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. Hey, it's Bill Thomas from mind over Murder.
This is a special message for a couple the guy I met when we
were at Crime Con this past week. We met a couple from Virginia married
who had provided us with some confidential information in the Colonial Parkway murders, and
this message is for that couple. Please, it's imperative that we hear from
you as soon as possible. The information that you provided is quite important.
Quite frankly, I need to speak to you as soon as possible. I
believe you have my contact information, but just in case you don't, please
feel free to email us at Colonial Parkway Murderers at gmail dot com. That's
Colonial Parkway Murders at gmail dot com. Please if you can contact me as
soon as possible, it's extremely important. Thanks as always. Welcome to Mind
over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're back for
a record breaking fourth episode of Ask Us Anything, Colonial park Murderous Edition.
My goodness, oh my gosh, and you're so chipper it's hard to quite
understand it all. I'm trying very hard at the end of a very long
school day. So here we are and I'm putting best foot forward, baby,
because that's what we do. It totally works for me. I'm impressed.
Here we are, recording this on a Monday, getting way to head
out to Crime Con at the end of this week, and just getting a
ton of stuff done. We're being really impossibly productive here is We're doing good
stuff, I think. So we're going to try so we have a couple
of questions to wrap up our original list, and then people keep asking things
and of course if you ask, we will answer yes. So we have
a couple of additionals. Let's go ahead and start with Julie. So.
Julie C is a regular commenter and we love hearing from her. So Julie,
he says, I would like to know if the recent arrests for previously
older cases gives the families of the Colonial Parkway victims a little more hope that
science will eventually catch up with the perpetrator. If I can start, I
would say, heck yeah. Someone mentioned to us the other day on social
media they were wondering if we were ever upset when other cases are resolved and
offenders named, And nothing could be further from the truth. I think you
and I are usually so jazzed when we hear about an arrest made or an
offender identified. In some cases they've passed on, but that's really exciting.
That actually gives us lots of hope. I think the person that asked the
question was wondering if we were saddened by it or made jealous or something along
those lines, and we don't feel that way at all. Were thrilled to
see cases moved forward, and it gives us lots of hope. What do
you think? No, I agree, they're definitely when. I'll go,
oh, man, I can't wait for the day to come for the Colonial
Parkway murders, for that to happen for these families. But no, I
wouldn't say that we're ever disappointed or jealous or unhappy or anything like that,
because it just means that it is slowly taking down the number of cold case
homicides in this country. We want that number to go down. We want
it to go down because our cases solved one hundred percent. But anytime that
a family receives answers and justice, not closure, because we know how we
feel about that word. But anytime a family receives answers and justice in some
variety, that's a win for everybody. But I understand the question, and
I appreciate the question. We've met a lot of people who have been through
this experience. I often feel a real affinity for these people because we have
a sense of what they may have gone through because we've gone through something similar
through our own losses. I'd be less than honest if I didn't say,
when will it be our turn? Sometimes late at night and I'm tired and
I'm trying to fall asleep, and I'm thinking about the case and mind of
a murderer and the things we're working on, and I think we're still waiting
for answers yet, those news stories that we see and cases that are resolved,
it's like a moment of light where you think there's a lot of darkness
out there. There's two hundred and fifty thousand cold case homicides in the United
States. There are tens of thousands of unsolved rapes and sexual assaults across the
country, probably hundreds of thousands. Unfortunately, some of them might not be
resolved because they've passed the statute of limitations. But when a case is broken
like this, whether it's done through forensic, genetic genealogy, traditional police work,
good old fashioned gumshoe detective work, whatever it is, or combination,
which is usually what happens, I find it energizing and I smile for a
moment, and I think about those people, some of whom we've met,
many of whom we have not yet met. But we're going to see more
people even this week at Crime Con and people actually have reached out to us
specifically and asked if they might have a chance to meet with us. These
are families of missing and murdered persons that want to spend a few minutes with
us. I know they'd like us to cover their case on Mind over Murder,
or help publicize their cases, or assist in any way that we can,
and we're happy to help in anyway that we can't. We can't cover
every case, but we can certainly offer our experience and maybe some hopefully worthwhile
advice. I'm flattered that someone would reach out to us before they see us
at Crime con and saying I'd like to introduce myself when we're all there at
this conference with five thousand plus people there, that they want to meet with
Kristen and Bill and talk about their case and ask whatever questions they're going to
ask. That makes me feel good. That makes me feel like we're getting
something worthwhile out of all of this. Yeah, I agree. I'm curious
a Bill, does that sense of when is it our turn? Does that
get stronger around anniversaries because we are headed pretty solidly into anniversary territory. It
absolutely does. I was thinking about it today. I had to do a
dog food run to Litchfield, Connecticut, which is about half an hour away,
and it's a beautiful drive, and so I'm driving along and I've got
music on the audio system, and on the way back, I was listening
to a dar Williams album. She's a singer songwriter from the Northeast here and
the album is called End of the Summer, and I deliberately chose it because
today was a gray, rainy, cool day here in Connecticut. She sings
about the to the summer and a number of other topics, but that's the
name of the album. And yeah, October from me, which is the
anniversary of Kathy and Becky's death and very close to the anniversary of three of
the four incidents in the Colonial Parkway murders. Yeah, it always resonates with
me. This six week period between Labor Day and Columbus Day is real hard.
