You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley and
I'm Bill Thomas, and today we are covering All That Remains by Patricia Cornwell,
the fiction book about the Colonial Parkway murders case. That's not really about
the Colonial Parkway murders case, but it might be about the Colonial Parkway murders
case. Is that a bleak enough? I thought you were going to say
the allegedly fictional book All That Remains maybe we need to consult with our legal
department on some of this wording. What do you think we're in trouble already
and we just got started. I know, by the way, before we
get started, you sound very chipper for a teacher who's back getting up at
o dark thirty and teaching again, how's it going? I'm tired, but
it's see any teacher how the first week of school goes, and they're going
to tell you I'm tired. I'm tired all the time. Have you acclimated
to getting up at four thirty in the morning again, No, there is
no way to acclimate to that. I will remain tired all year. You
have my sympathy, you really do. Yes, I should. But seriously,
though, folks, it is really good to be back in the classroom
with children in the building, although it is a little scary. The first
time that I was in the room with thirty kids in the room going,
I have not been in this room. This crowd had pandemic started. Are
they wearing masks? All of them are wearing masks. They have been very
good about staying mask up. And are you wearing a mask? I'm wearing
a mask. There is a mask mandate in place. Yes, does your
say teacher on it or silence or anything strict like that. Yeah, but
now that you said it, I should I think it's a silence one would
be would be great, awfully strict. Don't you think we do have mind
over murder masks that you can get it to? True? I hadn't thought
about a mind over murder mask. I feel like maybe it's probably not a
great idea for me to advertise my podcast in my classroom. Probably not a
good idea. I might get one anyway, just because we didn't have to
run that one past legal, we just knew. Yeah, we did it,
We nailed it. I do have an oxygen mask that I've been wearing
that says oxygen that you brought me from crime cons. I've been wearing that
one. Those are pretty snazzy. By the way, before anybody starts sending
us OD mail, which we do appreciate, we love hearing from everybody.
We don't really have a legal department. We know some very good attorneys,
but we try not to call them because they always want to bill us for
the time. Yeah, we can't really afford to have a legal department at
this point. Let's not get in a legal trouble either. Yeah, that's
not a great idea. And with all please do't sue me. I don't
have any money. With all of that in mind, I guess we should
get started. We should. For those of y'all that are familiar with the
case, you are probably familiar with the fact that Patricia Cornwell, a Richmond
novelist. She no longer lives in Richmond now, but did at the time
wrote a book called All That Remains, and All the Remains was published in
nineteen ninety two, which is a couple of years after the final murder in
the Colonial Parkway Murder series, definitely at a time when the case was still
in the media. All the Remains was the third novel in her extraordinarily popular
Case Scarpetta series, which is still going to this day, and in fact,
she is about to publish her twenty fifth Case Scarpetta novel in November.
I mentioned to you when we were preparing a little earlier that the expression cranking
them out comes to mind here. It does? It does is she's not
as prolific as James Patterson or Stephen King for that matter, or Stephen King
for that matter, but twenty five novels in the Case Scarpetta series is pretty
awesome, and she has had assorted other books. Anyone familiar with Patricia Cornwell
will also know that she did do an investigation into Jack the Ripper. She
felt that she did determine the identity of Jack the Ripper. I don't think
there's agreement on either side of the Atlantic as to whether or not her candidate
is Jack the Ripper. But she got a book out of it. And
she's been putting out books for over thirty years, and as I mentioned to
you, she has put out about a book a year or thirty years in
a row, which is something to be admired. She definitely works hard at
it and has had a significant amount of success as an author. She does
do a ton of research. I follow her on Facebook like I follow half
the world on Facebook, and she is always putting up pictures of going to
the FBI Academy, working at the Medical Examiner's office. She knows how to
fly helicopter, she knows how to scuba dive, she knows how to shoot
guns. Anything that Case Scarpetta knows how to do. Patricia Cornwell learned how
to do first for authenticity, so I will give her the fact that she
is extraordinarily well researched. I didn't know she flew helicopters, Yeah, she'd.
