You're listening to the mind Over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders, and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilly. My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a
researcher, a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social
media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner
in crime, Bill Thomas. All righty everyone, welcome to our second live
podcast event with a mind over Murder podcast. Did anyone come to our first
event back in April? Excellence? And I'm going to ask my other question,
how many of you have listened to or are a fan of the mind
over Murder podcast. Excellent, wonderful. I'm thrilled to have you all join
us today at the Yorktown Library here in Yorktown, Virginia. Tonight, I
have the privilege of welcoming back, Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilly, the hosts
of the mind Over Murder podcast. They have also brought along a special guest
tonight. This is Blaine Pardo and it sounds like you know him, but
in case you don't, he is the co author of a special kind of
evil, the Colonial Parkway serial killings. As a reminder, we will have
a question answer session in the second half of this program, so please hold
your questions until then, and without further ado, I'm going to go ahead
and hand this event off to our intrepid podcast hosts, Bill and Kristen.
All right, thank you all very much. Oh, thank you, thank
you. Let's go ahead and kick this off with our standard greeting. Welcome
to mind Over Murder. I'm Kristin Dilling and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're
joined here by Blaine Pardo, author of a Special kind of Evil, and
this is our second live event at the Yorktown Library. Thank you everybody for
joining us. Give yourselves a round of applause. All right, let's go
ahead and kick things off here. So you are listening to mind over Murder.
For anybody who is not familiar, and it seems like most of you
are, but we'll go ahead and do our spield just in case. We
launched in January of twenty twenty. We are in our fourth season or is
it our fifth? Bill? Did we decide technically it's our fifth. Technically
it is our fifth? Lie? Whut you cross over the rubicon of the
end of the fourth year? Gotcha? This is all arbitrary Bill Thomas stuff.
By the way, he has his own set of time and his own
set of rules. I just do what he tells me. A smile,
a nod. We have more than one point five million downloads to date,
and we thank you all very much for being part of that one point five
million. We really appreciate you. We are dedicated to exploring and discussing all
facets of the colonial parking murders, and our goal, of course, is
to be advocates for the victims and their families, of which Bill Times is
one. We are looking to seek answers and justice. Thank it everybody who
showed up tonight. We really appreciate you. Hey, you know, we
forgot to mention what did we forget to mention Bill Thomas that it's your birthday.
I'm like, oh, she's twenty nine years old. I know that's
hard to believe. Incredibly youthful and dynamic. And thank you for choosing to
spend your birthday doing a live podcast about the Colonial Parkway. You know what
a place I'd rather be. Thank you, you could do so much better.
He's right as usual. We are really thrilled, Blaine, that you
can join us here tonight, and so we want to really quick give Blaine
his due here by talking about his storied, an amazing career. Blaine is
in New York Times bestselling author of sci fi, paranormal, and political thriller
novels, including the Battle Tech series. He also writes in through crime,
military history, and business management. He runs a true crime podcast of his
own, Tantamount, with his daughter Victoria Hester, who is also his co
author. And A Special Kind of People is the book of record on the
Colonial Parkway murders case. And Blaine, thank you so very much, not
only for being here, but also for lending a voice to these cases.
We really appreciate it. Anything I can do to keep public attention on these
cases is important to me. So it's just you have to do that with
this. It's just crucial. Interesting as a science not an art guys.
The thing is, I'm a writer, so I'm not I chose that field
specifically, did not deal with people. You're doing pretty well so far,
very lifelike, Blaine. We wanted to bring you on as our special guest
so that we could talk a little bit about not only the case, but
also the event of January eighth, because that really feels like it is a
hallmark all of our lives for anybody who was involved with the case. And
then we wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about some other cases
that we think Alan weid Wilmer Senior might possibly be involved with, and we'd
love your expert opinion on these things. I'll offer what I can. Bill.
Let's go ahead and kick it off with you talking about the Colonial Parkway
murders in a nutshell. I know you like to monolog but less trying to
keep it brief here. Yeah, the biggest challenge with the Colonial Parkway murders
is going down the various rabbit holes, and there's so many in this case.
Let's see if we can do the brief overview with the Colonial Parkway murders.
What you have are four double homicides of couples, a lesbian couple,
my sister Kathy Thomas and her girlfriend Rebecca Dowski, followed by three straight couples,
David Nobling Robin Edwards in nineteen eighty seven, so Kathy and Becky start
in nineteen eighty six. Almost a year later, David and Robert are killed
at the Ragged Island Wildlife Management sometimes called Preserve Swamp. Yeah, Marshy Area,
Beautiful Marsh Area. So that's almost a year later, in nineteen eighty
seven. The third case is technically still a missing person's case. That's Richard
Keith call he goes by his middle name usually and Cassandra Hayley. They were
at a party at Christopher Newport University on April tenth, nineteen eighty eight.