We're always thrilled when someone else gets that chance at answers and justice and
just knowing, because I'm sure that sense of knowing is going to be a
relief. And I'm looking forward to the day when I'm always hoping that if
I get a call mid day from you, I'm always hoping that it's going
to be the call of you saying, oh my god, I just heard
from the FBI. They did it, They got it. We have a
suspect. There's been an arrest. Like every time I see something come up,
I'm always like, is this going to be the day? Is this
gonna be it? That's sorry, No, it's not because I'm really looking
forward to that day and I have no doubt that it will happen at some
point or another. Is it going to be next week, next month,
next year, I don't know, but in the order of things, I
have to believe that there will be answers at some point or another. I
just have to because I don't want to live my life thinking about a world
in which there isn't answers for this. It's a solvable case. We have
all of the things that we need to solve it. I have to have
faith that it's going to get solved in our lifetimes. I don't want to
put forth into the university idea that eventually it won't that it won't, because
that would just be that would be bad. I don't want to do that.
So I'm going to choose to project optimism. I think that's a good
thing. I feel that way most days this timeframe, this September October timeframe
is always difficult for me because it means that very soon another year will have
ticked by and we still don't have answers in the Colonial Parkway mers. And
that's disturbing. Now I'm sure that it is. No, it's a great
question, Julie. I think so too. Let me just add as an
aside, I spoke to a friend of ours, Keith, today, who
is a big supporter of us in looking for answers in the Colonial Parkway murders.
And he's a really smart guy. He's got a lot of interesting ideas.
I don't agree with all of his theories, but at the same time,
he has spent a tremendous amount of time on the Colonial Parkway murders.
He lives in Virginia, knows the territory, and knows these cases very well.
And he's often very challenging, and I mean that in a good natured
way, challenging of my suppositions and assumptions and that sort of thing. And
that's probably good to hear. But we had a fantastic, wide ranging conversation
earlier today and he's got me thinking about a lot of things. I also
briefed him on what we've heard recently. That part was discouraging because we're not
really hearing anything concrete. As a matter of fact, we're hearing like virtually
nothing, and that's very frustrating. As we've talked about before, the FBI
and the Virginia's Day Police are very interested in asking questions. They're not very
interested in answering questions. You would wish that it would be a little bit
more information forthcoming from the investigators. Let's move on to another question. This
is from Dwight h and Dwight asks, I'm interested in the two books you
are both writing. This is a frustration. You want to go first or
second? Sure? Pretty much. The short answer on the book that I'm
working on is that I am a full time teacher and now full time podcaster.
I'm not working on a book right at the moment because I do not
have enough hours in the day. Unless I can obtain a time turner rated
out of the pages of Harry Potter novel Sopfully, people will know what I'm
talking about. I do not have enough time and energy to be able to
work on my book. I wish that I was as prolific as our friend
Katherine Ramsland. Katherine is amazing and she's managed to crank out seventy books.
