeah. I wouldn't rule it out,
Bill, I just don't want to sound too weak atistical to go, oh,
yeah, the murderer was keeping up on me. When I saw that
guy's pictures, my first thought was this guy's pro pretstcusy guy. I doubt
he did a lot of reading. He just didn't strike He personally doesn't strike
me as the kind of person that did a lot of reading. And I
could be wrong. I could be forming an opinion based on a photograph.
I don't know. I will be shocked if that's the case. But at
the same time, there's been a lot of shocks lately, so I'll take
it. Bill. I'm going to switch up the order here real quick and
just cover all the Wilmer stuff all at once, and then I'll get to
CPMK specific stuff. Sounds good, okay. Another gentleman with the name of
Blaine, who says great name, by the way, asks what was Wilmer's
initial response to police when he was observed cleaning and repairing the bed of his
truck. I don't have that information. I know that police were so concerned
that expedited getting the warrant because they were fearful he was destroying evidence. I
don't know if he actually was aware that he was being watched. I suspect
he was. If he was doing this level of cleaning and attempting to purge
stuff, that certainly seems to me that he may have spotted a white van
up the road type thing. Okay, Tammy asks, do you know of
any of the places that Wilmer may have worked or docked out in Gloucester County
while he was living and working on his boat. I don't, and the
reason is I've pulled up on Google Earth and started looking at various docks where
waterman work, et cetera. The problem is I don't have an accurate map
of that for the nineteen eighties, and things actually do change quite a bit
in that regard, so I really don't have that at this point in time.
I do know I've had several people tell me that he regularly docked in
Gloucester that I've had a couple of people reach out to me and let me
know that you actually addressed Julie's first question already, which is what type of
criminal record for petty or major crimes did Alan Wade Wilmer Senior have? Yeah,
but she also wants to know can you tell us more about various incidents
of harassment on and off the Colonial Parkway in the area around the time of
these crimes. Well, I think Bill's probably addressed a lot of those.
I did get one interesting anecdotal story about Wilmer from someone just the other day,
and I'm not going to reveal who it is, but he said,
you know, I don't remember this, but my dad did. It was
he was on a junior baseball team and Wilmer was there and drunk and was
so angry at the call so the umpire was making. He was climbing up
on the backstop. They had to pull him down, and he said.
The general tone that everybody had in that area was you didn't if you could
avoid contact with the Wilmers, you did that. They were rowdy, boisterous,
They were overly engaging. Shall I say? I would say aggressive was
the word that wasn't used, But that's the word I would use. Sounds
very right. Erica asks, do we know the identity of the second person
who was interviewed and polygraphed with Wilmer. No, I don't know, And
unfortunately IRV Wells has died because I think IRV Wells, honestly the tone I
got with the interview, he always felt that this was his guy. And
I think if you read page two O five and stuff, you get that
part of the book, you get the vibe that IRV Wells knew this was
his guy, and is polygrapher was telling him it wasn't Wish I knew Wish
I knew. Polygraphs don't clear anybody at this point. And so now I
think you've really got a question a lot of that. We have people who
have very obviously spent a lot of time on the case, and they have
a couple of different possible suspect and accomplice theories that we want to run past
you as well before we get into more case specific detail. So the first
question from Katie is did Fred Atwell ever have any connection to a relationship with
Ellen Wade Wilmer that we know of? I don't know of any, and
that's a great question. It certainly needs to be explored. I think it's
a good question too. Continuing in that, Vain Laurie asks, do you
know if Wilmer had any connection to Ron Little or Steve Blackman? Again,
great questions. I have never seen anything in the research I've done on this,
or than my daughter Victoria's done on this, that showed a connection to
them. This is something we're I think all of us are looking into though,
because I'm actually starting to hear of some potential intersection between Alan Wade Wilmer
and Ron Little, which would center around the Tidewater area and Gloucester. So
we'll have to see how that plays out. That would be interesting. The
next two questions regard other notorious Virginia cold cases. Richard asks, might there
be any evidence that Wilmer was considered a suspect in the Shenandoah National Park crimes?
And he's referencing there the murder of Julie Williams and Lolly Wine and in
Shenandoah in nineteen ninety six. For anybody who's not familiar, what do you
think, Blaine? The state police have fb have DNA from that crime scene.
While it was poorly handled by a park ranger who actually worked in the
Colonial Parkway at one point and it was mishandled, they do have DNA in
that case. And I would think, really, all it's got to happen
is a comparison. Now, has that happened? We are? I'm not
privy to it now, Bill, you maybe I don't. I'm not,
And forgive me if I sound cynical, but I'll believe it when I see
it. The other ones got to be the Route twenty nine one, because
everybody highlights throughout twenty nine one and they go, could this be this?
I lived, and I live on not far from Route twenty nine. I
drove that road quite a bit in my life. I don't know if they're
there, but now what we have geographically, we know that the range that
these guys operated in was long. Okay, this was not everybody who's always
said, oh you got it, nor Phelps lower. It's not part of
the Colonial Park Grammars or oh you got to skip Ragged Island. That doesn't
count guys. The map is big on this at this point, and these
guys traveled considerable distances. I'm not willing to say yes or no on that.
I think they would be stupid to not be checking it. And then
Blaine just tangentially related to Route twenty nine, but something that we talked about
a couple of weeks ago before all of this blew up, there is some
theory that Rex Huerman, the Long Island serial killer suspect, might also be
the Route twenty nine stuck or so you rolling your eyes. I'm curious what
You're just curious what your thoughts are on it. The eye roll gives it
away. There's a few people out there with crackpot theories that have tried to
force them in and I'm not gonna I don't remember the woman's name, but
she's pushed this on me and got all upset when I didn't embrace it.
There's nothing that proves that. And I've actually had tips come in where I've
turned more of the Virginia State Police on the Round twenty nine killer that are
pretty good tips, and I've never heard back, but that's not uncommon.
When you turn in a tip to law enforcement. They don't call you up
and go it didn't work out, or it did work out. They just
thank you and move on. I don't know. I doubt it. I
seriously doubt it. It just this person was the same person that raised this
with me, And if it's the same person raising you, connects this same
person to every unsolved serial killing case up and down the East Coast. So
that's their whole motive thing is if there's an unsolved crime, they're sure this
person is responsible, and I just don't subscribe to that. Show me the
evidence our thoughts too. Let's get back to some case specific questions that people
just wanted clarification on. So the first question, and again we know that
some of this you may not be aware of, and that's totally fine.
The question is what caliber was the gun that was used on Ragged Island?
And do we know if it matched any of the guns in Alan Wade Wilmer
Senior's house. What I do know is they initially thought it was a forty
four caliber. They're fairly convinced because the mutilation of the bullet, etc.
And the size that it was a thirty eight caliber. What I don't know
was were any weapons recovered from Alan Wade Wilmer's possession. I have no idea.
I think it's a great question that the FBI, I'm sure should be
taking a look at, as well as the Virginia State Police. But didn't
have they found a weapon? Can they match it up to the ballistics for
that single bullet that was recovered? I don't know, Okay, And that
was from Charlie Jennifer asks, now that Alan Wade Wilmer Senior has been confirmed
to be the killer of David and Robin, are there any possible links between
him and Sammy Reider? It is interesting that reader died in nineteen eighty nine,
after the last of the Colonial Parkway murders. Perhaps they were a team
and his death is why the murders stopped. That's from Jennifer. That's a
great question. I have never heard of Wilmer's name. In my discussions with
the Isle White Share former Isle White Sheriff on this case, at no point
did they bring up Wilmer's name, So I don't know if there's a connection
there. I would certainly hope the authorities are taking a good look at It's
a good question though. Now, Samuel Reader did put himself at the scene
where Robin and David were killed, and he did admit I believe that he
went into the truck and I think stole money from David's Wallace. Yeah,
I'm not mistaken. So he does put himself there, correct, Blane.
Yeah, that doesn't necessarily mean that he had anything to do with it.
It could be that he did exactly what he said he did and stole some
cash and hooked around the truck. Yeah. Regged Island attracted a weird group
of people and still does from time to time. I've been down. There's
always a little creepy when I go, oh, tell tell that story that
when you were researching the book and you went down there and ran into a
cop. What he said to you it was, this will be offensive,
I'm sure to somebody. I couldn't find Ragged Island the first time I went
there, and I pulled over. There's a little memorial to like Vietnam soldiers
that's across the street. I didn't see the entrance to Dragged Down. I
pulled over there and was looking around, and I'm trying to figure out on
my GPS where the hell that park is, because it's showing that I'm there,
but I don't see it. And a cop pulled up and he said,
you having car problems and I said, no, I'm looking for Ragged
Down. And he said, oh, you're here for a blowjob or for
some weed. And I said I appreciate the offers either. And I said
why would you say that? And he goes, oh, it's a well
known area for homosexual activity and it's well known drug exchange area. And I
said, no, I'm doing a book. Can I explain to him I
was doing? He showed me, all you're right across the street from it.
He's got to drive over there and go in, but he said,
this place has always had that reputation. It's just a creepy place, and
that's always stuck with me. When I went there years ago with one of
the investigators and they walked me through the crime scene or potential crime scene for
Robin and David. One of the striking things was even though this sandy parking
area, which appears in photographs and you talk about it in a special kind
of evil, is actually quite close to the James River Bridge, which is
a long oh right next door here. But if you're on the bridge,
you can't see Ragged Island exactly because the structure of the bridge actually blocks your
view of the parking lot, so you wouldn't witness anything from up above,
and the traffic on that side of the bridge is driving away from Ragged Island,
so unless you were in the past your seat and completely turned yourself around,
yeah, you would not see anything that was going on in that parking
area, despite the fact that it's quite close to this major bridge. Yeah.
Yeah, Ragged Island is as a creepy place all together. And it
was funny because I talked with one of the family members who told me when
they went out there one time there was gunshots going. You could hear gunshots
in the area. Yeah, it's just not a place you want to go
after hours, not at all. I think we may need to do a
speed round here real quick. Allison asks, is it true that Keith calls
car seat was all the way forward for a person around five foot five?
Keith was six feet And we know that Wilmer was short. We know that
the car seat was all the way forward that I know how that it relates
to the size of Wilmer. I haven't crunched it. A lot depends on
people's leg length to really determine that. And and I would imagine the FBI
should be taking a look at that, okay. Allison also asked, can
you confirm the fishing line was used to tie up Rebecca and Orcafee. What
I was told by IRV Wells, and I put this in the book was
it was a nautical line. And I think I actually put it in all
caps in the book because IRV really highlighted that he indicated it was nautical line.
Now, I don't know. I have seen the crime scene photographs.
It's very hard to tell from those crime scene photographs what type of line it
is, I'll add I'm highly confident it was not fishing line. The rope
is larger than that. It is the kind of rope that is used on
a boat. But I believe it's a larger diameter and it is not fishing
line to my eye, yeah, fishing line. You're looking at a hundred
even one hundred and thirty pound test. I think you're going to be having
a hard time strangling somebody with it. The line is visible as well in
the crime scene photographs, so I agree with Bill. I think it's a
nautical line, but I don't know any of the details me on that,
and the FBI should still have that evidence. This may involve a little bit
of gruesome speculation here blamed, but Haley wants to know where do you think
Keith and Sandy were disposed of? Are they on the water or on the
on the land. I firmly believe at this point that they were intercepted on
the land on the way back to Cassandra's house, and given the implication of
Wilmer and his use of a boat, I believe that they were deposited somewhere.
I don't think they were alive at all when the police were watching the
Wilmers. I don't think they were tied up somewhere being held captive. That
isn't a trade of the Colonial Parkway murderer. We just he wasn't that kind
of killer. I think this is an instance where they were killed and their
bodies were did somewhere in the water, I believe. Now bear in mind
the FBI did aerial searches water searches of the York River, but these guys
operated all the way up through the Northern Neck, which is up to the
Rapahannock, where they may have dumped the bodies or depositive bodies where he may
have dumped them. I don't know. I honestly have no IDEA question from
Charlie, are you aware if the FBI has surveillance images of the areas around
Camp Perry, Cheta Manx or the Naval Weapons Station. I have no idea
if the FBAI does have images of that. I was told years ago by
a well informed law enforcement officer that they actually did seek out photographs of this
type. And actually I heard a crazy story, and I don't know if
it's true or not that they actually sought satellite imagery of Big they actually requested
it from the Russians, but I don't know if they ever got it.
No, they didn't get it, but they asked the Russian well, they
asked the Russians. During Cold War, IRV told me his stories and we
reached out to the Russians and asked them for spy images of Camp Perry because
they may have been photographing at the time the murders took place. And they
never got those images because nineteen eighties, it's Cold War and the endea of
the Russian spine on Camp Perry and then us going to them and saying that
is totally blowing my mind a little bit. Camp Piri. I mean,
it's well known, it's the CIA, and you've also got a nuclear weapons
storage facility up in that area at the naval base, and yeah, that
whole area was under surveillance, I am sure by the Russians. Last question,
now that all of this new information has come to light over the last
twenty one days, can we expect second edition of a Special Kind of Evil?
At How are you going to integrate all this information into the book.
My publishers asked me to write a new epilogue and follow up chapter to the
book. I've told them I think it's a little early still, and a
lot of those dependent on us getting information. So far, I'm being stonewalled
almost everywhere. I'm getting tangible information that can be an implication that they're working
the case so actively that they don't want the information out there, or that
they don't want it out there because it's going to be embarrassing to them one
way or the other. I'm going to continue my efforts, and I'm using
every little backdoor I know to get information from various sources, and I don't
usually reveal how I do that, but you'll see the end results of that.
And I got a rust records for these guys, so that's a good
start. And I'm talking to people up in Lancaster and they're One clerk said
she was going to buy the book, so I thought that was good.
Will you come back and talk with us again as the case unfolds, Absolutely,
anytime you guys want me back. My goal is not to sell books,
because the books have already sold. My goal is solve this case for
the families. I have deep connection with several of the family members and correspond
with them, and we just want to see these things brought to justice.
So that's where I'm at. Blaine. Thank you for all of your hard
work and your advocacy on this case. We really appreciate it, and we
appreciate you taking the time to come on mind over Murder today. No,
no problem, it's great coming out. Thanks for having me that is going
to do it for this episode of mind of Murder. 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 producer are Bill Thomas and
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