In fact, her author picture for a while was her in the cockpit
of her own helicopter. Helicopters, by the way, are incredibly complicated and
difficult to fly. I have two nephews, James and Ross, both of
whom are Navy helicopter pilots. It is much more difficult to fly a helicopter
than it is to fly a fixed wing aircraft. I've had a chance to
sit in some of their helicopters, but unfortunately, as a civilian, I'm
not allowed to go up in their helicopters while there. Okay, flying them
around, it's a government aircraft and all that kind of good stuff. Kudos
to Patricia Cornwall for learning how to fly a helicopter. It's not easy,
as I understand it. Yeah, I can't imagine that it would be one
of the things that Cornwall did do to prepare for her work as an author
of a massively best selling series, which she did. Work for the Richmond
Medical Examiner's Office, and she worked under doctor Marcella Pierro, who I believe
you know, mister Thomas. Yes, And she worked at the Medical Examiner's
Office from nineteen eighty five to nineteen ninety two. She held shoe positions.
She was a technical writer, and she was a computer analyst, and Telli
Fierro was Patricia Cornwall's boss. As we understand it, Yes, doctor Pierrero
is the real life inspiration for the k Scarpetta character, hence the similar beautiful
Italian sounding last name. Yeah, that's my understanding of it. In addition
to working at the Medical Examiner's Office, she did volunteer with Richmond PD going
along on ride alongs, so again more with that research. She really dug
in there to learn all the different aspects of law enforcement. And her first
novel, which was called post Mortem and won like every major mystery writing award
that it could win, was actually based on another series of Virginia serial killings,
the south Side Strangler murders, which were committed in Richmond during nineteen eighty
seven. And we'll go ahead and plug for our good friend Richard Foster.
If you are interested in the south Side Strangler murders, do listen to his
podcast, Southern Nightmare it will give you nightmares. He's wonderful and he has
a very good book by the same name. All that Remains is, like
we were saying at the top of the pod, she's never come out and
said, this is about the Colonial Parkway murders. But it's pretty clear once
you read it that it is heavily based on the Colonial Parkway murder Is that
an accurate assessment? Bill? Have? I said that correctly? And that
was my primary takeaway when I read the book. I think I've mentioned that
it had come up a number of times in conversation. This is some years
back now that All that Remains was based on the Colonial Parkway murders. I
wasn't really certain about that until I finally, after just rolling my eyes for
several years, went out and bought a used copy of the book for seventy
five cents online plus shipping, and read the book. My single greatest takeaway
is that this isn't based on the Colonial Parkway murders. This is the Colonial
Parkway murders, particularly, and I know you want to get into some detail
here, particularly the Phelps Flower incident, which is incident number four in the
Colonial Parkway murders. The descriptions and details are incredibly close. And because we
have had people ask us fairly recently on our social media pages, are you
guys going to talk about all that Remains? We figured, yeah, we'll
talk about all that Remains. We'll do that. This is certainly a discussion
that is lengthy enough that it will very likely take two episodes. We would
encourage you if you have not read the book, get read the book.
You could do it in between this first episode and the second one following it,
or you can just take our word for it. But I would recommend
reading the book and weighing in with us on social media about your thoughts on
All That Remains. We're not here, by the way, to shill and
push sales of this book. I would make a note that every public library
in America probably has a copy of All That Remains. Oh yeah, go
to your public library, borrow the book, take it out. We're not
pushing to increase Patricia Cornwell's sales of this or any other book. I thought
it was well worth the seventy five cents I paid for it. But you
don't even have to buy a used copy of the book. You could just
borrow it from your local public library. I'm sure they actually do have a
pretty massive Patricia Cornwell section. Mine certainly does. Yeah, they're very popular,
right, I get it, and they're interesting and fun to read,
But you don't have to go out and buy thirty copies of every single one
of her novels. She's also not paying us to promote her books. That's
not what we're trying to do. But as an English teacher, I think
it's important that everyone does their research. So if you are interested in what
we have to say during this episode or next, go check it out from
the local library. Is Thomas suggested, I'm lucky enough to live two doors
down from an incredible library here in our small town, and I love seeing
my friends over at the library, and I know they like seeing us one
her in and they even let Oliver the docsind in there. All he's not
much of a reader, but he is a well known personality around town.
We'll go ahead and jump into all that remains and what we'll do to open
the discussion. We'll just go chapter by chapter, give a little brief summary
of what precisely goes on in that chapter, and then we will unpack the
similarities and the differences between the Colonial Parkway murders and the murders that she dubs
the couple's killings in the novel ready Bill. Yes, one other thing.
I was tempted to ring a bell every time we found a similarity between real
life and this allegedly fictional book. But I think that might be a little
bit too much. But I was thinking about having ding another coincidence, maybe
a little too on the nose. Okay, So the novel actually opens getting
into the action with doctor case Scarpetta, the chief medical Examiner of YA,
learning about the disappearance of two nineteen year olds, Deborah Harvey and Fred Cheney
over Labor Day weekend, Ding, there's our first, there's our first comparison.
She learns that an abandoned car has been found at the New County rust
stop on I sixty four, and she rushes out there to view it while
it is in situ. Ding. It is established as she is rushing out
to this potential crime scene that there have been four other murders of couples prior
to this missing couple. So it's established right away there is a serial killer
he or she, but mainly is abducting couples and this is the fifth set
of victims, so she does change things a little bit, a little hello.
We learn from Scarpetta that the victims in this case are pretty similar to
our victims in real life, Anna, Maria Phelps, and Daniel Lauer.
The victims in this fictional case are a young man and a young woman traveling
together from a Whitchmond in real life Amelia County toward a beach town called spin
Drift in real life Virginia Beach. Is there a real place called Spindrift,
Virginia? Honestly, I'm not sure. We'll have to check that out.
Yeah, the ages are incorrect. Anna, Maria and Daniel were eighteen and
twenty one, respectively at the time of their disappearance, but the characters Deborah
Harvey and Fred Cheney are nineteen. Also. For the purposes of the novel,
Deborah Harvey is made the daughter of a prominent politician. This is an
actual political role known as it's known colloquially as the drugs are. And so
she's made the daughter of Pat Harvey, who is a presidential appointee overseeing like
the drug enforcement agencies the drugs are essentially, and we know of course that
is not true. Oh, one quick thing, I just did some quick
research in real time. Spindrift is not a town in Virginia, but it
is a location in Virginia Beach. It's a road, a Spindrift Road in
Virginia Beach, which is off Long Creek. This one bit of research that
I was not able to do for myself at that point. I'm glad you
were able to fill in the gap there. Internet search seriously, right.
We know that in real life we have discussed this a number of times that
Anna Maria and Daniel were not a couple. Anna Maria was dating Clintlouer,
Daniel was just going to live with them to help with expenses and rent and
so on and so forth. So in real life, we do not have
two people who are a couple. They just happen to be traveling together at
the same point with the same destination in mind. In the book, Deborah
Harvey and Fred Cheney are an actual couple. Now Here is the point where
I think we can both reasonably understand why the Phelps family and the Lower family
reacted rather strongly to the book when the book came out. Is that a
fair assessment? It is, as I understand it from talking to the Phelps
and Lower families over the years. The description of the Deborah Harvey and Fred
Cheney crime scene bears remarkable, maybe even uncanny, resemblance to the Phelps Lower
crime scene at the New can rest stop. The location of the car is
the same on the acceleration lane. The description of the rest stop is dead
on accurate, including the split lanes where you go to the front of the
building or the back of the building. The things that were not accurate are
the make and model of the car. She gives Deborah Harvey a Jeep,
whereas we know Daniel had a Chevy Nova, and the content of the car
are of course different. We know Daniel was moving down to Virginia Beach,
so he had his worldly possessions with him, whereas fictional couple was carrying things
that you would expect for a beach weekend, so cooler luggage, slalom ski.
Also not mentioned in the book is that roach clip that was found on
the driver's side window of Daniel's car when it was located at the rest stop.
Let's not move past something too quickly, though the car is also found
in the book in on the eastbound side of the rest stop. So this
whole thing we've discussed before, with Anna, Maria and Daniel's car being found
traveling in the wrong direction, that whole transference from one rest stop to the
other rest stop on the other side of the highway seems to be key as
well in the book, Yes, very much. Now, the one question
that I did have that I cannot answer, but I know that you can
with regard to this crime scene. In the book, a dog team from
Peninsula Search and Rescue are called in to scent the car and see if they
can find Deborah and Fred. Do we know if Peninsula Search and Rescue was
ever called in to the Phelps Flower crime scene. I can't say with one
hundred percent assuredness that they scented the car, but I know that an extensive
search was conducted by Virginia State Police and agencies like Peninsula Search and Rescue,
so I think it's a qualified yes. I also know that they did flyovers
with Virginia State Police planes. Unfortunately, as we've discussed, the leaves were
still fully leafed out in that Labor day to October timeframe, so the flyovers
themselves were not successful, but a fair amount of searching was done and agencies
like Peninsula Search and Rescue were used. Here we are when we're recording this,
it's for Labor Day weekend, so we're actually approaching the anniversary for Anna
Maria Phelps and Daniel Lower's disappearance. And I can definitely tell you that there
are full leaves on the trees. There is no color to be seen,
like it's still looking and feeling like summer out here. And so that wraps
up the first chapter of the book. And already you can see that there
are a number of similarities between this fictionalized crime scene and the actual real life
crime scene in which Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lower's car was found at the
New Kent County rest stop. Bill, any color commentary you'd like to add
at this point, or shall we move forward? No, just that when
I read the book some years ago now, this was my first takeaway was
just wow, this detail is so close. And of course I knew a
fair amount about the Phelpslower crime scene and had seen the crime scene photos which
have been leaked by the FBI. Similarities are very striking between what is supposed
to be a work of fiction and what we know is the real life scenario
for the Colonial Parkway murders, and it was very interesting to me as I
read that. As we get into chapter two, where case Scarpetta does discuss
in exposition about the other cases in this series, it was very interesting to
me that she went to great lengths to make the other cases in the series
nothing like their real life counterparts, and yet that first crime scene is so
close to real life. That's what really jumped out to me and for me
as well. So in chapter two we do get that moniker the couple killings.
Bill, I think I remember you telling me once, but boy,
I can't remember it now for the life of me. At what point did
the name Colonial Parkway murders start coming into use? Would it have been during
this time period late nineties? Maybe? Oh, certainly, absolutely, Okay,
just curious. Our research shows the Colonial Parkway Murders as an expression comes
out of media coverage, but certainly by the very late eighties early nineties,
local media, television, radio newspapers are referring to the four double homicides as
the Colonial Parkway murders, even though, as we have explained, only two
of the cases actually have a direct relationship to the Colonial Parkway. Nonetheless,
that was what the media had dubbed the Colonial Parkway murders. 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. So in this Cornwell dubs at the
couple chillings, and it does list a discrepancy of ten victims instead of eight
victims, and later on in the novel we learned that there are another two
victims to add to that, so the number is actually much higher. She
takes this chapter to really discuss all of the other cases in this series,
and those only have the barest passing commonalities to the real cases. Cornwell offers
a summary of the other cases in her Couple's Killings, and as I mentioned,
they only have passing commonalities with their real life counterparts. If we are
to assume that she is drawing those comparisons to the Colonel Parkway murders. She
lists characters who have disappeared. Bruce Phillips and Judy Roberts, who are high
school sweethearts who disappeared on June first in Gloucester and never arrived at their homes.
Bruce's Camaro was found off seventeen with keys in the ignition doors, unlocked,
windows rolled down, and their bodies found in the York River State Park
ten weeks later. There is no real resemblance to any of the real cases
in that description. I'm going to push back lightly here. Okay, I
actually see a lot of parallels. But what I believe your cornwall has done
is mixed up the details. All right, He's in the ignissition doors,
unlocked, windows rolled down, even the ten week time frame. Okay,
this is a little bit of a mixmaster thing going on here, with a
little bit of each of the real life Colonial Parkway murders details, but then
swapped case to case. I think you'll get more of what I'm talking about
in a minute. I see what you mean. Yeah, exactly. I
was being a little too literal, I think with my analysis, But you're
right. But she lists the second couple to have disappeared as Jim Freeman and
Bonnie Smith, who disappeared the final Saturday in July after a pool party and
Providence Forage. Jim's blazer was found ten miles from Providence Forage, and their
bodies were found in West Point four months later. Third couple is listed as
Ben Anderson and Carolyn Bennett driving back to ODU from Stingray Point on the Chesapeake
Bay in March of the following year, his pickup truck Dodge Pickup found abandoned
on Interstate sixty four, five miles east of Buckrow Beach, with keys in
the ignition, doors unlocked, and Carolyn's pocketbook under the seat. Their bodies
were discovered six months later in York County off of Root one ninety nine.
And then, finally the last of the cases that she invents Susan Wilcox and
Mike Martin, who disappeared on the way to Virginia Beach for spring break,
which I found a little odd because she lists them as having disappeared in February,
and we definitely don't have spring break in February for high school or college.
Yeah, Mike's blue van was found on the Colonial Parkway. This is
the only mention of the Colonial Parkway thus far. A white handkerchief signaling engine
trouble that did not exist was attached to the antenna, and their bodies were
found on May fifteenth by turkey hunters in a wooded area of James City County
between Roote sixty and Interstate sixty four, and I think you looked it up
and that isn't the right timeframe for turkey hunting. Am I right? It
is not the right time for turkey hunting. So there are some similarities,
as you did point out rightfully. I think I was definitely in the wrong
on this one, that there are similarities between the fictional cases and they're real
counterparts. There are victims from Gloucester Keith call. There are victims leaving a
party who never arrived at their destination again Keith and Sandy. There are victims
going to Virginia Beach, victims whose cars were found on the Colonial Parkway,
and victims whose bodies were found by turkey hunters. But the bulk of those
cases that she lays out seemed to be fairly well obfuscated and separate from their
actual real life counterparts. Later in the novel, it is revealed that there
was a first set of victims, and it is revealed that that first set
of victims was a lesbian couple named Jill Harrington and Elizabeth Mott, and those
characters do very closely resemble Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Doowski. I think at this
point, we're way past coincidence. Here. Some of the details are shifted
around, but as you pointed out a moment ago, there's a lot of
similarities. And and for me personally reading the book, when I got to
the place where the lesbian couple showed up, I said, wait a minute,
this is clearly the Colonial Parkway murders. Heres are things also got a
little bit mixed up for me when I first read the book. When I
first read Patricia Cornwell's All That Remains, I was probably too young to be
reading it. I was like, and it was actually my first exposure to
the case outside of some news reporting. Keep in mind, at eleven,
I was not like regularly consuming the newspaper. And when the first case actually
happened, when your sister's case actually happened, I was too young to have
a real understanding of what was actually happening. I won't even say how old
I actually was, just a time child. So Patricia Cornwell's book All That
Remains was really my first in depth introduction to the concept of the Colonial Parkway
murders, and so it was confusing to me when I first started doing real
research on the case. When I realized, wait, somebody, somebody had
said in the book. I so very clearly thought that the book hued really
closely to the facts of the case, and I thought that what she had
written about was going to be similar to what was reported. So it was
confusing for me, my poor little adult, eleven year old brain, who
should not have been reading books this mature like at all, and the actual
facts the case were. See what happens when you end up reading books that
are too sophisticated for young minds. You end up being the host of a
true crime podcast and discussing horrible things. I fully blame Patricia Cornwell, John
Douglas, and Mark Olshaker for this. I was reading John Douglas and Mark
ole Shaker's books way sooner than I should have as well. You want to
talk messing up a fourteen year old, there you go. Let this be
a warning to all of us as parents. This is where they go bad.
Now. In all seriousness, we love John, we love Mark,
they are wonderful people, and we love their work, but probably should not
have been reading it at fourteen. That's just me sheltered an impressionable youth.
Shouldn't have been reading about serial killers that young exactly ended up with a dark
and twisted mind. It's sad how that happens, isn't it. Welle question
I think that I came away from after reading this chapter is how someone who
I find it very striking that the other couples that she lists are so dissimilar
to the rest of the Colonial Parkway murders cases, but the Harvey Chainey scene
is so similar to the actual facts of the Phelps lurcase. There was a
real disconnect there for me. For someone who went to such great lengths to
fictionalize the other double homicides in this series, she hued really close to real
life in the case that's the central focus of the book. I had a
little bit of cognitive dissonance there as I'm sitting here writing my notes and processing
all of this, that it's just a matter of mixing up some of the
details in some of the other murders, which are a bit secondary, respectfully,
but in terms of the storytelling that she's chosen, she goes into much
more depth on the last of the murder series, which is the one that's
so close to Phelpslower It's hard not to think that I wonder could she have
had access to the phelpslower files. Could she have made a field trip to
these locations. We're guilty of field trips, dude, just saying yes,
but we're not presenting work as fiction that feels like it's a non fictional account
of a real life case. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but it's
hard not to wonder if an author who had access to the computers that was
one of her jobs at the medical Examiner's office, and to be a technical
writer, which may have involved writing up the descriptions of these cases or having
access to the description of these cases, it's hard not to think that the
reason this is so strikingly similar is that it's so strikingly similar you can't really
get around it. And we do see more really striking similarities in further chapters
of the novel. Certainly it seems like the Phelps and laur families looked at
the novel and felt the same way that you did. This is really strikingly
similar. Agreed. So in the third chapter of the book you get more
of the procedural aspect of the thing. Remember, case Scarpetta is a medical
examiner, and so she does do her part in trying to help solve the
case, so she has various meetings with her detective sidekick Pete Marino, and
her friend Benton Wesley, who is a profiler with the FBI, who she
goes on to marry several books later. She also meets with a Washington Post
reporter who happens to have had a sister who was murdered by the character that
was based on Timothy Spencer, the Richmond's South Sides tracking player. In chapter
three, she goes into a little bit more detail about the couple's killings,
and she does give it a much shorter time frame than they had in real
life. The difference between two and a half and three years, I'm not
sure I agree. She does state that they've been going on for two and
a half years, although, as she pointed out Bill, there are times
when I forget that the timeline is a lot shorter than I think that it
is. I tend to think four years. I think we all do that,
and I've done it too. Because the cases took place in eighty six,
eighty seven, eighty eight, and eighty nine, we have a tendency
to say four years, four years when you look at a calendar. However,
the first murder in the Colonial Parkway Murders, Kathy and Becky is October
nineteen eighty six. This final murder that we attribute to this series we call
the Colonial Parkway Murders is Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lauer in September nineteen eighty
nine. That's barely three years. I know we often say four Yeah,
my math outle brain is the one that says because we say eighty seven,
eighty eight, eighty nine, but it's actually a three year period. So
I am an English teacher and not a math teacher. And this is also
one of the reasons why people have brought up various ideas regarding the Colonial Parkway
murders. For instance, three years can line up with military tours, and
we know there's a tremendous amount of military in the Peninsula area. And this
is also within a typical four year span for a college student. So for
example, a William and Mary student or Christopher Newport University or any of the
other schools and universities in the area. Typically you'd be there for four years
if you were attending a four year undergraduate program. Now, she uses this
chapter to lay out via her detective and profiler friends. Some of the common
theories. The common theories are who done it? These are definitely some of
the theories that we have talked about here on the podcast. And there are
also some that are a bit more off the wall that we have not really
given a ton of consideration too. So Pete Marino, the Richmond detective,
does bring up this theory of an anger excitation offender. He says it still
strikes me as the work of some squirrel out there who fixes on couples a
jealousy type thing because he's a loser, can't have a relationship and hates other
people who can. In fact, it was our resident profiler. I shouldn't
say he's our profiler, but feel a little proprietary interest in Jim Clementi.
Jim has mentioned that concept before, has he not? He has? And
then continue beton Wesley the FBI profilers theory, which is also something that Jim
Clementi, our real life FBI profiler, has mentioned. Yes, the killer
cop theory, it could be someone posing as a cop. Certainly that would
account for the couples pulling over and perhaps getting into someone else's car for a
routine license check or whatever. Anyone can walk into a uniform store and buy
a bubble light, a gun, a badge, you name it. In
the Lover's Lane series, Jim clement A demonstrated how an organized, somewhat aggressive
offender posing as law enforcement with law enforcement training or without could approach a couple
and control them and separate them, much in the way that we saw in
the real life Colonial Parkway murders. So it's interesting that Cornwall is talking about
these two theories, both of which have come up with our real life profilers
as well. Now, she does bring up a third theory, one of
which I know many people, particularly especially locals, because they find it interesting,
though I find it a little hard to take it all that seriously,
and that is the Camp Perry theory. For anyone who is not aware,
so that would be anyone who's not local, there is a government installation.
It's a secret government installation. I'm using airs around secrets because anyone who's local
knows that it's here called Camp Perry, and Camp Perry is the CIA's main
training base. Hopefully the CIA is not going to repel off my roof from
black helicopters for me saying that probably not. I don't know. If you
hear a thud, that might be what's going on, may have black ops
on my roof tell us it is a theory, and it's an interesting theory.
But she does bring up the idea that maybe the killer is a rogue
CIA agent practicing killing people who's been stationed at Camp Perry. And while that
may seem I rollingly, oh please, there are a number of people who
I have talked to locally about the case who are like, I think it
was a rogue Camp Perry agent, And I am pretty sure that would not
even be on anyone's radar if it were not. For all that remains,
oh, I think actually Cornwall is responsible for this theory taking hold. There's
a variation on this theory too, which is that in the nineteen eighties,
the CIA was training a lot of agents from around the world and may still
do, for all we know. The idea that some of these agents might
have left Camp Perry and wanted to try out some of their techniques on an
unsuspecting public could extend to international people who would maybe feel less of an obligation
to respect the laws of the United States and go out and go rogue.
At least that's the three A and three B theory. Yeah, and so
B meaning, oh, now we've got people from South America who are being
trained, think contras and others by the United States government in exchange for a
book, I'm sure, and that these people would then go out and go
rowe. It's really important to note that there has never been any evidence that
we are aware of. Keeping in mind that we don't know everything, and
the FBI certainly doesn't tell us it's business. There has never been any evidence
that we're aware of that anyone from Camp Perry might be involved in these cases.
That is true. The cases on the Parkway itself are the only two
that are even remotely close to Camp Perry. And if you want to actually
get really technical about it, the closest military installation to where Kathy and case
Cars were found is the Navy's Cheatham Annex. Camp Perry isn't closer. The
annex is the annex actually Cheatam Annex, which is a very large, fenced
in facility immediately adjoins the one area where we think it's quite possible that Kathy
and Becky went to, which is the Ringfield Plantation, And as I understand
it directly from the FBI back then confirmed in later conversations they actually searched inside
and outside the Cheatham Annex perimeter fence, just on the possibility that a knife
that might have been used or other weapons in Kathey and Becky's murder could have
been tossed over the fence into the woods surrounding the naval facility. There are
military installations all over ye this area, and they are immediately a Jason and
I'm talking about yards away from several of these crime scenes. We do get
some additional information about the cases. Scarpetta asserts that all the bodies in all
the cases have been found in the woods, decomposed. We know that in
real life that is not true. It is only true of the Phelps and
lower case, Robin and David were found in the water, Kathy and Becky
were found in Kathy's car, and as we know, Keith and Sandy have
never been recovered. I think she tried to streamline her maybe neaten up the
fictional series of killings. Scarpetta, as the medical examiner, also states that
she has been unable to determine a cause of death in any of the cases.
Again, we know that is not necessarily true in real life. There
was a cause of death that was able to be determined for Kathy and Becky
and for Robin and David. As always, Keith and Sandy are the wild
card because we have never located them. But it is true that Anna Maria
and Daniel's bodies were too decomposed for a cause of death. There was a
knife slice found on Anna Maria's hand, so ultimately it was ruled that she
was very likely stabbed to death. But there was no cause of death listed
for Daniel Lauer other than homicide because his body was too badly skeletonized for there
to be any determination of what could have happened to him. This leads us,
though, to another one of those coincidences, which is the examination of
the knife wounds. Yeah, it was always very interesting to me that the
Smithsonian Institute. This is again news for anybody who may not be aware of
it or may not have watched the TV show Bones, The Smithsonian Institute actually
has a whole section where you can send human remains or animal remains any type
that is unknown for examination, and so Anna Maria and Daniel were actually sent
to the Smithsonian Institute to have someone take a look at the knife slice that
was found on Anna Maria's index finger, her left index finger. That is
another interesting touch that happened in real life, but then also does appear in
the book. In fact, there is a whole chapter in which case Scarpetta
packs up the bodies of Deborah Harvey and Fred Cheney and takes them with her
to Washington, DC so that she can visit the Smithsonian Institute and get some
clarity on what may have caused the nick mark on the bone on Deborah's hand.
I almost called her Anna Maria, and this is precisely the request that
the real life doctor Marcella Fierro made of the Smithsonian. The remains were skeletal
at this point, and so there was a bit of clothing, the skulls
and skeletons left on the forest floor under the blanket. As we've discussed,
those things were packed up and brought to the Smithsonian. So the book once
again strongly parallel the real life experience of the Colonial Parkway murders. We're going
to continue our at close analysis and dissection. Pun definitely not intended until I
said it, and now it is intended of all that remains by Patricia Cornwell.
And we're going to continue that comparison between the book and the actual case
itself in our next episode, and I don't know, maybe the episode after
that, what do you think, Bill, We'll let it play out.
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
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