I can't even seem to get this one off the ground. It is not
currently something that I'm working on. However, the original conceit, which is
what actually got Bill on my radar and what ultimately put me on his,
is the idea of an exploration of what the family members of murder victims go
through. I was going to call it Battle Scars, and I still am,
like I have a manuscript, it just hadn't been worked on in a
while. But the concept behind Battle Scars is what is the experience of people
who have lived through an enormous loss like this? And I started with the
story of my own friend who I lost to homicide. I interviewed her daughter
and we really worked through the process about what it was like to lose her
and what it was like in the aftermath. And when I had gone through
that experience and I wrote a successful chapter, I figured, Okay, I
had a whole list of other people that I really wanted to dig into their
experience on dealing with the violent crime and loss. But because the Colonial Parkway
murders cases were so near and dear and important to me. I decided that
before I tackle anything else i've dealt with the crime that has impacted me most,
let me reach out and see what's happening with the Colonial Parkway murders families.
After doing some research, I found this guy named Bill Thomas, whose
name was just all over all the reporting for the Colonial Parkway murders and every
time that I found something online there he is Bill Thomas, brother of Kathy
Thomas. I thought, okay, let's reach out to this guy and see
what he's all about. I remember reaching out to Bill and being put through
quite an intensive background conversation in which he grilled me about what is your interest
in this case? Do you know something like why are you writing this book?
What's up? How long did it take you to realize, Okay,
she's not full of shit and she's not a murder weirdo or anything like that.
I feel like it took about an hour and a half. Was it
about that long or not as much? I estimated it was one hundred and
twenty seven hours of intensive grilling over a three week period, but perhaps I'm
wrong. I feel like it was about an hour and a half into our
first conversation which was about like two two and a half hours long, and
because we were talking and you had said, all of this is off the
record, and so for the first ninety minutes I was not taking notes or
anything like that because you said it's all off the record. And then after
about ninety minutes you were like, Okay, now I'm willing to talk to
you on the record, And then I sat down and started typing out notes
as we were discussing. Did we do it all at once or did we
circle back and talk a second time? Oh, we talked a bunch of
times. I was actually going back the other day just to see, like,
how many note taking sessions do I have from phone calls with Bill?
And I stopped taking extensive, copious notes after six phone calls, and I
started just jotting things down in a notebook like you do, Like I stopped
sitting there and typing things. I think it was after maybe five six phone
calls that we realized there's some really good information here and we should share information
and talk. And I think probably somewhere in there you must have figured that
you could trust me, and we just developed this friendship which has led to
this partnership. So the book is on hold. Battle Scars is on hold,
but it is something that I want to come back to because I think
it is worthwhile. As I said, until such time as I don't teach
full time, or until I have a time turner to help me better manage
my time. It's going to be on the back burner for a little bit,
the idea of a time turner, and I could use one of those
two if there, Oh my gosh, could we both for me? The
Clonial Parkway Murders book is something I had put aside for a while, and
now I've been thinking pretty intensively about going back and working on finishing that.
It's in manuscript form. I've shown it to some people. The feedback was
very good. The feedback from a couple of years ago when I wrote the
book was this would be better. This is agents and publishers and book publishing
can be as cynical a business as any. There was some feedback, we
think you're a terrific writer. This is a very compelling story. It would
be stronger if there were a happy ending. They actually said that, I
remember you saying that, and I think it screamed yeah, w yeah.
For something like that. Yeah, my life would be better if there was
a happy thing too. But I am thinking seriously about going back now and
starting to fill in some blanks and if anything, it's far too long,
there's too much information. I've been asked to take a look at a couple
of things and I will circle back on those elements that were pointed out to
me that they thought needed additional work. It's a work in progress and it's
definitely something that I will be revisiting in the coming months. Like you,
Kristen, it's a matter of time and budgeting schedules and just working it all
out with life and the podcast and running your airbnb. Yeah, all the
other aspects of living a life. It's definitely something that is in the works.
So we shall see. Dwight, it's a great question, and the
only frustration is just that we would both like to move our respective projects forward,
and then we've also talked about doing some things together. Yeah, we've
got to figure out how to be as efficient as Katherine Ramsland and some of
these other writers that we know. Casey Sherman just wrote another book. He
seems to be writing about it a book a year, which is damn impressive.
