Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 5: 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.
Speaker 4: Bill Thomas.
Speaker 6: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm
Bill Thomas. This is the episode that I'm vetting most
of our listeners have been waiting for, probably since today
we started the podcast, and it's the episode where weeks
finally talk about Bill thomas, intrepid brother and advocate, finally
learning the answers to what happened to his sister Kathy.
Speaker 4: I'm thrilled that this day is finally here. I really
am and I.
Speaker 6: Think going to be a very interesting episode, probably a
little emotional too. I think it's going to be a
good one. So thanks to everybody for being patient. We're
here to give you as much information as we can.
Speaker 4: Bill, how do you feel.
Speaker 3: It's hard to wrap it into a short answer. It's
a very strange feeling. On the one hand, we've been
looking for these answers for thirty nine going on forty years,
So when you've been looking for answers for that long,
obviously getting those answers is a positive thing. There's some
happiness and maybe satisfaction might be the right word. But
then at the same time, and this is we'll walk
through the timing of this thing. These last couple of
days have also been profoundly sad for my entire family.
It's bringing it all back in a really devastating way.
I have been and thinking about Kathy and Becky probably
every day for decades. That goes on, but now everything
comes flooding back. I noticed when I talked to my
family over the last few days, we all felt the
same way. It brought us right back to what we
were doing in nineteen eighty six, how we heard about
Kathy's loss. It's just been a whirlwind. And then I'm
scrambling to try to respond to as many media inquiries
as possible, because I think that's always been very important
that we keep the case alive and keep it in
front of people. And now that we have some answers
and I say some, I felt like I wanted to
respond to as many of those reporters as possible. So
that was a kind of a mad scramble. I ended
up apologizing to a number of people that we know
very well. Different reporters, print, internet, television that have covered
the Colonial Parkway murders over the thirty nine years. I
ended up apologizing to a number of them because I
just couldn't get to everybody and they had to file
the story. So some stories had quotes from me and
many did not. There isn't much I can do about
it except say I'm sorry, or if you want to
do a follow up or whatever. I've been dealing with
my family. Yeah, this has been devastating news on some level.
It's not like everything is perfect in coming up roses.
It brings up a lot of emotion, and I'm not
one hundred percent satisfied with the answers I received from
the FBI. There's the understatement of the year, which won't
surprise anybody who's ever heard you and me talk about
what it's like to work with the FBI in particular. Man,
it's a lot, it really is. I'm still absorbing it.
I have had the saddest songs running through my head
for days. So that's just a reflection many of my
works in the music business for a lot of years
and worked with a lot of different artists, and music's
really important to me. I can tell my own mood
from these just terribly sad songs that are just occurring
to me, many of them from back then a few minutes.
It's something different, but they're just so sad. I don't
want to dwell on this. Look, there's a lot of
positives going on here.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a struggle. You can probably hear it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 6: Because I've had any number of people who can't get
hold of you ask me how you're doing. I've said,
he's processing. I was just having to remind somebody earlier. Look,
it's one thing to suspect that your sister is the
victim of a serial killer, especially after everything we've learned
over the last two years. It's one thing to suspect it,
it's one thing to speculate. It is a whole other
to get confirmation that, yes, the person whose face you've
been looking at, whose family you've been talking to for
the last two years, is the person who ended your
sister's lives. It's awful, and I am sure that it's difficult,
and I have no frame of reference for that, and
I didn't know CA, and I still think it's awful.
Speaker 4: It's life altering.
Speaker 6: I'm sure I don't love the fact, and I understand
that this is a product of our true crime obsessed culture,
in our twenty four to seven news cycle culture, But
I don't love the fact that literally you got grabbed
in front of TSA at the airport to give a
statement about what you just learn, like what not even
forty five minutes previous.
Speaker 4: I hated that I didn't want you to have to
speak to them. You shouldn't have to. You should have
had time to process.
Speaker 6: And I realized that everybody has stories they want to
get out, everybody has podcasts.
Speaker 4: They want to do.
Speaker 6: But it felt for a little bit watching people come
after you, it felt like watching people scrabbling over a big,
juicy bone, and I don't like that image at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was upsetting for me.