The car is then found on the Colonial Parkway, and we'll get into more
details we discussed we actually don't think that Keith and Sandy ever made it to
the Parkway, and there may be an element of staging here, and you'll
hear a lot about staging of cars and crime scenes. And then finally,
the fourth in what may be a series is Daniel Lower and Anna Maria Phelps,
who disappeared while traveling along Interstate sixty four. The car is found abandoned
at a rest stop on Interstate sixty four in the wrong direction from the direction
they were traveling towards Virginia Beach, and their bodies were found about six weeks
later at a hunt club off Interstate sixty four. And these are all places
that we've all been together in separately, and so we have a lot more
that we'd like to add. A couple of things. Just in general,
you've got work couples, but even the expression couples is a little bit misleading
in that the only serious couple, interestingly is the lesbian couple My sister Kathy
and her girlfriend Rebecca. David Nobling and Robin Edwards had met that day,
so not a serious couple, just friends. Keith and Sandy are on a
first date. Again, not a serious couple. And then finally Anna,
Maria and Daniel. Anna is dating Daniel's brother Clint, and they're supposed to
be perhaps engaged. It's a little bit loose. They're not a couple either.
On some level. We're talking about people that are somewhere between a first
date and traveling companions, So they're not couple per se it doesn't preclude the
idea that they couldn't be involved in romantic or sexual behavior, or that there
was some element of romance going on. They're not necessarily serious couples. And
then there's a through line of a sense and I'd like both Blaine and Kristen
to talk about this, a sense that it feels like someone has stopped these
people, or they're already stopped, and they may be presenting as law enforcement
or something along those lines. I can't say for sure, but it feels
like someone rolls up on these people and presents as an authority figure. And
that's how the FBI put it to us. And I'm talking about my family
now. Four days after Kathy and Becky were murdered, they said to us,
and remember the other murders haven't even taken place yet. He said to
us, we believe that your sister and Missdowski were approached by an authority figure.
And I stopped them. We were at my parents' dining room up in
Lowell, Massachusetts, and I said, I'm sorry, we're confused. What's
an authority figure? And interestingly, the two FBI agents they've hemmed and hawed.
And now that I've gotten to know FBI agents pretty well over the years.
They usually don't hem in haw They're pretty polished, pretty arrogant. They
think they have all the answers, but they don't usually lack for something to
say. And they stammered, and I remember thinking, this is odd.
I don't think this is that challenging a question. And then they finally said,
we say authority figure, we mean somebody in law enforcement. But of
course why not say that. But that's a whole nother discussion. So there's
this through line of couples, cars, lovers, lanes, isolated rural locations,
other things. You want to add. The other thing I think it's
important is whoever conducted these murders did stage the vehicles. With the exception of
your sisters, the vehicles are left with the keys visible in some way.
They are either the door is open so that the interior lights on, or
you end up in a situation where music's playing out of a vehicle or things
along those lines, or a roach clip is left on a door to drag
your attention to the vehicle, and the vehicle's keys are available, and so
the killer in the last three sets of murders or killers, which we don't
know for sure, literally set those vehicles up so somebody else would take them
and potentially be charged with those crimes or at least mislead law enforcement. And
when we were doing the book, that was one of the big things when
I sat down with the profiler for Virginia State Police and I said, look,
these cars all look staged, and he goes, that's the fingerprint.
That's unique because you even if these cases, let's say we wanted to make
an argument that these cases weren't connected, that's a fingerprint that killer is doing
that each time. So that to me is something that ties these together.
The movement of the vehicles probably post mortem too, I think, is something
that's very striking. It feels like terrible things have happened, and then we
think afterward, the killer or killers are moving vehicles around, and as Blaine
says, staging them. I think you're the first person that I ever heard
say these vehicles are staged for theft. In other words, hoping that some
mope kid's going to come along and realize that the keys are in the car
and take the car, which would further add and I know you've made this
point before adding to the confusion of what they've already found. Now at least
potentially you could have a car in a completely different place. Yeah, at
Ragged Island. David Nobling never pulled his truck in straight anywhere. He was
a backer upper, and if you live in Virginia you know what that means.
He backed up into a parking space, but his truck was pulled straight
in and the vehicle he had wired the radio directly to the battery so you
could turn it on without turning the keys to the accessories to play the radio.
It was found with the keys turned to accessories and the radio was playing.
So whoever the killer was moved the vehicle and turned on the radio,
not knowing that you didn't need to have the keys turned to do that.
So they were setting it up to draw attention to it. That's the only
reason you would do that. If he was out with Robin playing music,
watching the James River, he wouldn't have had to turn the keys at all.
That vehicle was moved. Definitely. In the case of Keith and Cassandra
you're dealing with, they were not going to be driving anywhere near the Colonial
Parkway. Keith might have on the way home after he dropped off Cassandra,
but he wasn't going to be driving with her near the Colonial Parkway. He
was taking her home, and he made that clear at the party to several
people, I'm taking her home. Her home was to to fifteen minutes away.
So something happened either at the party as they left or in the intervention
between that and Cassandra's house that resulted in their killer engaging with them. On
the other the last murders were dealing with Phelips Lower. They were headed back
towards Virginia Beach. Whoever killed them drove their car from the one rest area
where they were last seen alive, which is the New Big Rest Area on
sixty four, drove off to the New Ken exit, drove back around and
back onto sixty four, and left the car headed the other direction. So
the vehicle was move and presented in that way, and they left a roach
clip hanging on the window with a window half down with the keys clearly in
view, and they put it on. They didn't park it in the parking
lot at the rest area. They parked it on the ramp to head west.