It really is. And then Katherine Ramslin has written probably two books a
year. It's crazy for years because she's on her seventieth book now. I'm
really I'm wondering how some of these people sleep or if they sleep, because
I only have so many hours in my day and I try to only spend
a minimal amount necessary to sleep. But gosh, I'm in awe of people
who can just crank out the work like that. I don't know about you,
Bill, does the writing come easy to you or is it something that
you feel like you really have to spend time ruminating and going over it.
And I don't know if you're the sort of person who edits as they go,
You're really not supposed to do that, but I do because I'm a
total sta learn a perfectionist, so I edit as I go, and I'll
edit at nauseum. And they say, you're not supposed to do that.
I know, and yet I don't usually have difficulty with the writing. It's
finding the time to write. Yeah, So obviously we need to figure out
a way to make that a higher priority. Speaking of things that are important
that are also time consuming, we have this memorial coming up for Keith Call,
which is going to be Saturday, October fourteenth, twenty twenty three,
at two pm at the Rosewell Cemetery on Providence Road in Hayes, Virginia.
We've got a whole bunch of very interesting people who are going to be speaking
at this thing, and that's something that you and I both are working on.
What is it we want to say? Yeah, at this upcoming event,
we're not going to be giving marathon speeches, but you've got a whole
bunch of interesting people that are speaking. Blaine Pardo, who's the author of
a Special Kind of Evil, the book about the Colonial Park murders. I'm
speaking, Kristen speaking. Andy Fox from w a By TV ten, longtime
television reporter in the market, is speaking, as well as members of the
Call family, Joyce, Chris, Doug, Stephen and their aunt Lou Call.
A number of people are going to be speaking and we all have to
be thinking about what we want to say, how we want to convey our
positive, good thoughts about Keith and the life that he lived which was cut
far too short. And then to acknowledge the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization or sponsors
of this thing and We're kind enough to approach the Call family with this idea
of a memorial stone for Keith. But that's yet another thing I'm thinking about,
which is I'm going to be in Virginia in a couple of weeks,
and I've got to plan that trip, and Kristin you and I have to
figure out what do we want to try to accomplish when we're both in the
same place. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out, like, who else
do I want to meet with while I'm there. There's always new things.
This is an exciting opportunity to acknowledge Keith's life, and at the same time,
it's something I have to start planning for almost immediately when we get back
from Crime Con. So, yeah, there's always something. I don't know
if you're like me in the sense that a lot of times when I'm trying
to wake up and get my brain activated in the morning, I'll start writing
things in my head. Like I've done that since I was a kid.
I've always been a writer, and I'll write out whatever it is I happen
to be working on, whether it's a short story or a screenplay or something
like that. And so the last couple of days. I've written really great
versions of this speech that I'm going to be giving at the whole memorial in
the shower, and I get out of it and I'm like, I don't
have time to write this down, damn it. Let me try to remember
the best parts of it, seal it away, and then when I have
time a little bit later, I can sit down and write it. But
I've written like three versions and they've all been wonderful, and I have got
none of them done on paper. There is your phone. If your phone
has that feature where you can record into your phone. It doesn't, unfortunately,
So I keep rewriting and writing and rewriting this speech. I just need
to actually sit down and type it on the paper or type it into a
computer screen. Of course, because I also have students who are asking me
for letters of recommendation, I'm alternating back and forth between I got to write
a letter for this kid, and it was a speech for this thing.
I've got a screenplay that I'm working on. I got another thing. It's
chaos. Honestly, my brain has so many tabs open I don't know how
I can continue to function. It's funny that you're using a computer metaphor in
terms of describing your own brain. Hey, it's what it feels like.
And every teacher will tell you they have six hundred tabs open at any one
time, and no one knows where the music is coming from. Yeah,
you got to close that window in order to get the music. This step.
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. Our next question
is it's from our friend Jason. Jason is the host of the Santa Maybe
podcast, which I believe you had something to do with, mister Thomas.
I voiced a bad guy in one of the latest episodes of Santa Maybe,
and I was very proud Originally when I saw Jason when we were down in
Savannah, he told me he thought I was going to play an elf,
and I was really excited about that, because guy, I picture myself.
I maybe six feet tall, but I think of myself and elphin terms,
so I was really excited about that. And then the elephant thing fell out
for some reason. But then he told me he wanted me to play a
sleazy bad guy, and I thought I can be down with that bad guess
I could do. Sleazy Bad Guy was sort of a touch of Las Vegas,
and I had a good time. It was really fun. Again.