Speaker 3: It's it is not easy. Many listeners know that my
brother Richard, my older brother, died a couple of months ago.
There's yet another signpost of just how and sad this
whole thing is. It was terrible for Richard not to
be with us. My younger brother Jack was in the hospital.
He is having some very serious health issues and he's
going to be having another heart surgery February third, I think,
if all goes according to plant. So when we got
the news, I was coordinating with Pamela, my partner, and Bruce,
who was my brother Jack's husband. We wanted to let
him know what was going on, but I also didn't
want to upset him because here he is with a
heart monitor on and they're very worried about him, and
he's been in and out of the emergency room and
the cardiac ward three times in the last three four
weeks leading up to hopefully this successful surgery. Bruce was
so thankful that we didn't just contact Jack directly. And
there's so many things even now about this meeting with
the FBI that went. Look, a lot of things went well,
and I appreciate the hard work and the professionalism and
the kindness of the people I met with. Yet, at
the same time, the way this thing worked out, and
I'll explain as we discussed, I wasn't even able to
tell my own family because they chose to drop the
press release the minute our meeting started, with no advanced notice.
Our families found out who killed Kathy and Becky from
the media, and I'm sorry. This was unacceptable. This is
not how this should have gone down. So while I'm
tied up in a meeting, a productive meeting from nine am,
we actually started at eight thirty going through their incredibly
type security and you're not allowed to bring a cell
phone in, so it goes into a cubby in the
guard shack out by the entrance to the FBI headquarters.
This is the one in Chesapeake, Virginia. I have no
way of communicating to my family. They actually found out
about this through the media, and the phone started ringing
up here with my partner Pamela, and people demanding my
phone number because they wanted to talk to me. I
was still meeting with the FBI. There has to be
a better way to do this. I should explain from
the beginning how this whole thing went down.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, and I definitely want to tea that up
in a second, but I also want to talk again.
Like you said, this all went down. We knew it
was coming because the FBI invited you. They didn't say why.
For a couple of days ahead of time. All Bill
and I had was the FBI invited them to a
meeting the Thomas and Nadowski families. I assumed, and I
think you did too, that it was going to be
good news because they asked if you had siblings he
wanted to bring along. And that's when I figured this
is either going to be in a solver and arrest,
but they wouldn't give any indication beyond that. I knew
going in on Tuesday morning that you were going to
be talking to the FBI, and I probably wouldn't hear
from you for a couple of hours. And then I
figured maybe round I don't know, one o'clock or something
like that, go will call me and I'll hear the news.
But no, nine oh eight, as I'm in the middle
of class, my phone starts blowing up in my back pocket.
It's friends from the podcast who are all sending me
the same story from Wavy ten, who dropped it immediately.
Like you said, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior is responsible for
the death of Kathy Thomas and Rebecadewski. So that was
the first time I heard it as well, and I
would have wanted to hear it from you, not from Wavy.
Speaker 3: You have to explain for all of our listeners around
the country and around the world, what's WAVY.
Speaker 6: Oh, yes, sorry, Wavy ten. That's our local news station,
our frequent podcast gest. Andy Fox, who has been with
the investigation for a very long time, is one of
the reporters at WAVY and they've always been great about
covering the Parkway case. But boy, they must have had
this and been sitting on it until exactly nine o'clock,
because it was very shortly after that I started getting
phone calls and interview requests and everything else from people,
and so it's shoot, I'm in the middle of my
school and I'm definitely not supposed to have my phone
at help, but people.
Speaker 4: Are blowing me up.
Speaker 6: The timing could have been better, and I certainly would
have wanted the news from you rather than getting a
statement that from Waving.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen. People that have listened to the podcast
for a long time. No that I'm pretty direct. Because
of the FBI's ongoing obsession with power and control, they
didn't tell us anything in advance, and therefore, when we
went in at a thirty, As I mentioned, the meeting
started at exactly at nine o'clock. The press release, which
we had not seen, went out at nine o'clock. It
was what they call embargoed, which in the public relations
communications world, media outlets are often given press releases a
bit in advance and they are embargoed. That is, they
are not allowed to drop on the internet or go
to print or go on the air until the time.