It's literally on the road to the ramp, so whoever was doing this
was trying to draw a tension to those vehicles in those three situations. No,
your sister's situation's very different, and it could be that the killer learned
some things going through the situation they did with your sister. In that case,
they tried to burn the car and then when that failed, tried to
push the car into the York River. And it was just a mess the
way that was handled, And it could be that they tried to simplify or
that they refined their techniques. I think those are all really good points.
Other things that you wanted to add now, I think you guys have covered
it, Admirablaine, But Blaine, I do want to ask before we get
into the events of January eighth, and the press conference changed us all.
When you set out to write A Special Kind of Evil and you started looking
into the case, did you have an original theory that was in your mind
before you started or were you just going through the process organically, looking at
the evidence and then coming to your own conclusions. We started with the Virginia
State Police profiler Larry mccannon, who had been on the case early on,
and we had dinner with him. We went in going tell us what you
know and tell us all about what we need to know with this case.
And then we interviewed each of the families to walk through that progression, to
learn what happened that night from their perspectives. We did a ton of research
in terms of newspapers, etc. Interviewing former law enforced, former FBI agents
who are no longer with us, things along those lines, and that was
a big help. It really helped us wrap our heads around this case.
But we didn't come in with any preconceived notions. As a matter of fact,
we challenged ourselves throughout the process. My daughter and I going, are
these cases really connected? Do you think is it? And her and I
still argue over whether it was one killer or too, but she's won me
over on that that it may have been too. It's been a journey to
simply say, look, I'm a sponge, give me everything. And what
we wanted to do is let the reader form their own opinion, so we
don't come out and go we think it's this guy. It's hey, here's
all the theories. You come up and settle on the one that you're most
comfortable with. And how many of Pella in the audience have read Blaine's book,
Okay, that's amazing. We do recommend it. They have it here
at the library, and of course we strongly recommend that you buy it because
it really is the definitive work at this point on the Colonial Parkway murders.
And we're hoping that Blane and Victoria will look at writing new chapters. As
were they calling it an appendix or an addendum to the book, but it
really had The events on January sixth or eighth changed everything. Yeah, because
we now have a new name to add to the Colonial Parkway murders, which
we've had a lot of debate even with the publisher about do you count that
person as part of this? And I'm like, I think you have to
at this point. So it really changes some of the dynamics. And obviously
it's an ongoing investigation, so at any point things may change. Tomorrow on
the morning news, Bill may find out a whole new set of facts,
and the rest of us too, So you never know with these things where
they're going to end up and how they're going to play out. I would
say the eighth was a big day. Yeah, speaking of the eighth,
why don't you walk us through what happened on January eighth. It was the
first significant break in this case in its thirty seven year history. It was
a day that I don't know that I ever thought we would see. And
on January eighth, the FBI and the VSP announced Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior,
sixty three years old of Lancaster County, Virginia, had been connected via
DNA to the murders of Robin Edwards, David Noblaine, and then a new
name that we had not heard and Blaine. I don't know if you were
familiar with her case either, No, Teresa Howell, Teresa SPA Howell.
We knew that as of January eighth, Wilmer had died in his home in
twenty seventeen. At that point, that was pretty much all that was released.
It was a very sparse press conference. Is that the word that you
guys would use, I would say deceptively lacking material. That's the dial down
VERD. It's been frustrating for me as a researcher because I'm never off the
case with any of these books I write, especially Gold cases. And I'll
be honest with you, I have filed Foyer requests with the FBI because I
said, hey, you closed the Nobbling Edwards case and they said so yeah,
you came out and publicly said it's closed. So I want a copy
of those files because I had done a lot of research in them and this
would really fill in some gaps. And when I got back from the first
Foyer, request from the FBI was these cases are still open, and I
said, no, it's not. You had a press conference and you said
you knew who killed them, so open you can open those files. I'm
not asking for your sister's files if I can get on my wood, but
give me those files because you said this case is closed, and I have
got nothing but the run around from Virginia State Police and the FBI on that.
Now, I did file on new FOYA and they came back and said
we're reviewing the request. Don't hold your breath on that one. No,
don't. Yeah, for anybody who's ever been the FOYO means Freedom of Information
Act request, just so you guys know, and you're entitled to request records
from law enforcement, et cetera, on almost anything. You can request a
lot of information legally and they have to give it to you. At least
that's what they're supposed to do. But in this particular case, they're treating
these very much as closed cases or closed cases that are still open, which
doesn't mean that doesn't make anythense makes no sense to me, and I've gotten
really a big run around from both Virginia State Police and FBI so far.
Now, Hampton did provide me. I contacted Hampton with a foy and I
said a crime scene photos, I want incident reports, I want all the
interviews because you closed Teresa Holl's case and I don't know anything about that.
And they sent me we were responding to your foyer request. I was like,
oh my god, they're responding. I'm so excited. Good so far,
because Hampton's been really good historically with me with Foyer requests, just so
you know. And so they handed me a one page document that's basically so
redacted that I know the date she died and who she was, but nothing
else. It's literally a completely worthless page. So I'm re initiating some contact
with them to go Apparently you didn't read what I requested, so I need
you very charitable. Yeah, I try not to deray law enforcement. It's
not my job to beat up law enforcement. They have a tough job,
and especially on a cold case this big, covering such a wide geography,
covering multiple jurisdictions, both within Virginia State Police and in local law enforcement.
I also put in now I had interviewed the sure from Ragged Island. I
had interviewed him, they had done their own investigation. I contacted them for
a FOY because I said, hey, your case is closed. They said,
we have no files. And I know that's a lie. And I'm
telling you, I've been there to that office on a separate mission. I'm
sorry, that's a lie. Those files do exist. They've even shown me
some of those files. For them to claim to blame or any researcher that
there are no files. That's complete garbage. And this is the kind of
thing where forgive me, I'll try not to get up on the Bill Thomas
high horse too many times. You're gonna do it, but I can feel
it. You get him a phone book to sit on a higher But I'm
sorry, that's garbage, and I'm sorry those are lies. By the way,
quick show of hand to anybody from the FBI, anybody from Virginia State
Police, local law enforcement. By the way, they all listen to the
podcast though, as we know this for a fact, because they responded to
us regarding the podcast. So we'd like to thank them and we appreciate their
time. Let's talk a little bit about Alan Wade Wilmer Senior, and we
also want to make sure that we give up the tip line information for anybody
who may have information about Wilmer. But basically what we found out about Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior is this. He was a fisherman, a crabber and an
oysterman who spent a lot of time in Gloucester County, Middlesex County on his
commercial fishing boat, the Denny Wade, which is named after his two kids.
He ran a tree service. He was also a frequent hunter. He
was a I would say distinctive character physically five to five, very muscular.
He drove a very distinctive truck as well. He had this blue nineteen sixty
six Dodge Fargo pickup truck with the vanity plate It's Virginia. Of course,
everybody's got vanity plates. This one was I M raw and he did have
some writing on the truck's passenger door. He also carried around oystering equipment in
the back. Anything else that you want to add about Wilmer in particular,
Yeah, I think we have a photograph of the truck that shows up on
the next slide. Yep, there's the truck. It is a very distinctive
truck. And in Blaine and Victoria's book, they were the first people to
report about this truck. And this is several years ago now. When the
book was first published, Blaine and Victoria did not include the offender's name,
but it was very clear on January eighth, when the press conference was announced
that they were talking about the very same man and the very same vehicle that
Blaine had highlighted. How many years before, god, twenty sixteen. It's
been a while, Yeah, it feels like a lifetime ago. Yeah,
it was a pandemic ago that was a pandemic with a pandemic way before the
murder Hornets. It was interesting because when I saw the picture of the truck
and the license plate, I knew. I was like, the FBI had
talked to this guy. They knew who this guy was, right after Keith
and Cassandra. But when I've gone back over my notes with IRV Wells,
et cetera. And you have to explain who is. IRV was the special
Agent in charge at the time during the Keith and Cassandra's case, so he
was the FBI lead investigator on that case, and so I had interviewed him,
and I went back over my notes as well as what's in the book.
I put most of it in the book. It is interesting because we
do get it. An idea you talked about we don't know how the killer
engaged with people, but we actually do because IRV told us. He said,
this person was known as a person that's stalked people on the Colonial Parkway.
He confronted people, and he actually confronted a guy and a girl who
were making out, and they both had long hair, and he said,
so he knocked on their window and said, what are you girls up to
or something along those lines. Then when he saw it was a guy and
a girl, he left. He actually, when the FBI confronted him in
Keith and Cassandra's case, he admitted to being at the next pull off the
night they disappeared. So he put himself on the Colonial Parkway that night.
We know that he approached people that were sitting in a vehicle and that he
confronted them. So we actually have a glimpse of what he didn't know.
Did he do that at Ragged Island? I have to assume that he followed
that pattern. Did he do it with your sister? Yeah, we don't
know. We don't know, but Bill and I have stood out at some
of the abandoned Colonial Parkway pull offs and stuff, the nearest one being up
the road, and some of the picnic tables were there and brings up still,
but it's hip deep in grass. You could picture that he could have
pulled in there and confronted somebody, and there's like a line of trees that
would have blocked the view from the parkway. So we know bits and pieces
of how Wilmer operated, and now we know for sure he is definitely linked
to three murders. Yes, so we have our confirmed Wilmer victims right up
there on the board. To Robin, to David and then Teresa and Blaine.
You said you were not familiar with Teresa. No, I really haven't.
I've been doing some research into her family has reached out to us,
which is great. We're still in the early stages of this because you got
to I need the police reports so I can ask the meaningful questions as much
as possible. You're listening to mind over Murder. We'll be right back after
this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover Murder. Before we
get back to the podcast, just wanted to remind you that we have a
go fundme effort going on right now. This campaign is designed to help us
raise funds to help promote Mind over Murder, and specifically to push the Colonial
Parkway murders investigation forward. We'd love it if you could support us in any
way that you can. Any donation from five dollars to whatever you can afford
is very much appreciated and will be incredibly helpful. The link is in the
show notes and in our social media pages. As always, thanks for your
support. Now back to mindover Murder. So a couple of things here.
Kristin and I have made no bones about the fact that we knew that January
eighth was coming, and we knew that Wilmer was going to be identified as
a suspect as far back as October twenty twenty three. We had heard this
through media sources, so we knew this was coming we knew there was ultimately
going to be a press conference and announcements made about the fact that this deceased
watermen was linked to these homicides, and that there was going to be a
third victim, Teresa Howell, who was also going to be identified. We
did what the FBI asked us to do. I know that's a little hard
to believe for those of you that listened to the podcast, and it may
even be hard for my friends at the Federal riew of Investigation to accept this,
but we actually didn't leak the fact that this information was coming. We
were respectful of the process, and so January eighth, they made their announcement,
also rolling back the calendar a little bit. About a year ago,
we got a call that the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Department of Forensic
Science had applied for and received a SAKE Grant SAKI, you'll see it up
there, which stands for Sexual Assault Initiative Grant, and these are federal funds
that are distributed to state and local law enforcement for testing of untested rape kits
and other evidence from unsolved cases. So we were given a tip that this
was happening in the Robin Edwards David Nobling example. So I reached out to
Jeannette Edwards Santiago. She's Robin's older sister. She's the Bill Thomas of the
Edwards family if you catch the sibling relationship here. We had heard that this
was happening, so we reached out to the Virginia State Police or the responsible
agency, and they did confirm that this was happening. Initially, the first
lab that did the testing was unsuccessful. In other words, they were taking
the rape kit from the Robin Edwards rape murder and they're testing it. But
it's a very small amount of DNA, it's highly degraded, it's over thirty
years old. And don't forget Robin and David were dumped in the water,
so it's been exposed to at least some degree of salt water over three day
period. But it's a really challenging DNA profile to try to extract further.
There's such a small amount of DNA left that there was a concern that,
because earlier tests had been done over the years, that this might be our
last shot. I spoke to Jeanette, and ultimately it was their call.
But I said, Jeanette, you want to hear my opinion. She said
sure, and I said, we're not getting any younger. More than half
the parents in this case, including her father, if I'm not mistaken,
at that point, yeah, have gone to their graves waiting for answers.
None of us are getting any younger. If this is our last best shot,
let's take it. Jeanette felt the same way, so she conveyed that
to them. Then they came back to us a couple of months later and
they said they were unsuccessful. So that was a disappointing result. However,
the good news is they didn't use any DNA to figure out that this particular
lab was not going to be able to extract a profile. They kept at
it though. We sent the evidence to another lab. I think I know
which one, but I don't want to say publicly because I'm not one hundred
percent sure. But it's a highly respected lab and they ran test and they
got a result. So now what I'm saying is these sake grants are incredibly
important, and this leads directly to the identification of Alan Wade Wilmer in the
Robin Edwards David Nobling murder, and then immediately ties in the Teresa Howell murder.
So this is like the single ratest development in the Colonial Parkway murders in
thirty seven years. And as a result of your tax dollars and hours being
used to test a rape kit. I have to give the Virginia State Police
and the Virginia DFS a lot of credit for making this happen. So we
have these three confirmed victims of Wilmer, Robin, David, and Teresa.
Another thing that came out not on January eighthslod after it is the fact that
there are two probable victims, and that would be Keith call and Cassandra Haley.
He was suspect number one from the beginning of the investigation into their disappearances,
and that is information that law enforcement opted not to share in their January
eighth press But law enforcement has told the families in their private briefing that they
are ninety nine percent sure that Wilmer is responsible for the disappearance of Keith Collin
Cassandra Haley. And I think that's something they should have brought up at that
presser. Blaine, what do you think? I agree? If that's what
they believe, why not give the families the closure? Because They could have
closed it right then and there and said, look, we're not going to
be able to bring this guy to trial, but we believe he is that
person. We know he was on the Parkway that night. We know that
he was their prime suspect based on a profile that was developed during your sister's
case. Wilmer was on their radar. They searched his house. They found
handcuffs. Now, I am sure there's some fun need for handcuffs for some
people. I can't think of any, but they found handcuffs, pornography,
knives, guns, et cetera. There's a lot of things that could have
been leveraged and used, and if they had acted, they could have prevented
the other murders. That's the thing that has bothered me almost as much as
not closing the ones that they're ninety nine percent sure, If they truly are
ninety nine percent sure, come out and say that, and we give the
families an immense amount of relief. They know they'd be able to say we
know what's happened. And I understand the FBI's hesitation because if they're going but
we need a physical evidence or we need testimony to do it, I understand
the legal reasons around that. I'm talking about people and emotions and real life,
okay, and that's the world I live in. It's infuriating from my
perspective. Two days prior to the press conference, on January eighth, they
met with the families, not including our family. I'm talking about the families
that are directly impacted. But they told them we're ninety nine percent certain that
Alan Wadewilmer is responsible for the disappearance and likely homicide of Keith Collin Cassandra Haley.
They said that privately to the families, oh, who were also told,
by the way, don't tell Bill Thomas. I have no idea why
for them not to be willing to say that. And if those of you
who saw the press conference or you can go back and watch it if you
want online. I could only watch it once. It's too infuriating. One
of the reporters, Andy Fox from WABY, who's been covering this case since
nineteen eighty six, he asked them, and by the way, it's very
hard to hear him. I run press conferences and done communication my entire professional
career. I believe that was done deliberately. In other words, it was
done deliberately so that you couldn't hear the questions very well. The truth of
the matter is the protocol in a press conference is either set up a microphone
and allow the reporters to ask questions, or the person who's in seeing the
thing answering the questions repeats the question so that the public can hear what the
question is before they answer it. And they didn't do that either. And
I also believe that was deliberate. And as a professional who's run press conferences,
and I'm talking about a lot of press conferences, I believe those things
were done deliberately. So Andy Fox asked the question something along the lines of
and you say, when Alan Wade Wilmer Senior first moved on to your radar,
and the spokesperson refused to answer the question. Twice the question was asked,
and the public has a right to know these things, and the families
have a right to know these things, and they refuse to answer the question.
And of course it takes people like Blaine Pardo, Andy Fox, Bill
Thomas Kristin Dilly we end up in this weird position where we have to call
them out on I mean, on a good day, I would call it
deceptive, as I think that was a word you used a second ago on
a bad day. I feel like we're being lined to and this does not
make me feel good about the straightforwardness the transparency that I think we should be
looking for agencies like the FBI and the Virginia State Police and any other agency
that's signed up an oath to protect and serve. I think that's outrageous.
Here. Yeah, we've got three confirmed Wilmer victims, and we have two
probable Wilmer victims. But now we're going to get into the potentially murky waters
of other potential Wilmer victims. And we would like to start this portion with
the following caveat. Okay, Wilmer's potential involvement is solely conjecture on our part,
based on information that we have available. Please keep in mind we say
it all the time on the podcast, but we are here to repeat it
one more time. We are not investigators, We are not members of law
enforcement. We do not have tools available to us to prove our suppositions outside
of what we have gathered on our own and fair requests when they come back
to us. All of the cases we're about to talk about deserve to be
solved regardless of Allan Wade Wilmer Senior's involvement. And it is now law enforcement's
job to investigate these cases and prove whether or not Wilmer is linked to them.
It is not our job to do anything other than to say, here
are some areas of potential concern that we think Wilmer could be involved in.
Now it's time for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it.
So I'm going to present these MC style and then Bill and blaneed like
your input on all of these and see where we're at. In the months
since January eighth, Bill and I have been putting together a list of other
potential cases that we think Wilmer might be involved in. And again this is
conjecture on our part. It is based on information that we have gleaned.
And but you know, like I said, it's up to law enforcement to
take the ball and run with it. The other potential cases Wilmer might be
involved in that we would like to see law enforcement spend some time on the
murders of Dale and Charlotte Rodgers, Mary Harding, Kathy Thomas, and Rebecca
Dowski. Brian Pettinger, Laurie Ann Powell, Belinda Ann Ashburn, Donna Canaday,
Anna Maria Phelps, and Daniel Lauer, Amber Lundgren and Peggy Lammers.
And we're going to go through each of these one at a time. I'm
going to walk you guys through this. This is very basic because we only
have a finite amount of time with you, and we're going to cover each
of these in more detail in an upcoming podcast episode. There are three cases
that we want to highlight that occurred in Lancaster County, which is Wilmer's home.
Essentially, these are not the only unsolved cases in that area, but
these are just the ones that we're choosing to focus on right at this moment.
We are happy to take a look at any other cases that you may
think Wilmer might be involved in and might need to come to our attention.
So please do send us that information if you think you have something that needs
to have a little bit more attention paid to it. So we want to
talk about Dale and Charlotte Rogers, Mary Harding and Peggy Lammers. Shall we
start here? I think we should? And Blaine, I'm hoping that you've
maybe some of these have crossed your radar. If not, I think you're
going to just come to do your basic bear bones this one. I've read
the article, okay, like a lot of people at this point, and
that's actually one of the best sources right now. So let's get into this.
Daleen, Charlotte rogers Dale and Charlotte Rodgers were murdered in their home in
Leicester County on February twenty seventh of nineteen seventy six. They were ambushed in
their home and they were both shot with a shotgun in the back of the
head. There were no signs of forced entry, and the victims were next
door neighbors of Gary Linkford, who would feature in another perplexing case, which
is a rabbit hole all of its own in Henraiko County, which is the
murder of Olivia Thorndyke. And we want to spend a little bit more time
on that. We just don't have the time for it rated the moment.
The Rogers murderers, we understand it. We're not experts. We haven't been
spending the time yet with these other cases as much as we have with the
original Colonial Parkway murders. This is a murder that appears to be a robbery
of a sort. There are some very odd details in addition to being nextdoor
neighbors, and this is very spread out. For those of you that are
from Lancaster County, you can tell us more than I can, as I
understand it, it's very spread out there. Langford lives nearby, but also
right next door the Wilmer family. A number of people have suspected for decades
now we're talking about nineteen seventy six, that there's a possibility that Alan Wade
Wilmer or other members of his family could be involved in this murder. There's
a couple things that really stand out to me. One is that their daughter
was out of town returned to find her parents killed. One kind of odd
kidlike thing about this case, which is someone stole their Volkswagen and then abandoned
it or hid it behind a shed a few miles away. And it always
struck me as such like a kid like thing to do to steal the neighbor's
car and hide it at a nearby location. It didn't seem like something that
professional killer, if there is such a thing, would do, a lot
of people in Lancaster County still think that the Wilmers may be involved in the
murder of Dale and Charlotte Rodgers. Dale was an airline pilot. They had
a beautiful house down in the water, and they were renovating the house,
and they'd had a lot of workmen go in and out of there, not
implying anything that would involve any of those people, but a number of people
knew what was going on with the house and had a sense of the fact
that this was an isolated location, and then it was a fair amount of
money going into this house in terms of the renovation. And were you familiar
with Dale and Charlotte Rodgers at all? Is there any part of this that
you can pick too? Yeah, I actually can. In the article that
you read, they implicate his brother as a possible suspect, which is William
Keith Wilmer. Now, on its own, that doesn't necessarily tie in allan
to this, but remember that when the police after Keith and Cassandra's death and
had started doing surveillance, the brothers were living together, so that it kind
of points to a connection there potentially that they thought this. Now I pulled
up police records for both of these gentlemen in Lancaster County and William Keith Wilmer,
who has been implicated in this at least in the article, was charged
with indecent language on the phone, obscene language on the phone, and an
obscene phone call starting in nineteen seventy one through nineteen eighty three, he was
doing those things. Alan Wade Wilmer only had two charges that were outstanding.
Both were in ninety or nineteen eighty one. October twenty ninth he was charged
with cursing and abuse and charged with assault and battery, So those are only
criminal records local for Lancaster. To me, I think the most important thing
is that the article it said clearly that they had consider in this, and
we know his brother was part of getting his trailer tossed by the FBI,
So to me, there's some crossover linkages there. I hope you guys understood
where I was going with this. To me, it points to this might
not be just a one person type thing. It could be a pair of
brothers doing this, or it could very well be a third party. It's
an accomplice to this. And there is a third younger brother, Tim Wilmer,
who's the youngest of the threes, also deceased. He died almost a
year to the day after Alan Wade Wilmer died, and we're actually having a
little bit of a hard time pinning down exactly how Timmy died. He also
had pretty extensive criminal record, a lot of relatively minor offenses, breaking and
entering, stealing guns, food, and other things from neighbors and other people.
We're still trying to pin down. Even his family isn't able to tell
us how tim Timmy Wilmer died. So in the next case that we came
to that a couple people mentioned at our last live session is the murder of
Mary Harding and Blaine. You were just referencing the excellent article on this case,
murder on the Rappahannock, which appeared in the Washingtonian. I believe it
was, and that is probably the I would call that the piece of record
about the Mary Harding case. And so Mary Harding twenty four went missing on
August twenty third, nineteen eighty five, and it appears that she was taken
out of her home, her children were left alone in the house, and
when law enforcement arrived, dinner was still on the table. There was still
cleanser in the sink that cat's literature had been spilt in the yard. Her
flip flops were found outside, one in the driveway, one in the back
of the house, as as she'd been literally lifted out of them, and
she was ultimately found four days later on August twenty seventh in the Rappahannock River,
and she was found with a rope around her neck tied to a chain
in a cinder block. And as you had mentioned a couple of minutes ago,
Blaine Keith Wilmer was pretty heavily implicated in that article. But it is
going to be very interesting to see. Is there any to either of his
other brothers, if you guys want to speak, I don't know. I
hate saying, oh, he's definitely involved, but to me, it's certainly
something. If I was an investigator, I would be taking a look at
and I'm sure you guys would be the same way. How many people and
here would think it's worth taking a look at the brother? Yeah, it's
and I'm an only child, but I can't imagine if my brother had the
FBI toss our place that I wouldn't know what was going on there. That's
just me suspicious nature. Yeah, There are a couple things that are worth
noting. Mary Harding worked at the Lancaster Bank with Keith Wilmer's wife. Keith
Wilmer actually ended up being banned from his wife's place of employment, the Lancaster
Bank, because of his endless sexual harassment of women coming and going in and
out of the bank. So first he was banned from the bank premises,
and then ultimately they had to ban him from the parking lot because he would
pick up and drop off his wife for work. This is a family,
by the way, with multiple vehicles, and the expression control freak comes to
mind, but maybe it's just me. He would pick up and drop off
his wife, and he would say obscene inappropriate things to women walking in and
out of the bank where his wife worked. This is also the same odd
ball with the extensive record of obscene phone calls, et cetera. Now I'm
not saying that makes them a murderer, but it certainly makes for an interesting
conversation, one would think. And those obscene phone calls were to a bank
employee, so we know that. Yeah, so every small town in Virginia
has a quirky family. I think every small town in America Yeah, and
they're the local bullies. They're the family that everybody tells you stay away from
them. Everybody knows their trouble. They've got an ac DC poster hanging as
a curtain for the front I like specific Blaine. Yeah, they got a
three legged put in the front yard. Not a chain. You guys know
what I'm talking about. There's every one of those communities I've ever been in
Virginia has that family where it's don't go deal with them. And the vibe
I've been getting from tips we've gotten has been this is the Wilmer family.
They were just people you didn't want to cross, or mess with, or
engage with. Moving on to our incident number one for the Colonial Parkway murders,
and this is something obviously Bill and I spent a great deal of time
talking about. Everyone is familiar with incident number one in this case, and
that is the murder of Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski. They were founding Kathy's
car at the Cheea Mannox Overlook on the Colonial Parkway. This was not the
primary crime scene, but we do not at this point know where the primary
crime scene actually is. Bill, we were actually talking the other night.
In exploring theories as we do, why do you think Wilmer might potentially be
connected to Kathy and Becky's murders. First of all, we can't forget that
there's one hundred and fifty persons of interest in the Colonial Parkway and that's that
minimum. The number may have grown since the last time the FBI gave us
this number, and there are plenty of very viable suspects who could fit the
Colonial Parkway murders and Kathy and Becky's murder specifically. However, Wilmer checks a
lot of boxes when Kathy and Becky were killed. Remember we talked about the
authority figure. That doesn't necessarily have to mean a person dressed in a policeman's
uniform. It means someone that's approaching these couples. We were told right from
the beginning that they were looking at watermen, so these other murders haven't occurred
yet, This is just Kathy and Becky. They had said they were looking
at watermen as a potential group of offenders, and they told us that they
thought that was a strong possibility. And then as a couple of years went
by, then we were told the so called driveway story where they told our
family in nineteen eighty eight that they had identified suspects who were watermen. I
knew that they lived up in Lancaster County and they had been approached, and
supposedly they didn't mention a suspect's name or anything, but supposedly those suspects plural
were given a lie detector test by the FBI and ultimately ruled out. There
was so much about these suspects that seemed to be actually a good fit for
the Kathy Thomas Rebeccadowski murder. So now here it is, all these years
later. Both Blaine and I have met at different times with IRV Wells,
the former SAC who's unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. Now both
of us spent hours with him, and he told us separately the so called
driveway story, and he seemed to indicate that he felt and the ACE agents
working with him seemed to feel, that these people were likely involved in the
disappearance of Keith Collin Cassandra Hayley, which by nineteen eighty eight had happened,
as well as the murder of Kathy and Becky. I'm sorry, go ahead,
now, I have to go in because you're very close by. I
think let's marry the evidence. Go ahead, Okay, both victims suffered from
strangulation with a nautical line one to the knife that nearly decapitated your sister.
And I'm sorry for saying that that's okay, It's hard. Was it considered
a sharp knife or a fisherman's knife may have fit that profile. And the
vehicle was doused in diesel fuel and the person doing it tried to light it
on fire with matches, couldn't because diesel fuel has a higher ignition point stupid
things you have to learn. Then they pushed the car into the river.
Who would have diesel fuel, someone who has a boat, and they buy
the diesel fuel somewhere else because buying it at the docks, everybody knows it's
much more expensive. So you buy it at the local gas station and take
it with you, you might not know that it has a higher ignition.
So there were physical evidence that pointed them to this waterman theory. Totally agree,
So I think Wilmer. I'm not saying that this is the only option
here for Kathy and Becky's murder, but Wilmer does check a lot of boxes.
In the Kathy Thomas for Beccadowski murder. We know that he was spending
time on the parkway hassling couples doing his cop ruse. I could one hundred
percent see him rolling up on Kathy and Becky knocking on the window, give
me your driver's license. We know that was standard. We've heard other people
say that's what he did. And I can imagine Kathy telling him a string
of expletives that I will not say here because it's the family show. I
can imagine Kathy basically telling him Conell and that not going well. You have
to remember with my sister, she was a graduate of the United States Naval
Academy. She had extensive martial arts training. She's in the second class with
women at the Naval Academy. I come from a Navy family. My father,
my older brother Richard, and my younger sister Kathy are the first father
son daughter graduates of the Naval Academy. There's a lot of pride there.
At the same time, my sister and her classmates in the second class with
women. So remember that means the upper classmen at the Naval Academy entered under
a single sex arrangement. And then Congress decided that women should be allowed to
tend the service academy, which I think was the right call, but that
didn't mean it went over particularly well with upper classmen. To be frank,
my sister and her classmates put up with a tremendous amount of harassment at the
Naval Academy, and even in the fleet. There were a lot of people
in the United States Navy and the other services that did not want young female
officers reporting for duty. They didn't suffer fools gladly. And if some idiot
rolled up on her, and we talked about this just recently, if some
idiot rolled up on her and started pounding on the window and demanding barber's licenses,
she might not take all that kindly to it. And as we understand
from the autopsy, there was a significant struggle on Kathy's part. Now she
ended up losing the fight, as did Becky, it's not out of the
question that Kathy might have fought back, particularly if she figured out this guy
is not the copy he's pretending to be. It could happen. Join us
again next time as we continue our exploration of the Colonial Parkway murders and take
live questions from our audience at the Yorktown Library in Yorktown, Virginia. Thank
you all so very much for showing up to our second live event here at
the Yorktown Library. And thank you very much to everyone at the Yorktown Library
for so graciously hosting us, for helping us with our setup, and for
being all around awesome. Thank you very much. Can we give them a
round of applause? Please? Thank you Bethrinding, and thank all of you
for being here. If you want to chat with us work, we are
available and we look forward to it. Yes, that is going to do
it for this episode of mind Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening.
We'll see you next time. Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute
Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois. Our theme music is by Kevin
mcleoud. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media. You
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our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook, and finally, you can
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listening to Mind Over Murder.