It was one of those things where Jason got after me because he was like,
I really need those parts that you're going to be recording, and of
course I was busy with other things, and he said, I gotta have
these by the end of the week, and so I thought, okay,
I can deal with the deadline. When I finally got into it and recorded
the parts, it was actually really fun. Oh my gosh, I was
part of Santa Maybe. Yes, yes, Santa Maybe. It's very funny.
Everybody should give it a listen. Jason, true to form in the
Christmas Elf Spirit, asks what are your favorite Christmas traditions or movies? Because
remember we did say you could ask us anything. Jason asks what are our
favorite Christmas traditions or movies? Leave it to Jason not to ask a Colonial
Parkway murders question. We did say ask us anything, so he took us
off on it. All right, that's true. So, Kristen, what
are your favorite Christmas traditions or Okay, so I'll do I'm going to mention
two things. So the first thing, it is our family tradition, and
I have to say I need to give my parents real props here for this.
My parents divorced when I was maybe eleven or twelve years old, maybe
a little bit younger than that, I can't remember. But my parents have
always remained amazing friends, like really good friends. I never saw them fight,
I never saw them argue, like they just can't inhabit the same space.
But my parents are wonderful to each other. And so our Christmas tradition
for years and years, no matter how big or small our family has gotten
is that we all have Christmas Breakfast at my mom's house. Everybody shows my
dad has dishes that he makes, my mom has dishes that she makes,
and now my stepdad has dishes that he makes, and we all have Christmas
Breakfast at my parents house. And I love the fact that even after the
divorce, my parents have never they never hesitated to be like we are still
having family Christmas. I was never the divorced kid that had Christmas with Mom
Christmas with Dad, and I'm overwhelmed and enjoyed by that. So I would
say probably my favorite Christmas tradition in the family venue is we all have breakfast
together on Christmas Day. Oh, I think that's great. I love the
fact that your parents birth parents, and then your mom remarried, yes,
and your step dad and they're all there. I think it's great. I
think that sounds like a situation where your family, if anything, has expanded
and everybody does their absolute best to get along and show some Christmas spirit.
I think that's lovely. Well on, step Dad and my dad get along
like a house on fire. They're really really good friends. So yeah,
there's never been any nobody, there's no tension there. Dad and Don are
just they're good buds and they'll just sit there and watch Fox News together.
They'll talk about produce or whatever, construction projects like. They get along so
well. So it's never been a question of it's weird because step Dad is
there, Like, it's better because step Dad is there well, And your
mom's even mentioned how goofy it is that the two of ever such good friends.
She's gonna kill me for saying this, but she's never gonna know.
She doesn't listen to the podcast. She told me one day she went with
my dad to a doctor's appointment. The other day because I wasn't able to
this is her ex husband? Now, yes, is my ex husband.
My mom goes with my dad to his doctor's appointments. And she texted me
and she said, I feel like I'm starring at a sitcom called My True
Husbands. Oh this is too funny. I love it. But it's been
so good to have parents that are so supportive of each other. And after
my dad's cancer surgery five years ago, yeah, my stepdad was just my
stepdad was there. He was helping take care of him. It was It's
amazing. My family has always been very supportive of each other and I'm proud
of my parents for that, and it's been really good for me to have
that. So I appreciate that. And then actually I have a school related
Christmas tradition too, sure, and that is Over the last couple of years,
the Student Government Association, the SGA has sponsored a holiday door decorating contest.
You have to decorate your classroom door. You don't have to. It's
a thing that you can do, but most people do. And your door
has to be decorated like according to a theme that they set, but also
according to your academic area. For me, because I'm lucky enough to teach
both English and film. My door can either be English related or it can
be film related. And so the last couple of years, my two A
B Film class has decorated the door and they have done an amazing bang up
job finding a way to tie in Christmas movies into the door, and it's
just been it's been tremendous fun. I love doing the door decorating contest with
my kids because if you just tell them, hey, here's a project,
let's figure out how to do it, it takes them like a couple of
tries to figure out, how are we going to work together, and how
are we going to delegate and what are we going to do. Give a
group of teenagers a chance to do something cool and they'll do it. In
most cases, they'll do it really well. I've enjoyed that door decorating Christmas
tradition, and of course it's a holiday tradition. You don't have to do
a Christmas store, so it's really neat and it's something that's a lot of
fun that we do during the school year. So those are my Christmas traditions.