Speaker 2: And it's just like a gentle person's agreement too.
Speaker 3: There's nothing magic about that, but they'll say embark until
nine am. The bizarre thing is at some point there
was a communications person in the room. She said the
press release had gone out. Let me back up and
explain a little bit more about how this whole thing
went down, because I think that'll help tea this up.
A week ago, I got a phone call from our
victim services person. This is the FBI, and she left
me a message. Now, for the last year, this new
victim services person has called me once a month to
tell me she has nothing to tell me. She's very nice,
she's very professional, but it's very frustrating because every month
she would tell me has nothing to tell me. She
left a message to please call her as soon as possible,
And of course I'm thinking to myself, this is the
monthly phone call where she tells me she has nothing
to tell me, which is incredibly frustrating. In the past year,
this new team has not allowed us to speak to
the investigators. They've kept us very shielded. They basically never
call us, never give us any updates, And this victim
services person calls and tells me once a month they
got nothing and to tell me.
Speaker 2: Which is really hard to believe.
Speaker 3: After a while, so I called her back and she
said that they wanted us to come to Virginia next
week for a meeting, and they wanted us to fly
down there on Monday for a meeting Tuesday morning. I said,
what's with the short notice? Basically I'm asked to up
end my schedule, cancel whatever I had planned for Monday
and Tuesday. She couldn't say so I was like, what's
the urgency and what are you going to tell us?
And she couldn't tell me anything. So I told her
I wanted to think about it, actually, and I called
Bob Dowski, who is my counterpart. He's Beckydowski's older brother.
Bob confirmed he had received the same invitation that he
was going to be going to the meeting. They hadn't
told him anything either. They had discussed, as you mentioned, Kristen,
me having my siblings there, and I said, first of all,
my older brother died just a couple months ago. My
younger brother is in the hospital. And I said, I'm
running out of siblings. We've lost Richard obviously, we lost
Kathy nine years ago. I have a half sister, but
she is someone that we've just gotten to know. She's
absolutely wonderful. We've just gotten to know her in the
ear or something like that, thanks to ancestry dot com.
She's caring for her substantially older husband, who's also having
some serious health challenges. So I knew Stephanie, my half sister,
isn't going to attend. I didn't think it was appropriate
that my partner Pamela be there. Although they mentioned her,
they said, would your partner like to attend. When I
was talking to Bob, I was asking him about his siblings.
He comes from five kids as well, and of course
they obviously lost Becky, who was the youngest. He had
spoken to his siblings and they weren't going to attend either.
And remember a lot of folks find this stuff very upsetting.
Even if my younger brother Jack had been in great shape,
he wouldn't have attended this meeting. He and Kathy were
a year and two weeks apart, almost Irish twins, super
close from when they were babies. M it was Kathy
and Jack, who was almost like one word. Sometimes they
were called the little kids. As they got older, they
weren't still the little kids. Richard Bill, we were the
two oldest, and Jack and Kathy were the youngest. And
then later we found out about our wonderful half sister, Stephanie.
Jack wasn't going to be up for this either way.
When I called back, I said, you're just getting me
and I had talked to Bob about it, and Bob said,
it's just going to be me. So we flew down there. Interestingly,
at the FBIS initiative, they paid for the trip in
the weirdness department. I specifically asked to be on the
first flight out Monday morning, six am out of Hartford, Connecticut,
near where I live, and I asked to be on
a late flight on the way back on Tuesday, because,
as I said, I don't want the meeting to be
rushed just because I have to catch a plane. There's
nothing magic about me getting a plane back up to Hertford, Connecticut.
And then when they booke ended up booking the travel.
Because they have to book the travel, they don't give
me anything close to it. They've got me arriving late
Monday afternoon and heading back Tuesday afternoon at three pm,
which I thought was completely unneces But after a while
you're like, you just throw your hands up in the air.
I can't fight with the FBI about everything, so we're
all set up to be there Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2: We get up early.
Speaker 3: I had a terrible night sleep, tossing and turning, couldn't sleep.
I keep reviewing suspects in my mind. There's been one
hundred and fifty persons of interest. Which one will it be?
Wilmer was certainly someone that I thought about, because of
course he's been linked to four homicides. At that point,
when we sit down, Dominice Evins, who's the new special
agent in charge of that office, spoke. She was very
well spoken, very professional. We were seated in like an
O shape, so that Bob and I are on one
side of the table, and then we've got probably seven
people flanking us, with sac Evans in the middle facing us.
After the introductions, very quickly she cut right to the chase.
She said something like that, I won't keep you.
Speaker 2: Waiting any longer.
Speaker 3: Alan Wade Wilmer Senior is responsible for the deaths of
Kathy Thomas and Rebecca dewsk I was surprised. Bob was
extremely surprised. He was very locked into another suspect, a
person I had heard quite a bit about. But I
went in there with an open mind. I just didn't know.
Bob was certain it was going to be this other suspect.
She walked us through the information, but they're so light, unspecific.
I still struggle with this. The culture of the FBI
is not one of information sharing. So I had a
ton of questions, and Bob, who's a very smart guy
and a very inquisitive person as well, had a lot
of questions. So I asked a lot of questions, and
I try to stop, like every question or two to
give Bob a chance to get a word in edgewiise.
You got to be respectful of the other person. He's
got lots of questions as well. We're asking questions, but man,
we've got a lot of stock answers. First of all,
I said to the SAC, you're not having a press conference.
Virginia State Police have I've had two solves in this series.
They've already had two press conferences live on camera and
on mike with family members there, and they took questions
from the reporters in the audience. There's none of that.
And I looked at SAC Evans and I said, you
need to have a press conference. You need to take
questions from the reporters. I said, I'm not seeing any
ownership of this case good. And I said, look, I
know you may feel that you're paying for the sins
of your predecessors, but there's been a lot of mistakes
made in this case. There are a lot of questions
about this case. And I looked at her and I
think I pointed my finger. Even I try to be polite,
but it's like, you have got to be kidding me.
You're not having a press conference, you're not taking questions
and ohen And didn't occur to me until later when
I finally started connecting with my family. I didn't realize
they were gonna dump this on the world Wide Web
at a time when that assured that my family, Bob's family,
and anyone else that was interested was going to find
out about this stuff. At nine o'clock that morning, I
thought that was what you wanted me to be doing
in terms of the Thomas family. So I tried to
be polite at the same time, when you're not getting
great answers or straight answers, I got what I felt
were very stock answers to a lot of questions. There's
some positives mixed in here. One is that, obviously I'm
not a family member for the Call and Haley families,
but that case is an FBI case, the disappearance of
Keith Colin Cassandraley. So I asked about the status of that.
They didn't say very much, but I got a strong
sense of commitment on their part just I was watching
their body language very carefully, and I've been in meetings
for decades I would sweep the room with my eyes
and look at everybody to see how they were reacting.
So their body indicated to me anyway, a continued determination
to get to the bottom of these cases. And they
are still responsible for the Call Haley disappearance. Now it's
the Virginia State Police that are responsible for our other
unsolved murder, that of Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lauer.
That's the one everybody thinks about, is inter State sixty four.
That's the couple under the blankets. So that's a Virginia
State Police case. And they made it clear they weren't
able to talk about the VSP cases. They started talking
about the lab work and they said that they had
found DNA on Becky's bra.
Speaker 6: Of course, we have a ton of listener questions and
so I'm just going to approach these in the order
that seem most pressing. And so the first one, of course,
is the one that everybody wants to know the answer to,
and this is from Robert, and he says, can you
tell us what type of DNA evidence was tested and
where was it found? Was the testing performed by an
outside lab or the FBI lab?
Speaker 3: Okay, what they told US was that they had found
DNA evidence. They didn't ever say touch or semen or
saliva or whatever. They just said DNA was found on
Becky's bra. Becky would have been wearing a bra and
like a T shirt and then some sort of sporty jacket.
She was very athletic. It wouldn't break her and shorts
is our recalls.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And they said DNA on the bra. They never said
clasp or anything like that. Because I was listening for
that now, I think that might be a logical assumption. Sure,
I felt like I got very good answers from the
case agent. I looked at them and I said who
did the lab work? And they said DNA Labs International,
And this is a very highly regarded lab in Florida.
They did all the other work so far in the
other four A D identified cases, and these have come
through the Virginia State Police and the Hampton Police Department.
And this is all through US. These SAKI grants, the
sexual Sault Kit Initiative grants that you and I.
Speaker 2: Have talked about on Mind over Murder.
Speaker 3: Apparently this work was routed through the Virginia State Police,
which would allow them to use the SAKI grants, okay,
because state and local agencies are the ones that are
usually authorized to use these SAKI grants. And by the way,
I think it's this is a fantastic use of taxpayer
dollars in my opinion. I hope everybody's okay with that
they did answer that question in a straightforward manner. You're
listening to Mind over Murder, will be right back after
this word from our sponsors. We're back here at mindover.
Speaker 4: Murder the other follow up.
Speaker 6: And I think a lot of people I've noticed have
jumped to this conclusion, and I suppose it's rational because
we spent so much time talking about it.
Speaker 4: A number of people have jumped to the conclusion that it.
Speaker 6: Was the hair in Kathy's hand that was the result
of the DNA hit. Can you tell us what if
anything was said about the hair.
Speaker 4: In her hands?
Speaker 3: Nothing was ever said about the hair in Kathy's hand. Unfortunately,
when we ended the meeting at the two hour mark,
I'm not exaggerating. Anybody that listens to this podcast would
know this. I had another two hours worth of questions
the meeting ended, and I was really unhappy that I
wasn't able to ask my additional questions. By the way,
I was so paranoid about their very strict rules, I
didn't even bring a piece of paper or a pen
into the meeting, but I knew most of the questions
I wanted to ask off the top of my head
and the hair in my sister's hand, which has been
a great source of frustration for me because the FBI
keeps changing the answer to what is the status of
the hair in my sister's hand, which was clearly indicated
in the autopsy report, which we have a copy of,
so that never came up and I still don't have
an answer.
Speaker 6: And I also want to point out to people I
have yet to hear about the details of this meeting
because Bill and I have been so crazed for the
last seventy two hours that I didn't even get a
chance to sit down and talk to him.
Speaker 4: For more than like ten minutes.
Speaker 6: So like on Tuesday, I talked to him for ten
minutes once when I was between classes and he was
on the way to the airport before he got ambushed
by the media, and then the second time when he
was between planes in DC and Hartford. But I got
a grand total of fifteen minutes with my own podcast
partner on Tuesday, and then yesterday we got some amount
of time, but we had fires to put out.
Speaker 4: I still haven't heard all of this. Every question that's
up here I also have too. Okay, so here's the
next question.
Speaker 6: Do investigators have a working theory and timeline of events
or locations leading up to the double homicide of Kathy
and Becky? If so, can you disclose any of the details.
I'm assuming they probably didn't give you that information.
Speaker 3: We Yeah, we asked a lot of questions. I very frustratingly, No,
they're not saying. They did say they thought that Wilmer
was stalking these couples, but then when I pressed for
more detail, they said that might only be like a
for an hour. In other words, they do think he
was going to places. This all makes perfect sense, going
to places with locations that were known as places where
couples would go make out spots, levers, lanes. It all
makes sense. And they think that he would be observing
these people for a period of time. They didn't mean days,
They meant a short period of time. This could be
an hour.
Speaker 2: Or something like that. I think is what they said.
Speaker 3: He would go to these places seeking couples engaged in
these romantic behaviors. They didn't use that word, but and
so they believe that's what he did with Kathy and Becky,
which as far as we know, is the first in
the series of what we call the Clonial Arkway murders.
Speaker 6: Did they give you any indication of where the primary
crime scene was? No?
Speaker 3: And I pressed really hard on that because I said,
to a new case agent who's very good and I
liked her a lot, and she clearly knew the No
insult to anybody in the room, but it was very
clear that she knew more about this case than anybody
on the FBI team, and so I really appreciated it
when they let her chime in. But I pressed really
hard on this because I said, do you feel that
Kathy and Becky were murdered at the Ringfield plantation, which
is a very likely sight in my opinion, than the
Cheetamannics overlook, which, as we've talked about on the podcast,
is very close to the surface of the road of
the Colonial Parkway itself, and the fact that it's probably
less than fifty feet from the surface of the road
to the edge of the embankment and Kathy's car was
found down the embankment. It never sat right with me
because I remember I told you and our listeners several
years ago when we were marking one of the anniversaries,
I went out there and did a whole bunch of
television interviews. So I would do an interview and then
wait and the next TV crew would come and they
would set up, and I had time in between. So
one of the things I did while I was out
there was I watched for and listened for cars, yeah,
and then watch them go by on the parkway. And
it was like ten to fifteen seconds between the time
I heard a car in the distance and it appeared
visible to the location where Catholic's car was found. And
I thought, Man, I know this offender or offenders were
comfortable in this spot, but you've got to have a
lot of nerve to be killing a couple in the
relative open. And you know that if you hear a car,
you've got like maximum fifteen seconds before that car drives
into view.
Speaker 6: I still am pretty sure that it's Ringfield Plantation, largely
because we know it wasn't in the car. There was
not enough blood in the car for it to have
happened in the car, And it really just does seem
if you wanted someplace to go to be private and
maybe do a little bit of fooling around or whatever. Yep,
that Ringfield Plantation pull off where if you pull all
the way back, you're right next to the water and
a cute little sandy beach that seems like a place
where it would be. Following up with that, and do
they think he was in the truck or the boat
or did they?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did talk about that one thing before we
step off your last question. Yeah, she did say definitively
she felt that the murder took place outside the car,
which we've always thought. She she confirmed that as well.
Regarding the boat versus truck question, our current case agent
feels much more strongly that Wilmer was using his truck.
Now she doesn't rule out the possibility of a boat,
and we know that three of the four crime scenes
are right next to water, and his boat that Danny
Wade had a shallow draft, which means it doesn't stick
down in the water too much. With a shallow draft,
you can go into all sorts of rivers and creeks
and inlets, that are fairly shallow and get pretty close
up to the edge of the water. I was very
interested in that, but she said she felt that he
was using the truck more than he might have been
using the boat. Now, I know a lot of people,
particularly with the Ragged Island murder of Robin Edwards and
David Knobling confirmed linked to Allan Wade Wilmer Senior, a
boat would make a lot of sense there, and I
would have to agree.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: She seemed to feel that the use of his truck
was likely in a number of these cases. She's a
very smart investigator, and she gets the subtleties and the nuances,
and she wasn't locking herself into anything, nor would I
sure if I were in her shoes. But I was
very impressed with her, and I always liked it when
she was given the opportunity to answer the questions. So
that one was a very interesting exchange.
Speaker 4: And that does make some sense to me.
Speaker 6: If he's got so Kathy's Honda Civic is pretty low
to the grounds, he's got a truck that's elevated. I
can see him pulling in to the Ringfield Plantation pull off,
and again this is my speculation. We haven't proven that
it's Ringfield, but I can see him pulling in, aiming
the lights at the car, at which point it's going
to blind them through the back windshield.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 4: I can see him.
Speaker 6: Coming over, knocking on the window to do his cop
ruse or whatever, and I count one hundred percent. Like
I said, I didn't know Kathy, but I can imagine it.
I can imagine Kathy giving him absolute hell when she
figures out the guy knocking on my window isn't a cop.
You see her giving him attitude, and I can see
that pissing him off.
Speaker 4: And that I think is case for the savagery of.
Speaker 3: It, especially since they think that the encounter takes place
outside the car. So at some point it sounds like
whether she's ordered to or Kathy and Becky are both
ordered to get out of the car. At some point
she's standing up and they have some sort of scuffle.
Bob had the perception that there were no marks on
women's bodies. And now remember Bob's never seen Kathy's autopsy report.
I have the former sac now deceased, the late Great IRV.
Wells told in no in certain terms when I interviewed
him some years ago. He said, Kathy put out a
hell of a fight, which is why she had all
these bruises and marks on her legs.
Speaker 2: And she also had that restraint.
Speaker 4: Marks and the webbing in her fingers.
Speaker 3: And they think that there should marks from like handcuffs,
and they mentioned handcuffs specifically.
Speaker 4: Oh God, I hate this guy.
Speaker 3: We also talked about lots of other things, but I'll
let you keep going with your questions.
Speaker 6: Okay, outside of DNA evidence and the nautical line, diesel fuel,
et cetera, is there any additional evidence investigators believe ties
this case to Wilmer, not that I recall.
Speaker 4: I'm curious.
Speaker 6: You and I had talked a number of times about
the fact that there was a bit of rope found
behind Kathy's red hair. Were they ever did they mention
being able to test the rope or get anything from
the rope?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Now, I remember our previous case agent did have that
rope tested and she said it was soaked in blood.
And she said they thought that he had cut the
rope at both ends after he had killed them and
left that segment of rope yeah, behind, but we didn't. Interestingly,
these are questions I would have definitely gotten to had
we had more time.
Speaker 2: The rope was never brought up.
Speaker 4: So that's actually the next question on the list.
Speaker 6: What questions are there that you don't have answers to
but that you think still can be realistically answered by investigators.
Are you permitted a follow up meeting or do you
have the ability to ask investigators' additional questions.
Speaker 3: I got to tell you, Bob and I are both
incredibly unhappy with the level of information provided. We have
a lot more questions and we are going to be
seeking a follow up meeting. Both of us felt on
the FBI man not like this, but it is what
it is now that we've had a chance to step back.
When I was talking to Bob yesterday, he said he
felt like we got the bum's rush, like they wanted
to get rid of us. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not
saying they were rude or disrespectful or anything but professional.
They were actually quite lovely. But we felt like they
were perfectly happy when Bob steered the meeting to a close.
And of course I'm thinking I got a lot more
questions here. When's the next time I'm going to have
a room full of FBI agents to at least attempt
to answer some of these questions. There were a lot
of questions I asked that they didn't get satisfactory answers to.
We're actually going to be seeking a follow up because
I'll be frank as always, I have a number of
family members and friends that actually aren't buying this. Wilmer
id they don't trust the FBI. They're not sure they
believe the FBI. By the way, one of the things
I said over the table, and I don't know if
I'm winning any friends when I say these things, but
they need to be said. I said, look, folks, the
families plural, not just the Thomas family, the families I'm
talking about all the FBI families, Thomas Dowski, Carl Haley.
I think I can speak for all four families who
have FBI cases. We don't trust the FBI. And I said,
and I looked right at the sac when I said this,
You've earned our distrust. Your lack of communication, the fact
that it's taken nearly forty years to solve this case,
your lack of transparency, sometimes inconsistent or dishonest answers. I'm
not saying this team, but I'm saying over the nearly
forty year history of this case, and I said, flat out,
you guys may not like this, but you earned this distrust.
And I didn't realize until after I got out of
the room and started trying to scramble to follow up
with my family and friends, and there were a number
of people that said, I don't believe it. I think
we should be seeking more proof. And I spoke to
Bob Dawski was back in Colorado where he lives. He
said the same thing. So we actually think we're going
to seek a follow up meeting. We need more information.
I have so many questions. One of the other key
questions that was absolutely missed, and I need an answer
to this. Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior died in twenty seventeen.
Now let's flash back for a second. Let's remember that
Wilmer was a leading suspect in the disappearance of Keith
calling Cassandra Haley's disappearance. In nineteen eighty eight, his truck
was spotted on the Colonial Parkway by couples who were
interviewed by the FBI, and they said that a man
with this very distinctive truck with writing on the doors.
It was blue green. It had a rig on the
back that was for oystering crabbing. Kind of looks like
a tow truck if you're not a Orderman. This truck
was clearly like a one of one. It was an
antique even back then. It was in nineteen sixty six
Dodge Dakota pickup truck, and this would have been in
eighty six, so it was twenty years old. The couples
that they interviewed who were making out on the Colonial Parkway,
a number of them said they'd had these very disturbing
encounters with a man who rolled up on them in
this truck wearing coveralls, not a policeman's uniform, but he
was highly aggressive and he would demand driver's licenses. Interestingly,
I don't think he asked for registration. And he would
tell them they don't belong there and they should move along,
and that kind of thing. This very distinctive pickup truck
then was something they were looking for. And the radio operator,
remember this is before the Internet and before cell phones,
who was coordinating communications for the FBI agents, spotted the truck.
He had heard them talking about it than the radio
he spotted the truck on a nearby road. I think
it was probably Route seventeen for local folks, and he
radioed in and said, I'm driving next to the truck
that you agents are looking for. And he got the
license plate, which was, amazingly a vanity plate em raw
ed m row, which is obviously an off colored joke
and a waterman and joke, if you will. Now they
had a description of the truck and a license plate,
and so a few days later FBI agents were at
Wilmer's home and eventually they served a search warrant. They
found knives, guns, handcuffs, and an extensive collection of pornography,
and Wilmer they thought was an extremely likely suspect. And
then remember he was brought in for questioning. He was
given two polygraphic examinations. I've spoken to the polygraphic examiner myself.
I know the FBI loves it when I tracked people
down like this, And I spoke to the retired polygraphic
examiner myself two years ago, and he told me I
gave him two poly graphic exams. He passed one and
the second one was inconclusive. As he said to me,
Bill that means I can't tell you whether he was
lying or not lying, whether he was deceptive not deceptive.
And he also said to me Bill, we should have
never let that guy go. They did let him go.
And here's my question today, and I still can't get
a straight answer to this. Wilmer died at home in
his bed in twenty seventeen at his home in Lancaster County, Virginia.
Law enforcement tells me that he died and was alone
in his bed for I think close to a month.
Don't help me do exactly how many days, but he
was there four weeks and weeks and the body was
in a very advanced state of decomposition. As I understand it,
DNA tests were done in those remains to determine if
that was Alan Wayde Wilmer Senior or someone else. They
identified him using DNA testing. Now flash forward, I think
it's the twenty four, could be twenty three, but let's
go with twenty four. Somehow Wilmer moves back on to
the FBI's radar. No one has ever explained to me
and my satisfaction, how did Wilmer move back on to
the FBI's radar. We're never taking anybody to court here.
And I said this in the meeting because when I
was pressing for answers and there was a lot of
hemming and hawing and we can't answer that and that
sort of thing. And I pushed hard and I said, look, folks,
we're not taking anyone to court here. And I said
more than once. I believe I have a right to
this information. And I still believe that. And I'm not
speaking for Bob Dewski, but I think Bob probably feels
the same way. I have never received any kind of
adequate explanation as to why Wilmer moved back on to
the radar. I think it was for good reason, But
what's the reason. It doesn't appear that they continued to
follow up with Wilmer despite the fact that Alan Wade
Wilmer Senior, and I believe his older brother Keith Wilmer,
William Keith Wilmer, who's a suspect in the Mary Caser
Harding murder up on the Rappahannock River, who died by
the way in April twenty twenty five. I think that
their failure to keep Wilmer on the short list is
a major problem in this case. I want to know
how Wilmer ended up moving back on their radar. The
fact that he did is good police work, don't misunderstand me.
But why was Wilmer ignored as far as I can tell,
for decades and then I think in twenty twenty four
suddenly he's back on law enforcements radar?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree, I think that's a very important question
to have answers too. We have many more listener questions
to answer, so we are going to wrap this up
for now and continue with a second part before we close.
I want to make sure that I acknowledge how proud
I am of my podcast partner, Bill, because Bill, without you, we.
Speaker 4: Would not be here today. This is you, This is
your victory.
Speaker 6: And if the sentiments of people online is any indication,
they all believe that this case would not be where
it is right now if it were not for your
tireless work and advocacy. And I heartily believe that as well.
So I know you're not ready to take a victory
lap yet, but you should. We are here because of you.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I see this as much more of a team effort.
But I appreciate what you're saying, and you're very kind.
Speaker 6: That is going to do it for this first episode.
I've asked us anything about the Kathy Thomas Rebecca Daowski solve.
But we are back for part two. Stay tuned, don't
go away, and thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McCloud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
Speaker 3: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 3: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.