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.
Speaker 2: I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial.
Speaker 3: 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, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 6: Welcome to Mind Ever Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm
Bill Thomas. We are continuing with our coverage of Laurie
Ann Powell and the recent case break which links Ellen
Wade Wilmer Senior to her disappearance and murder in Gloucester
in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3: One of the things I was very surprised by when
we got the news about the link that was going
to be announced regarding Lorient Powell and deceased suspect Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior. I was very surprised by how many
reporters I spoke to over the last few days who
had not heard about this press conference. They were hearing
about it from me for the first time. That was
a surprise. Many of them expressed interest in covering this
case and they thought it was significant news, so they
jumped on it, and a number of them were there
in the room or watching online as the Virginia State
Police walked us through this lanatest development, which is incredibly
exciting and a real positive development. As we talked about
last time, it may be hard to think of this
as good news for the Compton and Powell families who'd
been waiting for this kind of news for thirty seven years.
It actually is good to have answers.
Speaker 6: This is definitely one of those times where it is
a little overwhelming to be us when we are juggling
this much social media, and for you, you're juggling a
lot of interviews and discussions with reporters.
Speaker 4: We are glad to do it.
Speaker 6: Because this is such welcome and needed news for Laurie's
family and friends as well. We've had a number of
her family and friends reach out on our social media
pages and comment about they're happy for this, but they're
sad for Laurie's family.
Speaker 4: Of course they are.
Speaker 6: This is not something that as you've said before, Bill,
this is not the club that anybody wants to join.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, as I mentioned last time,
do you put together this new photo array of ten
victims the original eight from the Colonial Parkway murders and
now adding in Teresa Howell and Lauri and Powell. It's
just hard to look at these kind of shiny young
bases of these people who are just starting out their
lives and have wonderful lives and exciting opportunities ahead of them,
completely cut off for reasons that make no sense. So
we have a lot of questions from our listeners, and
we really appreciate all the expressions of support for the families,
particularly the Power and Compton families.
Speaker 6: We also want to make sure that people understand that
we have received so many inquiries and questions and tips
and hey, I knew that guy over the last couple
of days, that we are trying very hard to wade
through it all. But if we don't immediately message you back.
We are not in any way trying to ignore you
or slay you or anything else. We're just very busy
and there are only two of us who are doing
this social media network. The Call family has their own
page that they are running. The day to day running
of it for Colonial Parkway Murders and mind Over Murder
is Bill and me, and we both have jobs outside
of running the social media and doing our investigating that's
not really instigating. We will do our best to get
back to everybody, and we thank everybody in advance for
your support.
Speaker 4: And if you have.
Speaker 6: Actual tips that need to go to the VSP or
the FBI, they need to go to the VSP or
the FBI. We cannot wade through all of them, so
please do make sure those go to the law enforcement
agencies that can best serve them and investigate them.
Speaker 4: We cannot do that at this point.
Speaker 6: We personally, in the times that we have bounced back
and forth ideas about Wilmer and all of the victims,
we have several questions in reference to Wilmer and his
behavior as a confirmed serial killer, so we thought we
would run down those and then we will go ahead
and talk about the things that we would like to
see law enforcement do now because as people with a
vested interest in this case, we would like to see
continued movement forward, and the best way to do that,
we think, is to make sure that law enforcement is
aware that they're There are certain things that family members want,
and these are they But let's start with several questions
that we have in reference to Wilmer and his behavior
as a confirmed serial killer. Our most pressing questions are these,
did Wilmer act alone?
Speaker 3: I'm fairly certain that he did not act alone. We
have heard from law enforcement about three potential accomplices who
have been referred to by law enforcement as Virginia Guy,
Carolina Guy, and out West Guy. Now we believe that
at least one of these individuals, likely Virginia Guy, has
provided his DNA to law enforcement for potential matches or
to be cleared. Obviously, if he gave his DNA, I
would assume he's fairly confident that he's not going to
show up at any of these crime scenes. But certainly,
the logistics of the couple's homicides in particular, always seem
to be so complicated, because remember, you have Wilmer or
another offender arriving in a vehicle, which could be a boat.
Then they are moving typically vehicles, cars and trucks around
post mortem, and the logistics of that seem to cry
out for a second person assisting Wilmer, let's say, in
moving these bodies and these cars. So I think there's
still a strong possibility that Wilmer may not have acted
alone in some of these examples. Now it might be
possible in the individual murders, that is Teresa Howell and
Lorian Powell. In terms of confirmed Wilmer victims, like it's
possible that he may have been able to move one
person by himself, the possibility of accomplices is very real.
Speaker 6: Our next question would be how did Wilmer choose his victims?
And by that this traditional idea of a serial killer
is looking for a specific type. That's something that we
see with Ted Bundy. We've also had people who say
Bundy's type, that's just how you know, with your hair
parted in the middle and long straight hair. That's just
how everybody was wearing their hair in the seventies. So
maybe there's nothing more to it than that. Maybe a
bit of a misnomer to assume that all serial killers
have a type for their victims, a specific look. But
we are curious how did Wilmer ultimately choose his victims.
Was he merely opportunistic and constantly trolling. Was he looking
for couples and would settle for victims? Was he looking
for couples and would settle for individuals? What is the
mo here is what I would like to know.
Speaker 3: I think Wilmer, like a lot of serial killers, was opportunistic.
To use a word that you had mentioned to me
off air, which is when the opportunity presents itself, he
will strike. I think he was always looking for potential victims.
He might not necessarily take that next step in every
exam because he has to evaluate other other people around.
Did I just see a cop car come through this
parking lot or whatever?
Speaker 2: It was?
Speaker 3: Like a lot of serial killers, he's always looking for
victims and evaluating opportunities as they present themselves, And I
think that's very much what Wilmer was about. The other
thing is is we talked about last time. In getting
educated by our friends in the profiling community, they have
reminded us that this idea of a type is probably
not applicable to a lot of serial killers much in
the same way. Wilmer, just in the cases he's confirmed for,
has varied his method of attack and his method of
killing his victims tremendously. We have guns, knives, strangulation, it
goes on. He seems to be experimenting or maybe trying
different things, or just maybe he just enjoys killing people,
as sad as that is. But he's definitely not doing
the same thing every single time. He's not attacking people
that are exactly the same, and he's not attacking in
the same way. If you look at the Colonial Parkway
murders victims, and I'll include ten people in that category
because we still suspect he's involved in the other Colonial
Parkway murders. If you take the oldest and the youngest
people off the list, that is fourteen year old Robin
Edwards and my sister Kathy Thomas, who is twenty seven
Aldough she was a very youthful looking twenty seven. She
could have easily passed for twenty two. But if you
take the two of them out of the mix, just
for a second, then everybody else is clustered in this
eighteen to twenty one year age range. Lorian Powell our
latest confirmed victim. So they're extremely attractive, striking looking young people,
and they're almost all in that eighteen to twenty one
year old age bracket. Even if you throw Robin and
Kathy back into the mix, you've got a very young
looking Kathy Thomas and a older and then her year's
fourteen year old Robin Edwards, who loved hanging out with
older people and tended to date older men. This is
a group of people I think that are fairly clustered
together geographically and age wise. But I think these are
the kind of victims that Wilmer was looking for.
Speaker 6: Our next question is how did he approach his victims?
And this is really the biggest question for us in
terms of execution of his plans. In the cases of
the Colonial Parkway murders. Was he approaching his victims on
foot like, for example, did he maybe pull his boat
up to shore and walk up the beach and approach
that way. Did he pull in with his truck into
a turnaround like at Ragged Island or where Kathy's car
was found and maybe turn on the brights and hem
them in. Did he approach on a boat like? How
did he approach his victims? And I would also add
with that, did he use the cop ruse that we've
heard about to approach his victims? We do know that
there were several instances in which wallets were out or
glove compartments were open. We've heard of people who had
run INDs on the Colonial Parkway with people impersonating cops,
and we do think that Wilmer was responsible for at
least some of.
Speaker 4: Those, if not all of those.
Speaker 6: So did Wilmer use the cop ruse to approach all
of his victims or was it only some? There's a
lot of questions to be had there, I think.
Speaker 3: And my answer to a lot of these questions is
yes to all of the above. I think that Wilmer
was the opportunist that you talked about, and I think
he approached things in ways that made sense to him
at that moment. Now, we've heard numerous reports about Wilmer
approaching couples on the Colonial Parkway, and the parkway was
famous as a place to go and make out.
Speaker 2: It's very quiet, very dark.
Speaker 3: These pull offs, even the ones that were fairly close
to the surface of the Colonial Parkway pretty secluded, and
so teenagers knew they could go there and that would
be a place that you could go and be a romantic.
But a number of people talked about a man driving
this very distinctive blue green pickup drug approaching them in
a highly aggressive manner, where he was suddenly there at
the window. He wasn't dressed as a cop. Sometimes he's
described as wearing overalls, which might be something that a
waterman Wilma would wear. But he would be suddenly there
at the window, pounding on the window, disrupting this couple
who were engaged in romance, and he's demanding driver's licenses. Interestingly,
in the examples I've heard about, he doesn't seem to
be asking for registrations. He's just asking for driver's licenses,
insisting you don't belong here. I need to see your license.
A number of people gave them their licenses, and then
they were made to feel very uncomfortable because he went
away with their driver's licenses, and they wanted their licenses back,
but they were afraid of this guy. He was highly aggressive.
Although he was short, he was very muscular, and he
approached them with a great deal of kind of aggression
and purpose, and they tended to do what he demanded.
Speaker 6: We would love to know more from Wilmer's friends, family,
and associates about what locations he frequented when he was
visiting this area, and the FBI and VSP are very
interested in that information as well. Again, we ask anybody
who knows anything about Wilmer, no matter how small the detail,
please make sure that you reach out to the VSP
and FBI tip lines. We would love to know if
he exhibited any behavior that alarmed family, friends, or associates. Really,
the two questions we have for law enforcement are why
was Wilmer allowed to go free even after passing a
polygraph if he was the prime suspect in the Call
Haley case, which the FBI has acknowledged.
Speaker 3: And this is one that I am so floored by
to this day. I understand that the capabilities of DNA
testing hadn't really come out of the lab in nineteen
eighty eight. Given how many boxes Wilmer and possibly Wilmer's
older brother Keith checked as part of the investigation of
the Colonial Parkway murders, I just struggle with, how did
you not revisit Alan Wade Wilmer Senior in the years
after the Colonial Parkway murders had died down, but while
the investigation was ongoing. Once the science caught up with
the evidence, why in the world wouldn't they go back
and take a look at the most likely suspects. He
was referred to as suspect number one. And it was
right after Keith calling Cassandra Hadley disappeared that the FBI
doing a full court press looking for this missing couple
and acknowledged they had already had the murders of Kathy Thompson,
Rebeccadowski and Robin Edwards and David Nobling take place in
eighty six and eighty seven. Now we're up to nineteen
eighty eight. As part of the investigation, they discover there
are couples who've been approached by this highly aggressive man
on the Colonial Parkway driving this very distinctive truck. So
it's three or four days after the call Haley disappearance.
They were already up in Lancaster County. They pull up
and they find Wilmer cleaning out his truck with water
and bleach or some other solvent. It was highly suspicious behavior.
They got a search warrant, They searched the truck, they
searched his home, they gave him two polygraphic examinations, one
he passed and one was inconclusive. But the FBI polygrapher,
whom I spoke to within the last year or so,
he told me privately, we should have never let him go,
meaning Wilmer. How could they not go back and revisit
Wilmer for decades, particularly once the DNA and the science
thereof had caught up.
Speaker 2: They should have.
Speaker 3: Gone back and checked him out and gone back to
all of the early suspects.
Speaker 6: And I said it last episode, and I will say
it again. Teresa Lynn Spa Howell is dead because Wilmer
was allowed to go free. That is irrefutable. Terry Howell
was killed in July of.
Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 6: That was after Wilmer was allowed to fall off FBI radar.
It is that overlooking that allowed Terry Howell to be murdered.
I think it really just needs to be said again
and again. She would not be dead if the FBI
had done their job. And the FBI can be mad
at me for that if they want to.
Speaker 2: You're off the Christmas card list.
Speaker 4: Oh, I've been off the Christmas card list.
Speaker 2: For a long Time'm me too.
Speaker 4: It's okay. I think we can live with it.
Speaker 2: YEP.
Speaker 6: Now, the question that everyone is asking online and the
question that we would like to know as well, and
definitely the project that we will be working on for
twenty twenty six, why can't exceptions be made in policy
to put Wilmer's DNA in CODIS. So let's talk about
that for a second. Because, as we explained last episode,
Wilmer was not a convicted felon. When he died, his
DNA was not in the CODIS database. DNA was only
taken from Wilmer for identification purposes after he died. Because
Wilmer was never convicted of a crime a felony, his
DNA cannot go into the CODIS system. It is only
the DNA of convicted felons that are allowing CODIS. During
Lori and Powell's press conference, that was acknowledged. So it
seems like the easiest thing to do would be to say,
get permission from the Wilmer family to load his DNA.
Speaker 4: Up in CODIS.
Speaker 6: Apparently it is not that simple. We would like to
know why isn't it that simple? And if it's not
that simple, what can we do to change that? We
would love to do whatever it takes, and I think
everybody out there listening would agree at this point that
they would do whatever it takes too. We want to
get a confirmed serial killers DNA put into the CODIS
database where it belongs. He is dead, he no longer
has rights that needs to be protected. And there are
families out there who are desperate for answers in their
loved ones murders, including my podcast partner sitting right across
the zoom link from me. I know that more than anything,
Bill wants answers in Kathy's case.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of questions and we're going to
try to nail these down in the coming months. One
of the questions is this a Virginia state law or
is this a federal law? And we're going to try
to get down to brass tacks on this.
Speaker 2: Do we need to have.
Speaker 3: The Commonwealth of Virginia introduced a bill to change the
rules so that Wilmer's DNA can be placed into COTIS
so they can do a one to many comparison and
potentially solve numerous other cold case homicides across the United States,
which is quite possible, particularly when we're talking about the
states of Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where Wilmer was
known to travel. We need to find out, and we're
going to be working on this. Do we need to
be working with the legislature and our new incoming Attorney
general in Virginia on changing this law or do we
need to be going to the FEDS and talking to
the DOJ and having a bill introduced in Congress. We're
not going to let this go. This is too important.
And Kristin, as you were saying, I can't believe that
the rights of a dead serial killer, because that's what
he is, somehow supersede the rights of families like ours
to get answers in our loved ones unsolved murders. I'm
telling you Wilmer is good for a lot more than
the four murders that he's been confirmed for. As you
said last time, we're highly optimistic that he will be
linked to other cases. But we've got to find a
way to respect the rights of victims here and not
the rights of serial killers.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 6: That brings us to our We're going to call it
our five point plan. What do we want to see
happen now that we have confirmation that Wilmer is responsible
for four victims linked via DNA and probably as many as, say,
fourteen more. What do we want to see happen now?
Number one, we want to see an investigation into Brian
Pattinger's murder by the Virginia State Police, and based on
some discussion that was had at the press conference, I
assume that they are well down that shock already. Number Two,
we want to see local police departments with cold cases
investigate the possibility that Wilmer may be involved in those Chesapeake.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at.
Speaker 3: You, very important. One of the things that we learned
at the press conference afterwards was that apparently the Virginia
State Police is expecting local law enforcement agencies to reach
out to the VSP not the other way around.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: I don't care, but this is a clarion call to
every agency in Virginia that has cold cases. They should
be reaching out to the Virginia State Police to ask
if they can compare the evidence in their unsolved homicide.
I'm highly confident we're going to link to other unsolved murders,
including murders we may not have.
Speaker 2: Even heard about yet.
Speaker 3: This needs to happen, but apparently the agency's local need
to initiate contact with the Virginia State Police. Apparently it
doesn't work the other way. I don't care, but this
conversation needs to take place, and this means that police
chiefs and investigators from around the state and even surrounding
states need to be talking to the Virginia State Police
now and comparing their evidence with Wilmer.
Speaker 4: Right number three.
Speaker 6: We want to see Wilmer's DNA added to the CODAS system.
I said and or in my notes, but let's just
say both. We want to see movement forward from legislators
and lawmakers to amend the laws governing CODIS to allow
for someone who's been linked to a murder or multiple
murders via DNA but was not convicted of a.
Speaker 4: Felony into the CODAS system.
Speaker 6: We want to see the FBI take up their cases
with as much zeal and dogged determination as the VSP
has taken on theirs. The FBI has jurisdiction over the
Thomastowski and Carl Haley cases, which bookend the Edwards noveling
and Powell cases. It is time for the FBI to
solve those cases as well.
Speaker 3: Right now, the Famili's Tomasdowski call Haley. We're hearing literally
nothing from the FBI. Since the new team took over
in January twenty twenty five, they have been giving us
the straight arm. The investigators don't speak to us anymore.
Our longtime investigator retired and when she left the FBI,
the communication stopped. We had some very odd conversations with
the new team. The new assistant special Agent in charge,
they call him an Asac. He actually refused to give
me his email address. I've never had this happen before.
This is bizarre behavior on the part of the FBI.
I told the senior agent how shocked I was. I
actually said, you're not going to get meet your email address,
and he said no. The way they're treating us is
so distanced, and they're just doing everything they can to
hold us at arm's length. It's not like things were
perfect with the FBI before, but at least they took
our phone calls and answered our emails. They wouldn't always
answer our questions, and we certainly butted heads behind closed
doors on a number of occasions, but I did feel
like we were taken seriously, and this new team at
the FBI, it's like we're worthless and they want nothing
to do with us. Many of us in the four
families that are directly attached to the FBI are so
disgusted they've stopped taking any kind of communication from the FBI.
And right now I have a very nice young woman
who calls me once a month from Victims Services. Note
that she's not an investigator. She calls me once a
month to tell me she has nothing to tell me.
I'm not joking, and that's all we get. So if
we have questions, they won't answer our questions. If we
reach out, they refer us to victim Services, and the
investigators are no longer communicating with the Colonial Parkway murders families.
Speaker 2: It's shocking how badly we're being treated.
Speaker 6: And that is really our fifth point here. We want
to see the FBI respond positively to the FBI families
requests for a meeting to discuss the status of their
cases because.
Speaker 4: They are owed that much.
Speaker 6: The job of the FBI is to serve and protect,
and they are doing neither in the case for these families.
They are not serving their roles as investigators into the cases,
at least not that they have shown us. And they
are not doing their best to work with fidelity, bravery,
and integrity, which is after all, what the FBI is
supposed to stand for. They are not treating these families
with respect, and that is the very least what they
are owed. After thirty nine years for Thomas Dawski and
thirty seven years for Carl Haley, at the very least,
they are owed the courtesy of being told, here is
what we have or don't have. But they do deserve
an answer, not the strong arm.
Speaker 3: We have requested a face to face meeting for the
four FBI families. The FBI has.
Speaker 2: Refused to meet with us.
Speaker 3: The last time they met with the four families from
the FBI is January twenty ten. This coming January, in
a couple of months, it'll be sixteen years since the
FBI has shown us the courtesy of meeting with the
families as a group. Some of us had met with
FBI agents individually, but to have a group meeting and
a top to bottom briefing on what the status of
the investigation might be, this coming January will be sixty years.
Speaker 4: That is our five point plan. It's not nearly as
good as the Five.
Speaker 6: Points of Light or anything else from politics or history.
But before we get to listener questions, we again do
want to make sure that we reiterate how important it
is for anybody with information about Alan Wade Wilmer Senior
to contact the FBI or the VSP. The FBI is
probably not going to be your best bet at this point.
Quite frankly, given what we've just told you, I think
the VSP is the way that you should go. So
if you have any information at all, and it does
not matter how small and insignificant this may seem, please
reach out. Every little bit may be helpful. You can
send tips to the Virginia State Police at questions q
U E S t IO n S at VSP dot.
Speaker 4: Virginia dot gov.
Speaker 6: And that's Virginia spelled all the way up questions at
VSP dot Virginia dot gov. Should you like to tip
your questions and tips down the black hole of the
FBI www dot tips dot FBI dot gov, or you
can call one eight hundred call FBI make sure that
you get that information to the correct investigating agencies.
Speaker 4: If they do not get back to you.
Speaker 6: Again, it is entirely possible that they are busy, that
they are investigating, that they are working very hard. We
have to assume that's what they're doing. But please don't
send tips to us. We do not have the ability
to investigate. We are not investigators. We are not even
in the same area. Bill is in Connecticut, Kristen is
in Virginia.
Speaker 4: But please do make.
Speaker 6: Sure that all of that gets to a proper investigating agency.
All right, I think it's time for listener questions. We
went ahead and posted about nine hours ago a post
on Colonial Parkway Murder is asking for any questions that
listeners may have about Larian Powell or anything related to
the Colonial Parkway murders case. We're going to read out
the questions. If we can answer them, we will answer them.
If we do not know the answer, we will tell
you we don't know the answer, and if we're speculating,
we will tell you that we're speculating. We're going to
do the best we can to get through as many
of these as we possibly can. So, first of all,
and I'm going in the order of most recent. The
most recent comment is from Ellen, who asked what prompted
local law enforcement to test Wilmer Senior's DNA and the
Ragged Island case.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: So we're referring to Robin Edwards and David Knobling. This
is something where I was in touch with the Edwards
family and the Nobling family, but in particular the Edwards
family because remember the DNA evidence came from Edwards rape kit.
We were begging, literally begging the Virginia State Police investigator
to please test the last bit of remaining evidence in
the Robin Edwards rape kit. Now, over the years, Robin's
rapekit had been tested several times, and those earlier DNA
tests consumed more DNA than the new tests do. So
there was a concern expressed by the Virginia s Day
Police and the Department of Forensic Science. And this is
a valid concern that if they conducted tests, it might
use the last bit of remaining highly degraded DNA that
was left in Robin's rape kit. Remember, she'd been dumped
in the water. Her body had been in the water
for at least three days. It was seawater which contained salt.
Tests had been conducted which had used a fair amount
of the DNA, there was only a very small amount left.
I remember talking to Jeanette Edwards Santiago, Robin's sister, who
works in the medical field, and she and I were
comparing notes, and obviously it's not my sister, but I
offered my advice. I said, I think this is worth
a shot, and if it's our last shot, let's take it.
Because times are wasting, We're not getting any younger, our
parents are dying waiting for answers in the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 2: I think we.
Speaker 3: Should proceed, and Jeannette felt the same way, and so
she conveyed that to the Virginia State Police. I know
the investigator, who we hold him very high regard. He
was very hot to trot. He wanted to move forward
because he wanted to move this case forward. And there
were expressions of concern and kind of a bit more
conservative approach, and I'm not criticizing the scientists were concerned
that the evidence would be consumed and we wouldn't have
any more chances. Ultimately, the people that were pushing to
move forward prevailed, and so they sent the evidence out.
I'm not one hundred percent certain, but I'm guessing here
it was DNA Labs International doing the work. They got
a SAKI grant, the a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant,
and that is what results in testing the evidence and
lo and behold with a small, highly degraded DNA sample,
they got a hit and they got a CODIS hit
that enabled them to connect Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior, who
was deceased effective December twenty seventeen. But they got a
match and then that resulted in them moving forward with
the identification. Working with the Hampton Police Department, they realized
that the offender in the Robin Edwidge stated novelin case
was the same offender as in Teresa Howell.
Speaker 2: So that's where we got the match of the three people.
Speaker 3: There are may be aspects of that story that we
don't know the rest of the details about. There was
a lot of question as to whether investigative genetic genealogy
was used. That's a possibility, but they've never confirmed that.
Speaker 6: Let's see, we have two questions from Joanna, one of
which we've really already answered, which is do we think
that Wilmer had potential accomplished yes, and.
Speaker 4: Which yes, we have answered.
Speaker 6: And then she also asked we're Sandy and Keith the
last missing or unsolved that are associated with Wilmer, And
is there any thinking that he or they stopped after
Sandy and Keith?
Speaker 3: And I think she knows her answer now, which is
know that there were several additional individual and double homicides
after Sandy and Keith went missing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and as we said in our last episode, I'm
pretty convinced that Amber Lungren from nineteen ninety seven in Ashville,
North Carolina is probably attributable to Wilmer as well. Chris says,
stumbled across your page yesterday when I saw the news
about the VSP press conference scheduled for today. Yay. Please
make sure that you're telling all of your friends who
are interested that we do have a page here. Curious
to me about the Harding murder in Lancaster in the eighties.
Wilmer's brother was a suspect or prison of interest in
that case. Yes, correct, and we said yes. He also
said he loves the podcast, so thank you. Paul asks us,
can this fourth confirm wilmer murder in any way clear
the obstacles for his DNA being run in codis And
the answer, unfortunately is no. It cannot, but we are
going to work on that. That is going to be
our That's going to be our Everest. That's going to
be our Everest. Or is it K two that's higher
than Everest?
Speaker 2: No, because it's K two that it's the second highest.
Speaker 6: All right, So yeah, that's that is going to be
our Everest. We are going to try to make sure
that is something that we work on.
Speaker 3: I'm about to break into my best Vince Gille impression
and start singing, go rest high on that mountain. Maybe
that's a bad idea.
Speaker 4: Do it, No, do it? Do it?
Speaker 3: I can't sing do it. I certainly can't sing like
Vince Gill.
Speaker 6: Debbie, our research assistant, asked what other cases have people
questioned as possibly being committed by Wilmer. But we just
went over that whole entire thing for Debbie.
Speaker 3: There's one little more case from twenty seventeen that Peggy
Lammers near Deltaville, Virginia. I think that's a long shot
because this would have been very late in Alan Wade
Wilmer Senior's life. He died a few months later after
Peggy Lammers was killed at her home near the water
in Deltaville, I don't think the Peggy Lammers' murder is
the work of Wilmer because he was very ill by
that point, and I don't think he would have been
physically strong enough to have committed that murder at her
waterfront home.
Speaker 6: Holly says, is there any information on who Alan Wade
Wilmer Senior was known to associate with? Places he was
known to frequent? Was he seen at the CNU party
that night? Was he living nearby to the CNU party?
Is there any evidence that Keith and Issandra may have
stopped at the Little Sue convenience store on Route seventeen
on the way to take Cassandra home.
Speaker 4: Lots of questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's see if we can go through those one
at a time here.
Speaker 6: Okay, Is there any information on who Wilmer was known
to associate with?
Speaker 3: Something we're working on. A lot of people seem to
feel that he didn't have a lot of friends. Now,
he had a small circle of friends up in Lancaster.
He and his wife later ex wife, had a circle
of friends. We'd been trying to pin down more information
about people that he hung out with. We know that
he rented a room from a man named Ricky Blaylock,
which is a boarding house type situation where different people
rented rooms. He and Blaylock hung out a lot together.
We're trying to make other determinations about who he hung
out with.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: One interesting tidbit is that Theresa Howell was last seen
at the Club Zodiac, which is an after hours club.
We don't know whether Wilmer may have seen her outside
the after hours club. She had been drinking that night.
She had a car that was having some problems, so
she may have needed a ride, and she may have
accepted a ride with Wilmer. She encountered Wilmer, it sounds
inside or outside the Club Zodiac. Her body was found
a few miles away at a construction site near Thomas
Nelson College. That's a real open question. I am very
intrigued by the Club Zodiac and actually if any of
our listeners have more information or if they ever hung
out there. This was a place where people would go
after the bars were closed. Ostensibly it was a membership club.
My understanding is that the rules regarding membership were pretty loose,
so you could go in if you were with a
member or that sort of thing. But it was the
bar that you went to after the regular bars had closed.
If you weren't done drinking by one or two o'clock
in the morning, you could go to the Club Zodiac.
I think there's a possibility that some of this activity,
and perhaps Wilmer, Ron Little and perhaps other accomplices might
have been running into one another at an establishment like
Club Zodiac.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Good question.
Speaker 6: As to the CNU party, boy, would we love to
talk to people at the CNU party. Please, if you
were at the Heritage Square apartment party, let us know.
We hear from people every once in a while who
were like, yeah, I was at that party, but we
really would like to know, especially, is there anybody here
who has photos from that night at the party? You know,
anybody who was at that Heritage Square apartment party that
night at CNU, Please let us know. If you saw
Roun Little there, we'd love to know. If you saw
Steve Blackman there, we'd love to know. If you saw
Alan Wade Wilmer Senior there, we'd love to know. Yes,
please let us know. We don't have any evidence right
at the moment that he was there, but if anybody
knows something to the contrary, hit us up.
Speaker 4: We would love to know.
Speaker 3: Just a reminder of our younger listeners. Remember we're talking
about a pre digital environment here, so this isn't like
these days everybody's carrying a phone with it, typically a
pretty decent little camera in there. It's very rare to
go to a party or other get together without somebody
whipping out a cell phone and taking some pictures. They
call them selfies. Back then. I know this sounds like
I'm a million years.
Speaker 4: Old, me too. It's fine.
Speaker 3: This isn't something that was very common, So pictures taken
at a party is a much more kind of rare thing.
Much in the same way when we speak to school
groups or when we give our mind o our murder
live events, we have to remind people there weren't cell phones,
there was no internet. This sounds like I'm talking about
it sounds like the Stone Age the eighteen eighties instead
of the nineteenies, nineteen eight But it was a very
different environment in terms of like image capture.
Speaker 6: Jessica asked us to review some of the other murders
he could be linked to, which we have just done.
Speaker 2: Think we've done that, let's.
Speaker 6: See Jamie again asks is it possible to change the
law for DNA submission hope, So we would like to
do that, and then they ask can we get something
spearheaded to start that process. As soon as we know
how to start that process, we will let all of
it and we will crowdsource the hell out of write
letters to your legislator.
Speaker 4: Well, absolutely do that.
Speaker 3: We've got to figure out whether we're focusing on the
Commonwealth of Virginia to change their rules, or if this
is at the federal level. Do we need to be
working on Congress. Lord knows, it would be nice to
see something good come out of our various legislative bodies.
Speaker 6: This question is from Penny and it's why doesn't the
Wilmer family let his DNA be used to be put
into CODIS if they want to help the families get answers.
That's not really the question we should be asking.
Speaker 4: Bill. You want to clarify real quick it.
Speaker 3: First of all, it wouldn't be up to the Wilmer family,
I think. And the second thing is I've spoken to
members of the Wilmer family and they're open to this.
The Wilmer family are not the problem. If anything, you
can make case that the Wilmer family are victims just
like our loved ones are. We have no acts to
grind whatsoever with the Wilmer family. They have been incredibly
cooperative and kind. They reached out to me after the
story broke about Alan Wade Wilmer Senior being involved in
the Robin Edwards, David Nobley, and Teresa Howell cases. My
phone started ringing with some numbers I didn't recognize from Virginia.
I took the calls because I take calls from Virginia.
These very nice people tentatively introduced themselves and said, you
don't know who I am. But interestingly, I actually did
know who they were because we'd already started researching Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior, and so we knew a bit about
him and his background and even who his family members were.
Speaker 2: So when these very nice.
Speaker 3: People called, and they were maybe a little tentative, I
don't know how they thought we would respond. It turned
out that the family members were listening to my murder.
Then that's how they figured out who we were, and
they called, and they were incredibly kind and wanted to
do anything they could. They feel terrible about what's happened.
None of this is their fault. His two kids were
eight and ten years old at the time of the
Colonial Parkray murders. Of course, now we have to add
a few years. They're in their forties, I would say.
Incredibly nice people and they want to be as helpful
as they can.
Speaker 2: They have been.
Speaker 3: They will not stand in our way if we end
up pursuing the idea of putting Wilmer's DNA and a cootis,
They're very open to it. If anything, they'd like to
see if there are other cases that Allan Waide Wilmer
Senior is going to be linked to. They'd rather just
get it done and get it, get it over with
so they can get on with their lives. I'm not
speaking for them, but we have discussed this.
Speaker 6: There have been times here and onmind of a murder
when people have expressed this idea. We don't know where
they got it from. That they think the Wilmer family
is in the way, or that they're trying to defend
their father something that is the furthest thing from the case.
They are lovely people who have been nothing but supportive.
And again, none of these people had any idea that
their father or ex husband in the case of his
ex wife, they had no idea he was a serial killer.
Speaker 4: This was a shock to them.
Speaker 6: I absolutely don't ever want people to get the idea
that the Wilmer family is standing in our way in
any way. They are not, and we want to be
as supportive to them as possible because this is a
hard thing for them to go through. It's got to
be because you suddenly are upending everything that you know
about someone that you really loved and cared about, and
that kind of cognitive dissonance that doesn't go away overnight.
Speaker 4: That's something something you need therapy for. My God.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we don't ever want anyone to get the idea
that the Wilmer family has been anything less than very helpful,
because they've been lovely the whole time. We have much more, so,
much more to talk about in this case, but for
the moment, we're going to steer to a close. Please,
for everybody who has expressed wonderful good thoughts toward the families,
all of the Parkway families, and toward the Powell and
the Compton families, thank you so much for your kind
thoughts and your well wishes. It really does help the
families to hear these things. For anyone who is expressing
that they have tips in information about Wilmer. Please make
sure that you send that to the correct investigative agency,
and please make sure that you are staying tuned here
at Mindover Murder for more information. If you have questions
for us, comment on our social media pages, and if
you like the work that we're doing, because we are
trying very hard to make this a good informative podcast
and good informative social media pages, please do us a
favor and leave us a five star rating and review
wherever you listen to our podcasts. And to wrap up,
if you want more information on the Colonial Parkway murders,
you can follow our Facebook page, follow our mind Over
Murder page. Read a Special Kind of Evil by Blaine
Pardo and Victoria Hester, Catch the Lover's Lane murders on Oxygen,
or watch American Detective with Joe Kenda wherever you get
your streaming services. That is going to do it for
this episode of mind Over Murder. 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.
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