What are yours? We moved around every two years when we were kids,
because my dad was an able officer. What I loved about our Christmas
traditions is they were audible. We moved every two years, and we lived
in a lot of places. And this is a long time ago. Now,
this is in the sixties. I couldn't get a Christmas tree, and
a lot of places we lived. We lived in Hawaii, California, and
New Mexico, wherever the Navy sent my father. And so we had this
great, very nineteen sixties Christmas tree. It was silver, We had green
Christmas balls on it, green glass balls on it, and there was a
color wheel at the bottom which you placed in the corner and it rotated and
had four colors on it, so the tree would turn yellow and then red
and green and blue. Very nineteen sixties, and much later when my dad
retired from the Navy and became a college professor and we moved back to Massachusetts,
then you can get a Christmas tree every single year. And we even
got some trees with a root ball in them, and one of them was
named Grover for some reason, at which we later planted in the yard.
The following spring grew to be quite big and tall. In the side yard.
We had so much fun as kids. There were four kids in my
family. Sometimes my dad was away for Christmas, but most times the Navy
would try to get him home and the people aboard his ship would be home
for Christmas. And we had a wonderful tradition where we would open one present
on Christmas Eve before we went to a lot of times we went to midnight
Mass, so we would open one present on Christmas Eve. It was supposed
to tamp down the excitement of four kids, and Christmas morning was all the
way to the next day. So it started out as let's open one present
and that'll reduce the hysteria. And then somehow, as we got to be
a little bit older into our teen years, the idea of let's open more
Christmas presents on Christmas Eve and less presents in the morning. So the Christmas
Eve thing grew and grew, because teenagers want to sleep in on Christmas morning,
especially if you've been at midnight Mass and then maybe went out with your
friends afterwards, or went back home and had delicious baked goods till all hours
of the night. So that meant that everybody could sleep in a little bit
on Christmas morning, and then in more recent years, Hamil and I have
it's the two of us, and we often see my son Chris, who's
in law school now at Christmas. We try to a lot of times it's
just the two of us and the dog. We've actually been developing some new
Christmas traditions. We both love Christmas music, so we play Christmas music for
certainly from Thanksgiving on. I refuse to listen to it before Thanksgiving. I
get very frustrated when I see holiday decorations and advertisements before each holiday has gone
by. I think we should celebrate each holiday in its own month. I
don't think we need to expand the holidays so that they're like three months long.
We also been playing around with the new thing, which is looking for
fun new Christmas movies. Okay, every one per night, for every night
in December. I gotta tell you, the Hallmark Channel has a lot of
those. They do. Some of them are good and some of them are
like And then of course Love actually always has to be in the mix there,
which is one of our favorites. I don't know if you're familiar with
the movie or not. It's I am, but I've never actually watched it.
Oh, we actually I strongly recommend it. It's one of our absolute
favorites. Oh but here's the ultimate question. When it comes to Christmas movies.
It's Diehard a Christmas movie? Not in my opinion, but I know
other people that feel very strongly that die Hard is actually Christmas movie. Oh
my goodness. Yeah. We had a vociferous argument in film class last year
as to whether or not die Hard was a Christmas movie, and more people
came down on yes it is than no it isn't. So we had to
include it on the Christmas door somewhere. When it was Christmas film movies,
it had to show up on the door. When you were talking about the
deck riding the doors, I thought to myself, how much you want to
get die Hard is one of the films pictured on your door? Yes?
Absolutely, And we try to make sure that we were representative of all holidays.
