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. We're back with a second episode of Ask Us Anything,
Colonial Parkway Murderers Edition. Wow. That sounds impressive. Yeah, we
had so many amazing questions the first time around, but we couldn't get to
them all. And I think we've still got more than three quarters of the
list left, actually, and more questions are coming in as we speak.
I certainly don't want to be the person who's like, all right, guys,
put a halt on that, so we'll just still. We're going to
do as many as we have here, and then we'll just continue addressing as
they come into us. Sounds good. I also wanted to mention something which
is in our last episode. We had discussed briefly the fact that we're going
to be together at a memorial service for Keith Call, and we wanted to
give you the basics in case you want to put it down as we save
the date. We'll have more details as they come together. The memorial service
for Keith Call is going to be on October the fourteenth, that is the
second Saturday in October, and that is going to be at Rosewell Cemetery in
Gloucester. As the time draws closer, we'll put like a link and a
map up in our show notes so that people can get an idea of the
space. But we do hope that anybody who has been impacted by these cases
and who knew or loved Keith Call, and certainly the other members of the
Colonial Parkway murders families will be there as well. So anybody who has feelings
about these cases, we would encourage you to come out and share in this
celebration because this is the first memorial service that the Calls have been able to
have for Keith, and we should take a moment here to mention this does
not mean that his body has been founded has not, but it seemed high
time for the Call family and then eventually for the Haley family as well,
to have a place to go. This is a memorial that will be placed.
There are no remains to be interred underneath it, but we do eventually
hope that will be the case. And the nice people at the Cumberland Historic
Cemetery Organization, who do historic monuments of this sort in Maryland and in Virginia,
had approached the Call family to ask if they might be interested in this,
and Edward Taylor, who's the president of the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization,
approached them. He had been following the case for a number of years.
One of the things that Joyce called Canada and her brothers had said to us
is they never really had an opportunity to do a memorial for Keith, because
you're always hoping that Keith and Sandy are going to show up at some point
and the years go by and nothing has happened, and then this wonderful opportunity
was presented to them by mister Taylor, which was very kind, and after
talking about it amongst themselves, they thought this would be a nice way to
mark Keith's passing. They may do something at a later date for Sandy as
well. They're going to add a beautiful stone to the family plot at the
Rosewell Cemetery, which is where the call family, particularly their mother and father,
are buried. So I think it's a really nice thing. The public
is welcome to attend Saturday, October fourteenth at two pm at Rosewell Cemetery in
Hayes, Virginia. That is definitely something that we're looking forward to. The
two of us are going to be speaking and there will be any number,
I think of opportunities for nice remembrances for Keith. We'll include more information on
our social media page as that day grows a little bit closer. Let's good
to jump into it. Continuing the huge swath of questions given to us for
ask us anything, We're going to jump into this section that I'm going to
call the suspect section. We covered a lot of general questions last time,
and today we're going to seek to talk about suspects and if we can,
we'll get into DNA and forensic genetic genealogy. First question comes from Johanna Why
Who asks probably the most important question of all, which is do they have
a suspect or suspects yet? Is DNA from one person? Or are there
multiple DNA samples at the different sites? Is any DNA linked to all the
sites? Let's take those one at the time. These are excellent questions,
and thanks Joanna. Do they have a suspect or suspects yet? We have
been told by law enforcement over the years that there are at least one hundred
and fifty persons of interest in the Colonial Parkway murders, as we talked about
last time, I am increasingly convinced that there may be multiple offenders in the
Colonial Parkway murders. That's just my personal opinion, and I could be completely
wrong, and I'm very comfortable at some point if an arrest is made or
a particular offender is identified, I'll be perfectly comfortable to be wrong. At
least one hundred and fifty persons of interest. Sometimes, the FBI has talked
to us about the list, which is at least one hundred and fifty persons
of interest, and then sometimes they refer to something as the short list.
No one's ever crossed off the list, we're told, until an arrest is
made and there's a conviction, so we're still not there yet. Sometimes they
refer to the short list, and that's probably an involved parking here, ten
or fifteen names that are the people they would regard as the most likely.
As I said, no one's clear, no one's taken off the list,
but you might be on the less likely list. So I would put the
number probably around ten to fifteen suspects that are known to FBI or Virginia State
Police at this point. I think they would regard them as the most likely
suspects. I don't think this will surprise anybody who's been following mind Over murder
in this case for a while. A number of them are law enforcement or
former law enforcement. The next follow up question to that is going to be
do you have names of a suspect or suspect? The answer for both of
those is no, neither of us have names. I want to be fair
to everybody. Obviously, one hundred and fifty people cannot all be involved in
the Colonial Parkway murders, and as we've seen in this and in many others,
can destroy someone's life or certainly their reputation by insisting that is involved in
this or any other murder. They can't all be involved, and we're very
uncomfortable naming suspects. The only time I think will cross that line is if
an individual has died. We may be willing to discuss it, particularly if
their name has appeared sometimes repeatedly in the media over the years. So sometimes
we'll cross the line with someone who has died because I don't feel like we
can really impugne their integrity in anywhere, and they're dead and they probably wouldn't
care much about it anyway, and if their families are upset, I understand.
We're not saying anyone did it because we don't know exactly, and we
do know that everybody out there has their sort of favorite, shortless suspect,
and we're going to cover some of the specific names in this next set of
questions have come up. Let's deal with the DNA question next. Is DNA
from one person or are there multiple DNA samples at the different sites? Definitely
not DNA from one person that we're aware of. There are multiple DNA samples
of potential suspects. You have to underline that we're not saying we know for
certain that these are the killers, but there are DNA samples at three of
the four crime scenes. We've asked this question repeatedly of law enforcement, and
the FBI has told us there is nothing in the forensics that links the four
crime scenes in the Colonial Parkway murders. I cannot emphasize this enough. I
know there are people that will insist it's this person or that person they're responsible
for all of the murders in the Colonial Parkway murders. They may be right.
I personally don't think that's the case. But the FBI has told us
repeatedly, and we've asked the question again within the last few months, is
there any linkage between the four crime scenes? And they say no. So,
taking that at face value, with the understanding they have not always been
as truthful as we would like, we do not believe that there is any
DNA linked to all four of the double homicides and the Colonial Parkway murders,
which definitely blows holes in the serial killer theory that people are so very fond
of and I get it because it's a compelling theory. We want to believe
that there is only one sicko out there murdering couples over a series of years
in the nineteen eighties. We don't want to believe that it may be four
or even more sickos out there uncaught. But the fact that there is no
forensic link to all four of the scenes blows a hole in the serial killer
theory. But I know that's something that a lot of people want to hold
onto because it seems like the most compelling and most interesting theory. But as
you said, Bill, that may very well not be the It's also quite
possible that some of the Colonial Parkway murders could be related. And have said
all along, and I know you've said it to christ and you and I
both believe that incident number four Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lauer on Interstate sixty
four feels very different from the other crime scenes. I also think the Virginia
State Police or the responsible agency for the Phelps Laugher murder, have a good
idea who they believe the killer or killers happen to be. Who are people
that have an association with Anna, Maria and Daniel, but they've not been
able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these individuals are responsible for their deaths.
That one is one that I think could ultimately fall off the table of
the Colonial Parkway murders because I think it may be an independent event, because
we did just pass an anniversary for that case in particular, we do want
to emphasize that even if the case does eventually fall off the table, we
are definitely not in any way going to give up on Anna, Maria and
Daniel's case. So until it has proven one way or the other that they
either are a part or are not a part, we're still going to treat
them as such, and we are still going to offer all the support that
we can to the Phelps and Lour families. And as you mentioned, Christen,
we just passed the thirty fourth anniversary. They died over Labor Day weekend
nineteen eighty nine, and it's been thirty four years since their murder. It's
a sad anniversary. And as you've mentioned before, Kristen, three of the
four double homicides here are all clustered together. In the next six weeks or
so, this is a time of year where we're thinking about all of the
victims in the Colonial Parkway murders. We're going to be celebrating Keith's life in
a couple of weeks, and at the same time, we're going to be
marking the passage of yet another year for three of the four double homicides in
this case. We're actually going to go ahead and present a question next from
Mary Dowski. I think I can share her name because I'm about to share
that she is Becky's cousin. So Becky Dowsky's cousin. Mary actually asked us
on the social media page. Was Becky's past boyfriend from the UAE totally investigated
and found not to be a suspect. It's been so long, I don't
remember if he left the country immediately after speaking to authorities or no. Can
you speak to that Bill? I can. We're not going to mention his
name, because again, we want to be fair to everybody. There's nothing
that proves that this man is involved in Becky's murder. Becky's college boyfriend,
who was a few years older than she was and also attending William and Mary
at the time she was a senior. He had dated her. As we
understand it, he took the relationship much more seriously than Becky did. He
was looked at as a suspect, not necessarily to my level of satisfaction.
I still think there are aspects to this man's life that were worthy of further
exploration. It's difficult to get a straight answer out of the FBI, I'm
sure for me to say that a few times as to what exactly they did
to look into this man's whereabouts. He was from the United Arab Emirates,
which is a very conservative Muslim dominated country. This is in the nineteen eighties.
At the time, William and Mary was really promoting itself to international students,
particularly students from the Middle East, and they had attracted a fair number
of students from that part of the world. For what it's worth, the
penalty for homosexuality in that part of the world was death. But it's just
worthy of note. Supposedly this man was in Washington, DC the weekend that
Kathy and Becky were murdered. I've talked to you about this before, Kristen.
I think that's a week us now. Remember this is before cell phones,
and so someone's whereabouts are a little harder to pin down. But what's
the distance would you say, from Williamsburg to Washington, DC. I'm actually
google mapping that right the second. It is one hundred and nine miles between
here and Washington, DC. So if I wanted to get to DC,
I could leave now and be there in two hours and fifteen minutes according to
Google Maps. And that's width traffic too, by the way. Yeah,
so from my point of view, and again Google Maps didn't exist back then
either, of course, in nineteen eighty six, two hours and fifteen minutes
or so, I don't think that's that strong an alibi. Supposedly he was
in DC that weekend, given the fact that he could have killed Kathy and
Becky and driven to DC, established himself as being in DC that weekend.
In other words, we make sure you're seeing in public and that sort of
thing. Still always felt from the very beginning that this guy deserved a second
look. I've done a fair amount of research on him. He went on
to graduate school, also in Virginia. After he graduated from william and Mary
he has had a brilliant career as a computer scientist. He was quite successful.
He worked for a number of very large companies, including names that we
would all know. He is married. He lives in Austin, Texas.
His wife's an artist. They have a couple of kids. I know a
fair amount about him. I know where he lives, the whole thing.
I'm not an investigator, but I know how to use a computer. I
never felt that he was sufficiently investigated, but there's nothing that highlights his involvement.
One thing I did think at the time, and I've thought about it
quite a bit since, there are aspects to Kathy and Becky's murder that to
me feel consistent with what they call an honor killing in the Middle East,
which is an absurd expression. But when men pardon me while I roll my
eyes, are dishonored by the women in their lives in the Middle East,
they are often brutally murdered. The use of rope, knives and fire in
Kathy and Becky's murder is consistent with an honor killing. Supposedly, this guy
was really upset when he found out that Becky was breaking up with him,
and then really enraged when he found out he'd been thrown over for a woman.
Now does that all add up to murder? I don't know. It's
definitely a possibility, one that's not been fully explored, at least not to
my satisfaction. Our next question comes from Carla Pe and it's our favorite current
rabbit hole to go down Bell And I think anybody who's local who's followed this
case is familiar with this name. And even though this I don't even want
to call him a gentleman, even though this person has passed recently, we
are we're going to go ahead and use his name. The question is,
has run Little and his security quotation marks company Angel been exhausted? Was Laurie
Ann Powell, also a victim of the Colonial Parkway murderer. Rabbit hole time,
rabbit hole time. Thank you Carla for the question. Yeah, let's
see if we can get through this fairly concisely. Ron Little was a criminal
from New Zealand. He died about it's coming up on two years ago,
if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he had emigrated to the United States and
he's got a very checkered past, both personally and professionally. He ended up
moving to southern California, where he met and married a woman. They had
a child together, and then he broke up with her. More or less
and moved to Virginia. He was attending college in Virginia and working for a
security company, Liberty Security, which is owned by a man named John Hawthorne,
who's a former Gloucester County Deputy sheriff. Supposedly, Ron Little Urchiest the
company from John Hawthorne after working there for some time. I questioned whether that
was a real sale or what they call a strawman sale, which is a
fake sale. I think John Hawthorne may have maintained some interest in the company,
and perhaps I'm not even certain that Ron Little would have had the cash
to buy a security company. Liberty Security was a small security agency that provided
security for department stores convenience stores. People remember Roses still are a couple of
Roses around which is a department store if I'm not correct, Yes, the
department store I guess equated with Kmart and then also Little Sue and other convenience
stores in the area. And they also trained security guards for roles in these
retail establishments as well as some private investigators. Strangely, Ron Little, despite
the fact that he had a criminal background in New Zealand, he was involved
in auto faff, drug dealing, and other sketchy matters in New Zealand.
Somehow he was permitted to acquire gun permits in Virginia and then to purchase a
security company, at least on paper. Ron Little managed to insert himself in
a very public way in the Colonial Parkway murders, much like Fred Atwell had
done. Some years later, ron Little claimed that he was being harassed by
the FBI and law enforcement, including the i NAS, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, and he went public with a very strange letter, which we explored
in another episode of Mind Over Murder a while back. We can link to
that in the show notes here if you're interested in learning more about Ron Little.
He wrote this very odd letter to a number of me media people,
to President Bush who was president at that time, and a whole bunch of
other people Oprah included. It was the nineteen eighties, claiming that he was
being harassed by the FBI, and at the same time he was making these
public pronouncements on local television and in other media, claiming that he knew who
was involved in the Colonial Parkway murders and then he was going to help solve
the case. He inserted himself in a very strange Way. Ultimately, he
was deported from the United States after being arrested by the FBI. He was
deported by the i NS and the FBI in August nineteen eighty nine, which
roughly lines up with the end of what we refer to as the Colonial Parkway
murders. I can't say for certain that ron Little has any involvement there.
He did own this security company. After he purchased the company, he changed
the name to Advance Security and claimed to be the owner of the company.
He was returned to New Zealand, where he lived for a number of years.
He died a couple of years ago, and then very curiously his family.
He has five children by five different women, two in the US,
both of whom he married, and three in New Zealand he was not married
to those women. Is five grown children by five different mothers. The New
Zealand contingent the three kids that he had in New Zealand approached me a couple
of years ago, shortly before his death, and said that their father had
claimed to have been involved in a series of unsolved murders in Virginia, which
I agree is an odd thing for your father to tell you. He would
have been discussing this as far back as when his kids were teenagers and were
still trying to pin down many of the aspects of what it is that Ron
Littell told his family. I use the word family. It's a very unusual
group of people in that with the five different relationships with the five different women,
these young people who are now in their thirties, for the most part,
they don't even know each other. And interestingly, one of the kids,
one of the sons, said to me, you actually know more about
my family than I do, because I had studied the family and tried to
figure out who was who and where they were. It's a very curious situation
that I am still very interested in exploring. To Carlo's question, we don't
feel that the run little liberty security slash advanced security angle has been explored sufficiently
at all. We think there is a lot more to this, at least
potentially to this, and we do agree it's intensely curious and odd that a
man would tell his teenage children, yes, I was involved in a series
of unsolved murders in great detail, by the way, much of which lines
up with the Colonial Parkway murders. He didn't refer to them as the Colonial
Parkway murders. He didn't mention specific victims by name, but he told them
some very curious stories before his death from cancer a couple of years ago about
his potential involvement in the case. I want to make sure we get to
the second part of Carlos question, which is was Laurie Powell a victim of
the Colonial Parkway murderer? And I think that if we need to continue to
explore Ron Little, then I think we do need to take a look at
Laurie an Powell and move her look at her potentially as being not a Parkway
adjacent case, but as a case related to Ron Little. So if it
does turn out, for example, that Ron Little and his security company were
involved in the deaths of Keith Call and Sandy Hailey, David Dublin, and
Robin Edwards, then we also do need to look at Laurie and Powell because
she did work for Ron Little. I feel like there's even calling Lorian's case
parkway adjacent. I feel like there's a Zen diagram for some of these cases
where bits and pieces overlap, but not all of them do. So Lorian
Powell doesn't necessarily link to every single of the cases. But definitely she has
some ties in with Ron Little and the connection to Liberty Security. Are the
authorities looking at her as a victim of the Colonial Parkway murders? I don't
believe so, Bill. Have you ever heard the FBI comment one way or
the other about Lorian Powell or Brian Pettinger. No, I've talked to them
about both of those young people. And just to refresh everybody's memory, Lorian
Powell is a young woman that was murdered around the same time as Keith call.
She worked at Liberty Security as a secretary and bookkeeper. Right around the
same time that she was murdered. Another young man named Brian Pettinger who also
worked at Liberty Security. So these people worked with Ron Little. Pettinger was
also brutally murdered. In both of these examples, they were stabbed and their
bodies were dumped in bodies of water. Do you recall which ones? Brian
Pattnger was found in Chuckatuck Creek and Laurie was found in the James River.
In addition to two people Brian Pattinger and Laurie and Powell who were both murdered
right around the same time as Keith Kahl and Cassandra Haley. There's also two
other connections that were aware of between two of the victims in the Colonial Parkway
murders and Liberty Security as well, and this is what Christian's talking about with
the ven diagram. Robin Edwards mother Bonnie Edwards, also worked at Liberty Security
in the office, so there's that connection. And then a bit more tenuous
but worth mentioning Terry Hailey, sister of Sandy, had worked as a police
officer with a form were Gloucester County Deputy sheriff who had moonlighted at Liberty Security
and was a running buddy with Ron Little. That's a curious connection as well.
And his name is has often been mentioned in connection with the Colonial Parkway
murders. We're not saying he's involved now. The dating relationship is obviously a
bit more tenuous, it's nonetheless part of a pattern we're seeing here. So
by my count, that's four interconnections in the murders of six young people,
Robin Edwards and David Nobling, Keith Collin, Cassandra Haley, Lorian Powell and
Brian Pettinger, all of whom have a direct or a dotted line connection to
Liberty Security. It sounds to me like they need a little bit more looking
into. But what do we know. We're just podcasters. You're listening to
Mind over Murder. We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors.
We're back here at Mind over Murder. Next question comes from Jessica, and
this is something that we explored a little bit with our guest Kate Miles,
when she guested with us, not once, but twice. There's some overlap
here with her book Trailed, which by the way, is up for a
Clue Award at the upcoming Crime con yay for Kate. The question from Jessica
is where was known Serrio Keiller Richard Mark Evanets in October of nineteen eighty six.
He was twenty three and in the Navy at the time and seems to
be the likely perpetrator in the Shenandoah murders of Julie Williams and Lollywiden's, a
case that does bear some resemblance to Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski. This is
something that the FBI has looked at, and they've mentioned Richard Markovonets. To
me, on a number of occasions he was in the area. I can't
say definitively in October nineteen eighty six, but he had served in the Navy
and had served in Norfolk. Service records for individual members of the United States
Armed Services are not something that anyone can acquire, so this isn't something that
I've ever been able to see a copy of. Katherine Miles Kate, in
her new book Trailed, does explore the possibility that Richard Markovonets could have been
involved in the murder of Julie Williams and Lolly Winans. Jessica, you are
correct that case of Julie Williams and Lolly Winans is often compared to the murder
of Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski. They are admittedly ten years apart. Kathy
Thomas and Rebeccadowski in eighty six, Julie Williams and Loy wins in nineteen ninety
six. They are both lesbian couples killed on three day weekends in national parks.
They were both restrained with rope or other ties, and both killed outdoors,
so there's a lot of similarities. And even the FBI said they were
exploring substantial similarities. That was the expression they used back in nineteen ninety six
between the murder of Julie Williams and Lolly Widens, and specifically the murder of
Kathy Thomason Rebeccadowski. Now the Shenandoah, as Kristen can tell you, is
about one hundred and eighty miles away. We are talking about a ten year
gap. So it's a possibility one that I think needs further exploration as to
whether Abonnets could have been involved. He's now deceased. Kate continues to pursue
these avenues even after the published data her book, and we've talked to her
within the last couple of months. She's still definitely working on This would be
very interesting to see if VANETs could be tied in to the Williams Winan's case.
I'm not sure he's involved in Kathy and Becky's murder, but it's definitely
something that deserves further exploration. Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly, and that is
something that I hope I just we were talking, we were alluding to this
earlier off air Bill and I'm just going to go ahead and say it because
it's to feel I need to prevent my spleen for just a second, and
it can't always be used. Sometimes it's going to be me too, Go
right ahead. I I wish that the FBI and I know that we don't
know all of what they do, or even half of what they do,
because they don't tell us anything. But I really wish that they were a
little more open and creative in their thinking as to what may or may not
be connected. And I really wish that they were willing to spend more time
running down leads, even if it seems like those leads are old. I
really wish that they would spend more time checking out connections between these various cases.
I I feel like every couple of years, not every couple of decades,
but every couple of years, somebody needs to go through and check their
work and be like, Hello, have you looked at this again recently?
Maybe you can run that down a second or third time. I can't sit
here in good conscience and say that I feel the FBI has done everything that
they can to solve these cases, because I don't feel that way. I
really don't, and I don't think you feel that way either. Not to
put words in your mouth or anything no, I agree with everything you just
said. I really just wish that there was I wish that there was some
accountability over the FBI rather than allowing the FBI to police themselves. I wish
that there's some larger agency that would look in on cases like this and go,
hey, you guys actually doing anything here, Like how's this come in?
I feel like there's not a lot of accountability there, and I want
somebody to be accountable for this. I want somebody And I don't know who
that person would be or what body that would be, but I want somebody
to look over at these cases and go, you know what, there's plenty
of evidence here, and it's been thirty seven years for the oldest of these.
Maybe I don't know, maybe it's time we hand this off to someone
else. That's not going to happen, but I want it to. I
completely support everything you just said. I don't normally get that way, by
like for our listeners, I don't normally get that way. I don't normally
decide that I'm going to just sit here and have a righteous monologue about the
whole entire thing. But I'm in a bit of a mood today with regard
to the FBI, and I just I would just like to see more accountability.
That's been a theme this last couple of weeks of going back to school
is accountability, and so it's it's on my mind, it's in my brain
pan and if we're going to use that word, then I want the FBI
to have some because I feel like it really hasn't when it comes to this
case. They're doing amazing work on other cases. They did amazing coming in
and working on the Long Island serial killing case. That's fantastic. Can we
please get some of that mojo over here? I'm with you, all right.
Our next question comes from Andrea s. C. This is actually really
it's an interesting question. It's a good one. I think a lot of
it does come in relation to Patricia Cornwell's all that remains. Andrea asks,
was anyone at either CHEETAHM Annex which is the Navy weapons station, or Camp
Perry, which is the CIA training base around here. It's supposed to be
secret, but it's not. Actually was anyone either cheatam an X or Camp
Perry ever questioned? Given their proximity to the Parkway. Additionally, we're other
sections of the Parkway searched for evidence. Let's deal with the Navy base and
the CIA base. First, Bill, what do you know about anyone being
questioned at cheatahm Anx. I'm not aware of anyone being questioned. I am
aware of the fact that they did check records to see who was going on
and off base at Cheetah Mannix, specifically Camp Perry. I'm less aware there
have been some wild theories about Camp Perry trainees. I guess you'd say going
rogue and trying out techniques on assassinations along the Colonial Parkway. I think these
are absurd theories. That's full Patricia Cornwell stuff. I don't think it would
ever be there if it weren't for all the remains now, I think she's
promoted a fair amount of just wrong handed theories about the Colonial Parkway murders in
her book. All that remains Cheat of Mannix is immediately proximate to where Kathy
and Becky were likely murdered, and the Cheetah Mannix Overlook is where Kathy's car
was found, and you can see the annex in the distance, perhaps a
mile away across the water, and that's a place where maybe ships are loaded
with high explosives, including nuclear weapons. The Camp Perry thing seems like a
stretch Cheatam Annex less not aware of anybody ever being questioned there. All right,
let's get into the other sections of the parkway that we're searched for evidence.
We did discuss last time about whether or not cadaver dogs had been allowed
onto the parkway. The parkway is twenty three miles long, and so there
are many areas that are not immediately approximate to Keith and Sandra's at dumpsite where
the car was found in Kathy and Becky's So what do we know, if
anything, about other sections of the parkway that we're searched for evidence or were
they We don't know a lot. We know that searching was conducted. I
know in Kathey and Becky's case, they searched for a murder weapon along the
fence line at Cheatam Annex, which is immediately adjacent to the Ringfield plantation,
which is a possible site of Kathy and Becky's actual as opposed to the dump
site the Cheetah Manic's overlook where the car was found. And in Keith and
Sandy's example, there was pretty extensive searching on the ground along the banks of
the York River, and I've seen photographs of divers looking for Keith and Sandy's
remains. As a matter of fact, when they were searching for Keith and
Sandy's remains, they actually found the remains of another man who was someone who
would they think had died after he had jumped up and pushed off a ship
that was sailing likely outbound on the York River heading towards the Atlantic. So
there were barely extensive searches at the time of Keith and Sandy's disappearance. I
know dogs were used. We discussed the fact that dogs were used back in
nineteen eighty eight when Keith and Sandy first went missing and then brought back at
different times, including in twenty ten, as we talked about in our last
episode, the cadaver dogs were searching for Keith and Sandy's remains. So I
can't tell you definitively where on the Parkway, And as you mentioned, Kristen,
it's twenty three miles long, so we're talking about a lot of different
places and a lot of places. Two rivers, the James and York Rivers,
swamps, woods, there's a lot of ground to cover there. It
certainly searched, particularly for Keith and Sandy, and so far without any success.
Yeah, they're the biggest issue I think with looking for Keith and Sandy
on sections of the parkway is just that it is so massive, I think
Bill. I think it was maybe the first year that we started working together,
we had someone get a hold of us, and I ultimately ended up
going to meet someone out in the woods. Thankfully, I had the forethought
to bring an early male friend with me. Remember this, Do you remember
this? Yeah? It was It was somebody who thought that they had found
They thought they had found what may have been some belonging of Keith's. Ultimately
they were not and wanted me to take a look at a site. And
then there were also some bones that were found, although they did not seem
to be human bones and were more likely like peg or horse or oxen.
I am not the bone whisperer, so I do not have any way of
knowing that for certain, but I know we took some photos. There is
a lot of grounds to cover, and so even the area where I went
to meet this person, and I'm still feeling thinking on that, then maybe
that wasn't my brightest move in the whole entire world. But when we're given
that information, there are times when we just don't really have a choice.
So I went with my burly male friend. But that section was in closer
to Colonel Williamsburg. It was not on the section of the parkway close to
the York River where Kathy and Becky were or Keith and Sandy were. There's
just so much of the parkway, and it does run through like you said,
Bill, it runs along two differ rivers. There's swampland there's wetland,
but then there's also a portion of it that runs right through Colonial Williamsburg.
There is so much ground to cover. I would love to see like a
full scale search of the parkway. But I think also at that point it
would be like to what end? Like where do we stop? Do we
do the whole entire twenty three miles? What do we do? Yeah?
I recognize it's a challenging situation. Yeah, without question. And look,
there are a lot of people that feel that regarding Keith and Sandy. Who
are the missing people that we're talking about here, Because all of the other
bodies were ultimately recovered, we're not even certain that Keith and Sandy ever were
on the Parkway. Yeah, that does become problematic too. As we talked
We've known ye as we talked about last week, the Parkway isn't even on
the way home, Yeah, from Christopher Newport University where they were last seen
at a party at around one or one thirty am, heading home for what
we believe is at two am curf. The Parkway is at fifteen to twenty
minutes out of the way, as you mentioned last time, Kristen. So
it's quite possible that the York River overlook where Keith's car was found is a
dump site for a car only. And then there's also the possibility the York
River, which is very deep and powerful at that point and big enough for
US Navy ships to be sailing by, if somehow Keith and Sandy were forced
to enter the water or shot or something like that and their body's dumped in
the water, we might never recover them. So there's a lot of different
factors here that I recognize. We can keep searching forever, and I'm not
opposed to searching. There have been times when our FBI agents have said there
were specific places they'd like to take a look at and hopefully they've taken the
opportunity to do that. This is a really tough situation because we don't even
know that Keith and Sandy ever actually made it to the Parkway. We've had
people in the past who have reached out to us and said, have you
ever checked out anything on Crawford Road. Crawford Road is also an area that
is it is known as a body dump site. There have been bodies dumped
in the woods around Crawford Road. There's also a little covered bridge down there
that all the kids say is haunted. There's all sorts of crazy stuff.
But we've had plenty of people reach out and say, oh, no,
they were probably never on the Parkway, but have you checked Crawford Road.
We could check all the wooded areas and creepy roads around here for years on
end, and there would never be any way of determining we're exactly they went
to after the party. I think it's entirely possible that maybe they went to
get into keys car and somebody pulled a gun on them and from there they
never did make it onto the Parkway. I don't know. There's so many
different things, and that's what the call in the Haley case, I think
is one of the most confounding and frustrating because there are so many things we
do not know. We are never going to know sort of a full confession
from someone. We're never going to know exactly what happened. We're not going
to know cause of death, We're not going to know time of death.
There are so many things and that's very frustrating. It also makes it really
hard to pick out whether or not if this is a serial killer. And
I know neither of us really think that anymore, but if it is,
we'd have no way of being able to ascertain that we're missing cause of death
and manner for two of the victims. Very frustrating. We're going to wrap
up our Suspects episode with one final question from Sarah Sarah p Asks. Did
the police or the FBI ever look into Stuart Duke as a suspect. He
was convicted of killing a guy in the mid nineties and dumping the body in
Late Gaston. Maybe this was not his first time. I can't say for
sure that they looked at Stuart Douglas Duke Junior, who's now changed his name
to Punolero Dancing Buck apparently. I'm sorry to say that again, Punolero Dancing
Buck. He's legally changed his name. He did kill a man in November
nineteen ninety four. His victim's name was Kenneth Villa, and apparently he stabbed
the man minister via a one hundred and thirty one times before dumping his body
in Lake Gaston near the John Carr Dam, which was considered the deepest part
of the lake. I don't know if the FBI has ever looked at this
man. I'm not sure I see the connection. I found recent articles that
said that he was denied parole. He's now seventy years old, but he's
still considered to be a risk to the community. I'm not sure if he
has any connection to the Williamsburg area or not, but it's something that the
FBI and the Virginia State Police certainly would have been aware of. And he
is currently incarcerated under the care of the Virginia Department of Corrections and he is
in augusta correctional center in Gregsville, Virginia. Nice place to be. Actually,
you know what, let's end on one more question and I like this.
We were both really tickled by this question. And we've been trying to
figure out, like, how are we going to answer this? I think
if we have a hot mic in front of us, maybe we can come
up with something interesting. So here's the question. And this is a sort
of a late breaking question from Virginia P And Virginia asks, what is the
most interesting piece of information you have that most people don't know and won't hurt
the investigation if made public? I love that question. I just I've been
racking my brain trying to figure out how can I answer this. Wow,
there's a lot of stuff that we know that we can't necessarily share. Yeah,
that's the problem. I'll go on a little bit of a skinny branch
here. Okay, the FBI is listening, so be careful. Based on
conversations with law enforcement, I believe that investigators have suspects that they believe are
involved in the Colonial Parkway murders. But the suspects who are on the short
list, as we talked about a few minutes ago, to my eye,
look more like individual offenders responsible for one of the double homicides in this series,
rather than a serial killer who may be responsible for three or four of
the double homicides. And the Colonial Parkway murders. So I think the leading
suspects in the Colonial Parkway murders look and feel like they might only be responsible
for one of the Colonial Parkway murders. It's possible we may not be looking
at a series of murders, but perhaps a series of independent events. I
like his answer. Can to copy his answer everybody? And this actually to
the teacher who says, do your own work, I'm asking, can I
use that answer? I think that's great. I'm sure. I really am
trying to come up with what is the most interesting, singular piece of information
that I know that isn't going to hurt anything. And because I'm paranoid enough
to think that anything I say is going to hurt the investigation, I'm almost
afraid to say anything. I'm going to tweak the question just slightly and give
an interesting piece of trivia that maybe most people don't know. You and I
know it, of course, and maybe some other people who pay super close
attention to the pod. But I think maybe a lot of people out there
in the world don't know that one of the bones from Anna Maria Phelps's hand
was sent to the Smithsonian Institute to have some testing done on it. I
always thought that was very interesting. And if anybody watched the long running hit
TV series Bones, I don't even know if you watch this bill. Did
you watch Bones now? I never did. Bones is based in the Jeffersonian
Institute of the Smithsonian, and the Smithsonian actually has a whole vault out of
public view in which there are bones, bone fragments, in some cases whole
entarire human bodies that are sent to the Smithsonian for analysis. I always thought
it was very interesting that Anna Maria Phelps fingerbone, which ultimately had a nickmark
in it from a knife. I always thought it was cool that was sent
to the Smithsonian for analysis. To the best of my knowledge, that didn't
happen with any of the other cases. I believe you're correct. So that's
my interesting trivia piece. And I'm sure that there are going to be people
out here who were, like I knew that, Max to give us more,
but I'm just paranoid enough and I don't want my own run in with
the FBI enough that I don't want to say anymore beyond that. We're only
about halfway through our ask us anything questions. So I guess you lovely listeners
are in for yet another episode of Ask us Anything, but we're going to
wrap it up with DNA questions. Next time, FG questions all of the
sciency stuff, and then there are a couple of random we'll throw it out
there and see what you answer questions that will knock out as well. Thank
you so much for listening to this episode of Mind or Murder. We do
appreciate you listening, and we appreciate your support of the Colonial Parkway murders,
their families, and us, your hard working podcast hosts. We do encourage
you over the next couple of days. If you are planning on going to
crime Con, we are out for an award at the Clue Awards. We
are up for Creator of the Year. So if you are going to crime
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the box underneath our name and one check mark will go in our corner.
I almost feel like I shouldn't vote for myself, but you're darn right,
I'm going to vote for myself. Okay, Thank you for listening to this
episode of mind Over Murder. We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder
is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are
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