Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind podcast.
Speaker 2: Word from our sponsors. 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.
Are administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together
with Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 1: My name is Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 2: We're back here for part two of our conversation with
retired Virginia State Police Detective Danny Plott. We'll be talking
about the Colonial Parkway murders and the American detective series
on the Colonial Parkway Case with Joe Kenda. This conversation
will probably make more sense if you've listened to part
one last week here on Mind over Murder. I hope
you enjoy. What do you think went wrong in the
Colonial Parkway Murders?
Speaker 4: Here we are.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a case that's still only partially solved
and it's been thirty eight years. What's your take.
Speaker 5: I think what went wrong is first, when your sister
and Rebecca were killed. I think there could have been
some real good evidence taken from the scene, but the
park rangers overreacted, even though it was clear from anybody
with any kind of training that both ladies were deceased.
A trampled the crime scene. They took the ladies out
of the car, just all over it. And then I
forget the time sequence, but from the time they found
it till the time they finally contacted the FBI was
hours later.
Speaker 4: So the FBI was behind the eight ball big time then.
Speaker 5: And then you turn around with Ragged Island and basically
the same thing happens. They find that out of way,
deputy finds the truck. He thinks it's unattended. And I
know this deputy. I think he's the chief deputy now
or he was very good police officer, But I'm not
sure why he would think it was unattended because the
radio was playing, the keys.
Speaker 4: Were in it.
Speaker 5: There's just but anyway, he contacts Newport News. Newport News
shows up there, and it was the same sort of thing.
In a way, it gets inventory, it gets touched, it
gets If I'm right, I think it either they towed
it and brought it back, or they were getting ready
to tow it.
Speaker 4: They did.
Speaker 2: I think they actually moved the truck the driveway of
his family home.
Speaker 5: And then when they finally realized, oh shit. And I've
worked for a lot of years with a lot of
great police departments or state police included. You had canines,
you had personnel, you had a helicopter. How those bodies
were missed, Bill, I don't know to this day, but
to have Carl Noblin find those bodies when they were
out there the whole time. Now, granted robbing her position
when she was found, she could have drifted a little
bit in and out with the tide. But David was
not at He may have been touched slightly at high tide,
but he was not at the tideline. And so there again,
crime scene gone, then gone. You get Keith and Cassandra,
so many things. The park rangers again, they find this car,
they find.
Speaker 4: The clothes in it.
Speaker 5: It's April as cold as you know, what they think,
the people abandon.
Speaker 2: It and when skinny dipping.
Speaker 5: I can't get in their minds, but anyway, the biggest
thing withay inventory and then they realized, oh shit, maybe
this is more than we thought, tried to put it
back in.
Speaker 2: What shocking to me, though, Danny, is it's a year
and a half after Kathy and Becky had been murdered.
They find they find Keith tay Oslica, and you've.
Speaker 4: Had two murdered. You had them murdered, then you had Robin.
Speaker 2: And now this is the third couple and he's missing.
Why that car was.
Speaker 4: Placed there by Wilmer?
Speaker 5: I think are Wilmer's associates because they would not have
been on that parkway. There were so many things that
you know, and there's at least one witness that says
Wilmer's truck was seen in the parking lot that night
where they were. So again, not only this time, do
you not have crime scene? Really you don't have bodies
And then you turn around. Probably the most intact crime
scene we had was New Kent and they disappeared Labor
Day weekend nineteen eighty nine and were found the middle
of October nineteen eighty nine and six day skeletal remained
so you had two jurisdictions. Ragged Island New Camp were
Virginia State Police and the Parkway was FBI. And yes,
we worked together, but it's still the FBI who I
have the utmost respect for the FBI. There's a lot
of great things about the FBI, but in my experience,
they're not the easiest people to work with. Even if
you're working with them, you usually feel like you're working
for them.
Speaker 4: They really they wanted to solve this.
Speaker 5: I was made a Deputy US Marshal and put on
a task force for I don't know a year and
a half probably, and we ran down any leads we could,
but it just it went cold and we were on
that task force. Is when you've heard the.
Speaker 2: Name Bob Meadows many times.
Speaker 5: He was both agreed, why was Wilmer cleared? What besides
the polygraph? That must have been it? And the FBI
has experts in so many fields, and I just to
this day can't understand why somebody would say with everything else,
they watched him cleaning out his truck with soap and
water and bleach.
Speaker 4: They he was.
Speaker 5: Cooperative, took the polygraph, But you have the nautical rope
with Kathleen and Rebecca, you have the knife wounds to
them with a very sharp knife. Who carries a very
sharp knife? Waterman, they la seafood, dogged dust.
Speaker 4: And to just say.
Speaker 5: And then when we went back a second time and
said something like let's go see him again or let's
bring him in here, because brought in a lot of people,
and they said, no, it's you're going down the wrong road.
Speaker 2: So what's shocking to me is, Danny, I've spoken to
the man who gave the polygraph examination to Wilmer, and
he told me privately, he's not sure why they let
him go. He told me that he gave him two
polygraph exams. One he passed and one was inconclusive. He said,
you know what I'm saying, Bill, is I can't tell
you whether he was telling the truth or whether he
was being evasive.
Speaker 4: Sure, and that's not a perfect sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he himself admitted that, And he said, I
don't know why they let him go. Do you have
any sense of why they never revisited Wilmer, because Wilmer
checks a lot of boxes when you're looking at.
Speaker 5: I really don't because it's just there were so many suspects.
I think I made this statement somewhere everybody was a suspect.
Nobody was a suspect. You thought that you had a
line on someone and looking good, looking good. No, And
I don't know, And I know I've made the Noblin
family mad by saying that David took off running and
that's why he got hitting the shoulder. And I'm not
argue with anybody about that, But I also understand being
a relative or a brother and hearing that because I
tell people, if David Noblin had made it to the
top of that bank, there would be five people alive
today that are dead. Both, yeah, Keith and Cassandra and David,
and then Anna, Marie and Daniel.
Speaker 2: Oh. I agree with you, and I don't think you
ever implied that if David took off running, he wasn't.
Speaker 4: Running because he was afraid. He knew what was.
Speaker 2: Coming, or maybe it had already happened, and you're not.
Speaker 4: Going to.
Speaker 5: He's not running because he's scared when this starts happening.
I think he probably ran the minute they shot Robin.
I really think that all the forensics say it was
an upward shot. He was I'm in that bank and
he was. You've seen a picture where he's bout his
body's lying and he was ten fifteen feet from being
able to grab and maybe get into those woods, and
they'd have never found him.
Speaker 2: But I think the family took some offense. I understand it.
But at the same time, I don't think anybody was
ever implying cowardice. No on his part, and he's also
scrambling for his life. Rob may have already been dead
by that point, and who knows what he's already witnessed
the time that they were under Wilmer's control. I guess
you could say, yeah, it.
Speaker 5: Didn't absolutely and no, if I did not imply to
David was coward what I implied to David.
Speaker 4: I'm sure all of them at one time or the
other realized, oh my lord. But I think David was
in the position whatever happened, he broke away. I think
Wilmer had help.
Speaker 5: I tay that he got away and got a run
and start, and by the angle of the bullet, he
was climbing that bank when they got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't doubt it. None of us can put
ourselves completely in that position. All you're reporting on is
the ballistics, the angle of the two shots, likely a
shot to the shoulder, and then it's where.
Speaker 4: David was found.
Speaker 5: David wasn't found near Robin as such a general area,
of course, but he was above the tideline, right at
the base of that clay bank.
Speaker 2: Knowing what we know, which is still not everything, obviously,
how do you think Robin and David ended up in
that location? Were they shot and their bodies thrown in
the water or do you think they were marched there somehow?
Speaker 4: I think they were walked down there. Remember all the
shoes in the car.
Speaker 5: At that time, Ragged Island was basically a lover's lane hangout.
But to get down to the beach, it was a boardwalk,
but it was in lousy shape. Put it, you had
to be really careful. And then it wasn't like you
were walking on beach sand, walking on river sand, which
is just as many rocks as sand. And I think
whoever took control of them realized, no shoes, their movement's
going to.
Speaker 2: Be restricted, and that's way of establishing control and preventing
someone from making a run for it. More about this
than we do. What's the point of marching them down
the beach or marching them down those gravel paths through
the marsh towards the beach area. You got two routes
to get there.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
Speaker 5: I think it could be tied somewhere with a boat. Possibly,
he could have had so much speculation. Wilmer could go
anywhere in that boat. If you were looking to do
what he did to Robin and David. He had plenty
of chances at least before that, because that was always
full of cars and people wanted a little alone time.
Speaker 4: How's that for politically correct?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and for whatever reason, he picked Robin and David.
And again, you have two kids that weren't the only yes, ma'am, no, ma'am,
thank you sir, and please kids for Keith and Cassandra.
I think the other six they were just gonna say yes, do.
Speaker 4: Whatever you want. All eight of them were very smart.
Speaker 5: But I don't think David and Robin were gonna do
any silly shit without having no.
Speaker 2: Choice, having a fight on your hands somebody with a firearm.
Investigators have told me that Wilmer burned his boat, the
Denny Wade. It was probably up at his house for
a number of years. When he got out of the
waterman business. He chose to burn his wooden hulled working boat,
I believe in his yard, and the investigators have confirmed
this to me, Do you think that's an effort to
hide evidence that may have been aboard the boat.
Speaker 5: She wouldn't make any sense not to do it. If
he just wanted you rid of it, why didn't he
sell it? But if you burn it, they say, And
I don't know, I've never been there, but you know
where Lizzie Borden killed her parents, Ohio, maybe Massachusetts, Massachusetts,
there's still you can go in the basement and there's
still a blood stain from the blood seeping down and
staying in. They would if it was a wooden boat
and he had some of those victims on the deck
and they were bleeding, Yeah, they would have. That's one
way to get rid of hair, body fluid blood, just
burn it.
Speaker 2: So you don't think it's much of a stretch to
say that. Years later, Wilmer realizes he's got potentially a
treasure trove of evidence sitting right there in his yard.
Speaker 4: And I've been away from it a while. Did he
burned his boat long after he passed a polygraph? Correct?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think one day he decided, Hey, if
they started looking at me again, watch the one thing
that could hang me, and it could be that boat.
Because I think, and again it's all speculations, but I
think that's what happened with Keith at Cassandra. Either took
control of them and took them on the boat or
killed them and put them on the boat and then
took them out towards the mouth of the bay and
just through the body was a nor'easter. He didn't have
to go far. Throw the bodies in the water and
they get washed out to sea.
Speaker 2: Now, the couple who were the dog handlers who were
brought in searched that area. Their dogs took them to
the edge of the water. I think that lines up
with the Yeah.
Speaker 5: That lines up with his boat was big enough where
he couldn't have come on shore, but that boat could
have sat out in the water a little bit and
just take a little job boat or a little rowboat
and bring it in.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind of a Murderer. We'll be right
back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here
at Mind over Murder.
Speaker 5: Well, another thing I think with if I remember with
Kathy and Becky and Keith and Cassandra both it was rainy.
I know with Keith and Cassandra it rained, and it
had also rained with Becky and.
Speaker 4: Kathy, hadn't it. That's correct, Yeah, and that washes away
a lot of stuff.
Speaker 5: And I think also if you look at the sequence
of these murders and what happens, it's almost like the
person who killed Becky and Kathy were rushed.
Speaker 4: It was let's push it over the bank. I don't
know if that'll work.
Speaker 5: Let's do it didn't work, And then I guess the
only thing that doesn't make sense is that a waterman
would pour some diesel fuel all over something to try
to light it.
Speaker 4: But when you're in a hurry, you do stupid stuff.
Speaker 2: Because the diesel fuel, and early on I remember they
sometimes said kerosene or diesel fuel.
Speaker 4: Takes a lot of heat to start it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not going to be able to ignite the match.
The thing has always thrown me off because who has
access to diesel fuel but doesn't understand the ignition properties
of diesel fuel whereas you and I both know and
I remember being on a camping trip or somebody poured
gasoline on a smoldering fire. Yeah, watching the fire go
up the gasoline and into the can, and then of
course the dumb kid I was with threw the gas
tank across the woods and the woods went up. It
was crazy. If it hadn't been so rainy that week
and we were on a scouting trip, and we should
not have been using gasoline to get the stubborn fire started.
That's completely opposite what happens with diesel fuel, where it
typically will not ignite. Some people have said to me, Bill,
inside the Honda a very hot newspaper torch and perhaps
with closed windows that might have been able to elevate
the temperature of the diesel fuel to the point where
you might have gotten a smoky fire started. But they said,
typically it's not going to light no matter what you do.
Speaker 4: And there's so many questions. What the first one is
where were Kathy and Becky killed? They weren't killed in
a car, No, absolutely.
Speaker 5: And at least by the time the FBI got there,
which was several hours later.
Speaker 4: The human body has a lot of blood. Yeah, where'd
all that blood go?
Speaker 5: It did not appear that it was anywhere near the car,
and it wasn't in the car.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have a personal theory that Kathy and Becky were
attacked at the Ringfield Plantation picnic area, which was much
more isolated from the Parkway. I think they were killed
there and then the car was moved. But again, now
we're back to something that has always bothered me, Danny,
as you can tell, which is, how is if this
is Wilmer or any offender, how are they moving two
vehicles at once.
Speaker 4: They've got to have help, got to have help.
Speaker 2: One thing that's really disturbing, and it starts to take
on the sound of a slasher film, is Wilmer using
his boat to get close to these places and then
like you say, using a rubber raft or a little
dingy or whatever to come in to the shore and
then attacking couples. But he's actually coming by sea.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I still think that with at least six of those
eight kids, they're not going to be docile. Especially it's clear,
at least it's clear to me that it's not like
Robin and David were shot simultaneously. Any of those kids
once you unless you separate them, and if you separate them,
you got to have more than one person. And if
you only have one person, once you attack or kill one,
the other one's going to fight any human will for.
Speaker 4: The most part, and there was never.
Speaker 5: Any indication of skin under the nails are bruising on
the hands where they were fighting. So I just think,
and that's why I hope this show we're talking about,
the Parkway Murder show on idd Discovery goes out to
a wider audience where somebody remembers something.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I know the FBI and the Virginia
State Police don't like this kind of media coverage, but
from my perspective as the brother of a murder victim,
I find that whenever we've done a show like this,
people come out of the woodwork and somebody may know something,
which is why I want to urge people to listen
to Mind Over Murder, Talk to your friend, to ask
people about it, particularly anybody that was around back then
if they have any insight to offer, because I still
think there are living people that know more about this case.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure there are two.
Speaker 5: They're probably up there, probably as they say, long in
the tooth, but they're still around.
Speaker 2: No question about it. How do you feel overall about
the show. I know you mentioned earlier that you make
points while they're interviewing you, and they interview you they
did for me, truly for hours, but they only end
up using a few minutes of the conversation. Are there
things that you wish that had been included your observations?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because at the end of that show, from what
they aired, I'm saying, and Joe is too.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure Joe could give a shit what the
FBI thought of him, and I don't either.
Speaker 5: But I don't like the fact that they think I'm
blaming everything.
Speaker 4: On the FBI because I'm not.
Speaker 5: I sayd during my interview that there were almost every
department that worked that in some form or fashion made
a mistake.
Speaker 4: Some of them were terrible.
Speaker 5: But the bottom line is the two on the Parkway,
through lack of training or lack of knowledge or maybe
I'm not going to say they didn't give a shit,
the park Rangers ruined both crime scenes and the FBI.
One of the things they do a lot of things well,
and I don't want to get on this.
Speaker 4: Let's kick the FBI. They kicked themselves.
Speaker 5: These days, they have excellent crime scene people and they
might could have come out there and found something that
got washed away or got picked up or got taken
off on somebody's shoe, but we'll never know because people
didn't know what they're doing.
Speaker 4: And what really bothers me is it was bad.
Speaker 5: All of them were bad. Kathy and Rebecca was bad.
But then you have Keith and Cassandra same parkway and
it's an unintended vehicle. They went skinny dipping in April.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, it never made any sense to.
Speaker 5: Me now, and I wish, you know, I wish they
have played that more. And say, I watched myself and
I'm my own worst critic.
Speaker 4: I think we all are.
Speaker 5: I watched myself being interviewed and they asked me this question.
I'm saying, Okay, I'm going to say this and this,
and I only say this and this, and then I say, hey,
that makes it sound like this, But it's television. It's television,
and hey, you reach a huge audience. And I think
it tells the story. It tells the story of eight
young people's lives were snatched through no fault of their own,
and the family and friends and law enforcement for thirty
something years wanting to know something, and hey, at least
we know who, And it gives the fair family some
closure to a certain extent, especially the Noblin and Edward's families.
Speaker 4: But I don't know you rightfully. You speak with other
family members all the time.
Speaker 5: I think during the whole time I was working the
task force, we spoke to the families twice, and neither
time were all of them there. If and I'm like,
you have a much more potent invested interest. I just
can't believe that there's not something that can tie Wilmer
to these other three. The FBI down here, and I
can't find it. I don't know if you ever found it.
They put an article out in the paper during last summer,
maybe basically saying, if I remember right, they were ninety
something percent sure that Wilmer had murdered Becky and Kathleen.
And I want to say, really, what gave you that idea?
But that it was in the paper and then it
was gone.
Speaker 2: I don't recall seeing that. And from my perspective, the
FBI in the Virginia State Police's work is not done,
because I think there's a lot more work to be No, there's.
Speaker 5: Three of them that you can speculate in all in
his speculation, and I'll tell you, and I've told you already.
Speaker 4: I believe he did them all. But it doesn't really
matter what I believe.
Speaker 5: There needs to be something that ties him, possibly to
the other three, and gives a family some closure.
Speaker 4: Will never.
Speaker 5: Maybe we would know what happened to Keith and Cassandra,
but we'll probably never know, but at least maybe we
would know that it was him and his associates. And
I'm like you, I just I don't think the logistics
work out without some.
Speaker 4: Kind of help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've felt that for years, and I still feel
that even more strongly. And there's a few things I
can talk to you about off the air that make
me increasingly convinced that woman has accomplices. Sure, so this
show will also be running, as we understand it, on
HBO Max in the month of May.
Speaker 5: Yes, my understanding it will be it will go on Max,
which is I don't get it, although I think I'm
going to have to get it. Not because of that.
I did this terrible. I'll admit this on your nationwide
radio program, Bill. I have never seen the last season
of the Sopranos, and.
Speaker 2: Oh it's good.
Speaker 5: Somebody says it's good up to the last show, and
what's a shame is that James Gandolfini died before because
they had to come back and at least done a movie.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, But yeah, so I'm going to get it.
Speaker 5: And that's my really hope because I know there's a
lot of show we call them crime junkies that are
I meet people all the time when they find out
I had some kind of tie to the Parkway murders.
Speaker 4: Oh watch that all the time.
Speaker 5: I watched nothing but I Deed Discovery and all these
crime shows. And I want to say, you poor things,
you poor thing, but I'm like you, I hope it'll
stir some interest.
Speaker 2: We can't thank you enough, first of all for doing
the show and also coming on to Mind of a
Murder to talk with us.
Speaker 5: I tell people Bill that anybody that really irritates the
dog shit out of the FBI is my friend, and
I give my hard time. But I had some real
good friends who were FBI agents, And my take on
the FBI is number one. They are the foremost law
enforcement agency in the country, I believe. But it's not
just because it's not because just their personnel, because they're
like any other large police department. They have people that
are excellent that are fantastic at their jobs. Then they
have some that go out every day and do the
best they can. And then they have some that are
collecting a paychecking. That's probably business in general, but I
know it's law enforcement. What the FBI does have is
that none of us had, is they have the pocket book,
and they have the toys and the labs and the
experts like behavioral science. They just have a big bag
of Oh, what do you need us to do?
Speaker 4: We can do it.
Speaker 5: And I hope they can put their heads together and
tie these other three murders to them somehow.
Speaker 2: Agreed. What's that old expression you taught me.
Speaker 4: You're gonna get this on tape two, aren't you, Bill?
The FBI motto?
Speaker 2: You mean, yes, indeed.
Speaker 5: We'll solve no crime till it's time. But if we
solve the crime, we can expect you at the press conference.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Let me hope that God's not an FBI fan. I
may be in.
Speaker 2: Trouble, Danny as usual. It's great talking with you, and
we look forward to having future coming.
Speaker 5: I enjoyed it, Bill, and please let me know if
I can do anything.
Speaker 4: How are you all in the future?
Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to everybody for listening. Kristen will
be back next week. We appreciate your time, attention, and
support for Mindover Murder. That's it for this episode. We'll
see you again next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnoit.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl Space Media.
Speaker 2: 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 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.
Speaker 5: Cont