So there was sure that Eight Crazy Nights was on there and various other
things as well. But yeah, Diehard was on the door last year for
sure. So on a more serious note, I think we have a few
more Colonial Parkway questions. Yes we do, and some of these are great
questions. For some of them, we just don't have answers. We want
to have answers, but we do not have them currently. For example,
let's deal with this question from David. He's so thoughtful, he's clearly always
thinking of this case, and I appreciate this question. I do not have
any research to back this up whatsoever, but I hope somebody will. So
if anybody out here wants to do the research to answer David's question, please
do And what is it? So? The question from David is how many
unsolved homicides are there from the respective jurisdictions during the general time frame of these
cases, as in Virginia, this region of Virginia, national parks in Virginia,
et c. How many involved double homicides, how many missing people from
that timeframe. I am just curious and thought someone may have some statistics in
general, what percent of homicides were solved in Virginia during that time. I
love these numbers. I love doing data analysis, but I don't have that
information at Bill. I don't think you'd do either, but if you do,
let me know, I think a lot of it. We're not going
to be able to answer David the double homicides thing. I think we can,
which is double homicides are actually pretty rare, and the investigators from the
FBI and the Virginia State Police have told us so and said so directly.
They have said things like double homicides are rare, lovers lane murders are rare.
They did look at other double homicides and other lovers lane murders in that
nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety or so timeframe. I distinctly remember a case
in Houston, Texas involving the murder of a couple that took place, I
want to say, in nineteen ninety and they took a real hard look at
that case. I'm talking about the FBI now, and I'll answer the question
as best I can. I think there are dozens of other unsolved homicides in
the area that is the Tidewater area of Virginia as it's referred to, during
that same time frame, and I think many of them remain unsolved. I
don't know if I can provide any kind of statistical analysis about that. However,
it would be interesting, though, to see if there is someone out
there who could run those numbers. I'm actually I'm wondering if Thomas Hargrove would
have any insight on that interesting conversation to have with Thomas Hargrove from the Murder
Accountability Project. I think so this question from Virginia. Did you learn anything
important or significant from the Lovers Lane docu series that surprised you? One thing
that was very interesting is remember we had two principal investigators, and our two
principal investigators came down in precisely opposite ways. That is because Lonnie said one
thing, Maureen said the other. You may recall that our former prosecutor,
Lonnie Coombs felt that the four incidents and the Colonial Parkway murders were not all
related, whereas Maureen O'Connell, our former FBI agent, felt that the four
delbahomicides and the Colonial Parkway murders were all related. So here's two brilliant people.
They're coming at this from two different perspectives, but they are sharing the
same information and kind of debating on camera and off what their views were.
By the end of the series, Lonnie feels they are not all related.
Maureene feels that they are. And I respect both of them immensely. Either
one could be correct. I thought that was very interesting as well, and
I was a little surprised that they were not in lockstep on it, but
I'm glad that they weren't. In terms of were their new realizations for us,
I didn't feel like there were, just because we know the case so
well inside and out at this point, and we had shot the show once
already, so I didn't learn anything that I did not already know in terms
of subject matter and facts and things like that. The wild cards, as
you mentioned, Bill, were how were our subject matter experts going to come
down on it? I do remember, really I don't know if enjoy is
the word, but I found it illuminating to watch the reenactments that they were
putting together of what might have happened at Kathy and Becky's murder scene, for
example, Because I ended up being able. That was one of the nights
that I was able to get to the shoot after a day at work,
And it was actually one of those nights that I remember thinking I very much
not only wanted to be there, but I needed to be there because I
wanted to make sure. I was worried about you watching your sister be reenacted
murder being re enacted, So I remember thinking that I wanted to be there
to be a support for you in case you needed it. But I remember
remember watching that and thinking, this is really interesting watching how someone like Jim
Clementi and Marin O'Connell and Lonnie Coombs go through and like how they watching them
deconstruct the process was really interesting to me. Yeah, I sel the same
way a lot of the behind the scenes of shooting a TV series. That
was the most interesting stuff to me. I also really enjoyed, both on
and off camera, the observations and the really fascinating analysis by Jim Clementi as
a former FBI profiler and by doctor Laura Pettler as a crime scene investigator.
Those observations were so fascinating and it was a real privilege to be around those
four people, all of whom were so smart and so interesting, and to
hear their real time observations about what they were seeing and they were watching the
re enactments and they're looking for information, and doctor Petler had brought in crime
scene photographs and other analysis which allowed them to recreate the crime scene as closely
as they could, and that part I found very interesting. I don't know
if there were things that I necessarily learned about the cases but their analysis was
very interesting and thought provoking. I agree. So this one's from Virginia.
She said, I would love to know the probability of so many people murdered
that had a connection to liberty If any quantsice that means math person, please
give us the likelihood of that. And she says to Bill and Kristen,
on a one to ten, lowest to highest scale, what do you think
is the likelihood that there's a connection to at least one of the couple's murdered.
We know for certain there is a connection in the Liberty Security example to
both Brian Pettinger and Lorian Powell separate incidents. But there's two people that worked
directly for Liberty Security that were murdered. So that's a ten for each of
them. For the Colonial Parkway murders themselves, I think we're looking at probably
in eight. I think there's a really good chance that the murder of Robin
Edwards and David Nobbling and maybe Keith call it to Sandra Haley are all related
to Liberty Security. I would say it has to be an eight. But
feel free to disagree with me, Kristen, No, I do agree with
you. I definitely think that to rework the succession of related cases together.
I think that Anna, Maria and Daniel eventually are going to follow at the
table. I think Kathy and Becky's is going to be something else entirely.
And I think that Robin, David, Keith, Sandra and eventually Lauren Powell
and Brian Pettinger. I think those are going to end up being the core
group as related to liberty security. The more connections that we see to liberty,
the higher likelihood I think it is that a lot of this is linked
back to Run Little, I really truly do. I'm with you on that.
I think the Run Little New Zealand connection needs to be explored again.
I think that really is where the FBI needs to place their focus now one
hundred percent. It just seems you just can't have that many murdered young people
come up with one connection to the same two people and not have that explored.
I think it's time for them to revisit that particular investigative lead. Agreed.
And then our final question comes from the good folks at Brothers in Crime.
Brothers in Crime asks, what if anything, can people do now to
create movement in this case? Is there any particular pressure point, outlet,
or avenue where we can do something to help these cases get solved. This
is a fantastic question, and we want to thank the brothers in crime for
it. I think we're going to have to really think about this, you
and I and we're going to be seeing several of the other families in a
couple of weeks at the keithcoll Memorial. I think we're going to have to
brainstorm about this and try to figure out how do we go about this.
I know that a number of US Colonial Parkway murders families have written to the
FBI specifically over the past year, and we're getting the same old answers,
which is open case, can't really comment, nothing to say at this time,
still being actively investigated, and it's just such an eye roller. We're
not getting any kind of meaningful response from the FBI. I think in the
past we've gotten a similar response from the Virginia State Police in terms of the
other two incidents. I think we really need to think about this, sit
down with the other family members and talk about this before we can come back
to you with a better answer. We're really thankful and so touched every time
people express a desire to help us get the ball rolling on this. We
really do appreciate it. It is just a question though, of trying to
figure out what is going to make the FBI move, if you will,
what is going to make them answer to something other than we're still investigating.
It's an open case. We have some ideas. Bill has been dealing with
the FBI for a long time, and I've been dealing with them in conjunction
with Bill now since twenty sixteen, so I have some ideas too. But
it really does it feels like I haven't used this metaphor for a while now,
Bill, so I'm going to bring it back right now. It feels
like playing a game with three dimensional chess where you're trying to work on multiple
levels. Three D Chess, by the way, for anybody who's not a
Star Trek fan, it's a Star Trek game, But three D chess is
where you play chess on multiple levels at the same time. I feel like
that's what dealing with the FBI and Virginia State Police is. It's like playing
three D chess and you have to be aware of all the moves and all
the pieces on the board at the same time, and it's not always easy
to control who and what's on the board and who's interacting with each other.
Say, I feel like we really have to consider our moves carefully before we
do anything. We appreciate everybody who reaches out and asks what can we do?
Because we know your heart is in the right place, and we appreciate
that we did it. We got through all of our questions on the ask
us Anything question sheet, and there were a lot of them. We are
so thankful to everybody who asks us questions, who is interested in status updates
on the case, and who follows us on social media, and who just
reaches out to say, hey, how are things going. We can't thank
you all enough for your support for these cases and these families. That is
going to do it for us until the next episode of Mind Over Murder.
The next time that we record, we will be back from crime Con so
we will have an after action report from what is doubtless going to be a
fun filled and action packed weekend. Until then, thank you so much 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 Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela
Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over Murder is distributed
in partnership with Coral Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter,
or Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders
on Facebook, and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill
Thomas five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder U