Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the
social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway
Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas.
Welcome to Mind of a Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: Welcome to March everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were just talking about how cold and windy
is it where you are.
Speaker 3: I think it's actually going to start feeling like spring
here fairly soon, so we hope that everybody is enjoying
their first full week of Mark. We're looking forward to
getting out of winter moving into spring, bringing you lots
of brand new episodes before we do that. We did
want to go ahead and make an update on the
Colonial Parkway murders investigation. Mister Thomas, as the brother of
a murder victim, how are you feeling about where the
case is today?
Speaker 2: I'm not very happy? So what else is new?
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, but are you ever? And then
I thought that was going to be too snarky, but
you did it for me.
Speaker 2: I want to be clear here. I am often happy
in my life. It's just that when you asked me
a question about how happy are you with the status
of the Colonial Parkway murders investigation, I have to reply
honestly that I'm not particularly happy. There are reasons for that,
and we'll get into what's going on and what might
make a family member, myself or anybody else unhappy about
the status of the investigation.
Speaker 3: But as of March seventh, twenty twenty five, you would
not say that your feeling on the case is happy, optimistic,
and a bulliant.
Speaker 2: No, none of the above.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, we just wanted to get that out
there first thing. We'll just lead with that.
Speaker 2: This will become clearer as time goes on. Here.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, now we know that we have people who
are new to the podcast, and we know that we
have people who are new to the case. Bear with
us for those of you that are quite familiar with
the case, as we do a quick recap here for
anybody who is new and still catching up, and then
we'll get to our case investigation. So the current status
of the Colonial Parkway murders investigation hinges largely on knowing
where we started and a year ago, on January eighth,
twenty twenty four, the FBI and Ridge un State Police
how they press conference in which they announced that Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior, a waterman from Lancaster, Virginia, was the
rapist and murderer of Rabin Edwards and David Noveling in
September of nineteen eighty seven. This is something about which
we were hugely optimistic because we felt it meant answers
are probably going to be coming our way for all
of us. And so I remember spending January of last
year being very frazzled, but also very optimistic maybe good
things will be happening now. Was that also your feeling
in January of last year?
Speaker 2: I think so. As we've talked about before, you and
I had heard from media sources as far back as
October twenty twenty three that this was coming. We knew
the name of the suspect, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior. Other
family members living in dead who were associated with Wilmer.
We knew a lot about him as soon as his
name came up, although I was not familiar with his name.
As soon as the circumstances of who Wilmer was were mentioned,
I said to you, I know who this guy is.
He and his brother were suspects in the Colonial Parkway
murders as far back as April nineteen eighty eight. My
father who's passed away since, and other family members we
always referred to them as the watermen, so that we
knew that there were two watermen. Alan Wade Wilmer Senior
and his brother Keith, who's William. Keith Wilmer had been
prominent suspects. We'll get into more details in a minute.
There was some cause for optimism because obviously we have
a link now in incident number two in the Colonial
Parkway murders, that is the murderer of Robin Edwards and
David Knobling in September nineteen eighty seven. That's the one
at Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge. There was some cause for optimism,
But here we find ourselves a year plus later, still
looking at those facts and waiting for more.
Speaker 3: We also learned at that time that Wilmer had been
tied via DNA to a nineteen eighty nine murder which
we were not familiar with, and that was the murder
of Teresa Lynn Spa Howell, whose name, as I mentioned,
we were not familiar with, but who was definitively tied
to Wilmer. She was last seen at the Zodiac Club
in Hampton, Virginia, on July first, nineteen eighty nine. And
again learning that there was a new victim in the case,
and learning that there had been another DNA tie, that
also felt like there was cause for optimism there. Okay,
they're checking boxes, they're clearing cases. This is good. That
also felt Okay, they're making progress. We're happy about this,
We're pleased about this.
Speaker 2: The two agents that seemed to be taking the lead
a year ago were the Virginia State Police, who were
the lead investigative agency in the Robin Edwards David Nobling murder,
and then the Hampton Police Department, with a lead Agency
for Teresa Howell. The FBI was involved, and certainly there
are potential tie ins which remained very strong in terms
of the other Colonial Parkway murders, but at this time
January twenty twenty four, it felt like the Virginia State
Police and the Hampton PD were taking the lead.
Speaker 3: The idea of Ellen Wade Wilmer Senior through DNA was
done as the result of a SAKE grant sexual Assault
Kit Initiative grants requested by the Virginia Department of Forensic Science.
Here is another lab. It is not the FBI lab
at Quantico. It is not any of the other more
I would say technologically enhanced labs that we have been
hoping would work on the case Authrum or Parabon for example. Here,
nonetheless is a lab who got some results, and that
also was something that made us feel very optimistic.
Speaker 2: Now these SAKE grants, the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grants
are being used around the country. This is Department of
Justice funding used typically to pay a private lab, which
is what happened here. So as you're saying it's not
federal labs or the Commonwealth of Virginia's labs, it's done
by an outside laboratory. Very exciting news. Now, the disappointing
aspect of this is that Wilmer himself had died in
December twenty seventeen, so he'd been dead for several years.
We were told that test results from Wilmer's dying of
natural causes at his home in Lancaster, Virginia were how
his DNA ended up moving on to FBI and Virginia
State Police and ultimately Hampton Police radar. I'm not sure
I accept that explanation at the one hundred percent level.
Some of their story doesn't completely wash for me.
Speaker 3: I agree, and we've never been given full transparency on
some of these things. And that might also be because
our case is not a Virginia State Police case. Our
case is an FBI case, so that that may be
some of the reason why we don't have all of
this information available to us. We learned a little bit
later down the road. It was only a couple of
days later that Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior did actually have
a connection to the FBI cases. So he hadn't just
been identified for the Virginia State Police case of Robin
Edwards and David Nabline and the Terry Spa Howell murder.
We also learned that he was a suspect and the
disappearance of Colin Cassandra Haley in nineteen eighty eight. In fact,
he was given two polygraph examinations by an FBI polygraph examiner.
He passed one test, the second was inconclusive, but still
for some reason, the FBI dropped him off their radar.
That was the big bombshell news that we were able
to share on the podcast, And at that point the
optimistic feelings started churning into something a little different for us,
something similar to anger.
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, I would say, that's true. One
of the things we were very disappointed about was that
at that January twenty twenty four press conference, the FBI
and the Virginia State Police went out of their way
to not confirm that Alan Wade Wilmer was a suspect
in the Call Haley disappearance, which is in April nineteen
eighty eight. So now that's incident number three in the
Colonial Parkway murders. As soon as we heard the story,
as I mentioned at the top here, a number of
us said, wait a minute, this is the two watermen.
I knew they were from Lancaster County, Virginia. I knew
a fair amount about them, but I didn't know their names.
But this is as far back as April nineteen eighty eight.
My father, Joe Thomas, who was in touch with our
FBI agents very frequently, he told me a very detailed
story with a great amount of information in it about
these two men. And the FBI agents at the time
were convinced they had identified the killer of Richard Keith
Call and Cassandra Hayley because they had found the highly
distinctive truck that Wilmer was driving, and that was followed
by the two polygraphic examinations you mentioned, as well as
an execution of the search warrant at his home. In
depth questioning by the FBI, there was a lot of
linkage potentially to the disappearance and likely homicide of Keith
and Sandy. And as you mentioned a minute ago, Kristin,
it's baffling to me that they let him go in
nineteen eighty eight and they never circled back. The science
got better and better. DNA came into the four It
wasn't really commonly used at the time of the Colonial
Parkway murders. But as science advanced, I cannot, for the
life of me figure out why they didn't circle back
on Alan Wade Wilmer Senior and potentially his brother.
Speaker 3: Listeners aren't privy to all of the behind the scenes
stuff that you and I are, and I don't think
we've ever really even let our listeners in on exactly
like how many phone calls a day or a week
the two of us exchange, just catching each other up
on news. That was definitely a time in which we
were on the phone with each other constantly. Did you
know about this? Wait? Did you hear about this? Hey? Wait,
did you call Blaine?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Did you call Andy Fox?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you talk to Joyce? It was I remember
January of twenty twenty four being nothing but an endless
round of phone calls between all of us trying to
get on the same page. Who knew it? When? Did
they know it? How do we feel about it? It
was a crazy amount of phone time.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that's worth noting too, this
was very frustrating, and I still find this maddening to
talk about. Our longtime case agent deliberately scheduled a conference
call which went on for two hours. Mind you, and
I welcome the conversation. But ironically it was scheduled to
the minute one thirty pm for when the press conference
took place. That was done very deliberately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wasn't ironically.
Speaker 2: It was done deliberately, Yeah, so that I wouldn't be
able to see the press conference in real time, which
was available online worldwide. I wasn't able to respond to
the press conference. As a matter of fact, I was
so swamped with, as you're saying, phone calls, emails, and
texts that day, including a lot of people saying to
me on social media, Bill, where are you? Why aren't
you commenting about this? Why aren't you and kristin promoting
this press conference? I was tied up with our case
agent for two hours, and that was done deliberately. There's
no way around it.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't like she was tying you up with
new information for two hours or anything else.
Speaker 2: No, it was a recap. There was information that had
been shared a few days prior with the families of
Robin Edwards, David Nobling, and Teresa Howell at a face
to face briefing had by the way, one of the
comments that was made by FBI people at that meeting
was to these other families, don't tell Bill Thomas this
information and if they don't, think that doesn't get back
to me after. I know, yeah, all the families talk frequently.
I was kind of shocked that they would go that
far and be that petty quite frankly, to say, don't
tell Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: I I feel like, given the way things have shaped
out with our former case agent in the last couple
of months, it doesn't surprise me that they would be
willing to be that petty. And that's all I'm going
to say about it. It's I, yeah, fan at the
moment of our former case agent for reasons that we
may or may not get into. But I see that
as deliberate and I I do see it as being petty.
Speaker 2: I'm laughing, not at the situation, but I'm just trying
to figure out how much do I want to say
today or at any point about what transpired behind closed doors.
It's incredibly frustrating, and I don't think advances the Colonial
Parkery murders investigation not one inch.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't. And this is another sort of inside
baseball thing for our listeners. We are constantly having to
weigh for ourselves what we can and cannot say on
this podcast, both about the investigation, because there are things
that we know that we still cannot share, but also
how much of what we say, if it ends up
on the air, is going to piss off the FBI. Today,
it doesn't make our job any easier. We're not out
to make the FBI's chob easy for them. We're not
intentionally trying to make it harder either. But Bill is
the brother of a murder victim. There are certain rights
that murder victims and their families have in this country,
and I don't always see the FBI trying to protect
those rights to the best of their ability. And there
have been times throughout this last couple of months within
this investigation where I've just shaken my head and been like, boy,
if we put that out on the podcast, it's going
to piss off the FBI. But I feel like we
really need to be able to say it. It's hard
trying to weigh this out because we're constantly I've said
a couple of times, I feel like we're constantly playing
like three dimensional multi level chess, trying to figure out
what can we say? At what point can we say it,
and what do we absolutely not say unless we need
to push the big red nuclear button.
Speaker 2: For those of you that have been listening carefully, you
can probably hear me roll my eyes multiple times in
the last minute or two.
Speaker 3: At this point, we have rec I think about as
much as we can.
Speaker 2: There's one thing I'd like to add, which is you
mentioned this, but I think I want to spend a
minute on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: God isn't until the Colonial Parkway murders. Families and reporters,
as you mentioned, like Andy Fox and our friend and
author Blaine Pardo, and myself and others called the FBI
out on the fact that Wilmer had been a leading
suspect in the call Haley disappearance. Andy Fox, the reporter
for Wavy Television, asked the question twice at the press conference.
Can you say when Wilmer first moved on to your radar? Now,
Andy Fox has covered this case since the very first day.
He knows the answer to the question, which is, four
days after this disappearance of Keith Colin Cassandra Haley, the
FBI was looking hard at Wilmer as the leading suspect.
He was referred to as suspect number one in the
call Hailey disappearance, and yet the spokeswoman at that press
conference refused to say she actually just said no, she
would not answer the question when did Alan Wade Wilmer
Senior first move on to your radar? And he asked
the question twice a few days after the press conference,
when media coverage began to build with quotes from all
of us saying, wait a minute, we knew who these
watermen were. Why aren't you stating that Wilmer was also
the leading suspect in the call Hailey disappearance. Because now
you're starting to look at a pattern where you've got
Wilmer linked via DNA to incident number two in the
Colonial Parkway murders Robin Everts and David Knappling. And it
turns out he's the leading suspect in the April nineteen
eighty eight disappearance of Keith Colin. Cassandra Haley flashed forward
to Jill nineteen eighty nine. We know he's linked via
DNA again, these are confirmed to the murder of Teresa Howell.
Why are we glossing over the fact that Wilmer had
been a leading suspect in the Carl Haley disappearance.
Speaker 3: We're glossing over it, because if they had followed up
as they should have and kept him on their radar,
Teresa Howell would still be alive. Let's be very clear
about that. And I'll even say it again for anybody
who may have missed it the first time. Teresa Howell
would still be alive today if Wilmer had been followed
up on as he should have been after those polygraph tests.
Speaker 2: I spoke with the polygraph examiner who gave these tests.
I'll leave his name out of it, but I've spoken
to him, and he even said to me he would
not have let Wilmer go. I am baffled. I don't
know whose call this was, but it was a bad call.
Even if to the limits of the technology available to
them in nineteen eighty eight, it didn't look like they
had enough to charge Wilmer. Where was the follow up?
Why didn't they circle back? They've told us for years
there are at least one hundred and fifty persons of
interest in this case. The investigators have said to me
numerous times. Bill, It's not like all one hundred and
fifty of them are considered the most likely. They are
usually ten or fifteen people, maybe even a shorter list
that are considered the most likely. No one's eliminated until
the case is solved. One hundred and fifty persons of interest,
he could probably put one hundred and thirty five of
them to the side. But why wasn't Wilmer on the
short list? When you look back at it, he checks
so many boxes in this case exactly.
Speaker 3: And then the more that we learned about Wilmer, about
his habit of trolling the Colonial Parkway, pulling people over,
flashing his high beams, approaching people in their cars or
trucks parked on the parkway, or over near the Victory Monument.
In one case, he really should have been more and
more on someone's radar. The fact that he wasn't again,
I think, leads to Teresa Howell's death in nineteen eighty nine.
And if it turns out that he is eventually linked
to Anna Maria Phelps, and Daniel Lower or any other
cases like ember Lundgren down in Asheville, North Carolina, there
are many other people who would still be alive if
Wilmer had been treated appropriately as the suspect that he
should have been.
Speaker 2: From minute one, 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 3: I think at this point too, if we still have
FBI analysts listening, I think they deserve to hear exactly
what we think went wrong in this case. And what
went wrong was somebody who can keep an eye.
Speaker 2: On Wilmer agreed completely. Moving forward to the present day,
we find ourselves with a new set of circumstances and
an all new FBI team investigating the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 3: Yes, because there have been recent shakeups throughout the FBI,
we now find ourselves starting at the beginning again, because
there have been major changes underway, both at the top
of the FBI with a new director and a new
assistant director at the same time. Changes have been made
not just at the top, but also trickled down. There
is a whole new team at FBI Norfolk and FBI
Newport News. We have a whole new set of case
agents because our current case agent retired back in January.
We are at a point where we are starting over
again with a fresh set of eyes. And at first
I know that was a little disheartening, but as I
try to do so often in our relationship. I tried
to talk you off the ledge, and I think eventually
I managed to convince you that actually having a fresh
set of eyes, or multiple fresh sets of eyes, is
probably a good thing. Do you want to expand on
that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Sure? First of all, you're absolutely right. We have an
all new team. So we have a new case agent,
and then there's a supervisory level and that person is
an a Sack Assistant Special Agent in charge, and that's
the person running the Newport News office the Peninsula offices
they refer to it. And then we have a new
special Agent in charge of the Norfolk Field office. So
that's all three of the people that would be most
hands on now. Obviously, our new case agent is still
coming up to speed on the case. I spoke with
her a few weeks ago, and I spoke with the
new person who is the ASAK, the assistant Special Agent
in charge of the Peninsula office, and he's also brand new.
He's been there about a year. They both have great
experience with the FBI, but they have not been handling
the Colonial Parkway murders except in recent months. One of
the causes for optimism and thank you for talking me off.
The ledge is that when we look at a similar case,
which is the case of Julie Williams and Lolly Winans
in the Shenandoah National Park in nineteen ninety six, there
was a recent solve in that case, and that was
a situation where not dissimilar to this one. They had
a complete turnover in the Richmond office as a result,
it was an all new team and there are I
think some real advantages to having what we've talked about before,
fresh eyes, fresh perspective, not being wedded to the theories
of the past. We think that may have been a
problem in the Colonial Parkway murders over the years, where
people had particular suspects they really liked and perhaps blinders
on in terms of who else could be involved. It
initially made me very uncomfortable. I felt like we were
losing a lot of case knowledge and experience with the
retirement of our case agent and the promotions of our
next two levels at Newport News and Norford. Once I
had a chance to think about it, calm down. That
fresh eyes, fresh perspective thing. There's some real validity to that,
So I want to be optimistic.
Speaker 3: I can say this because I don't think our former
case agent is listening. I think that there have been
times over the last couple of years when a very
adversarial relationship that can sometimes exist between you and our
former case agent have maybe kept them from listening to
valid theories or taken into consideration valid things that you
have brought forward. I am hoping that with this new
set of eyes and ears on the case, you guys
can re establish a hopefully better and less adversarial relationship
and they can start looking at you as a source
of care case knowledge and case information rather than there's
that guy with the frickin' podcast. He is one hundred
percent out to get us, because for the record, we've
never been out to get the FBI. That has never
been the goal here. The goal is accountability and transparency.
They are the ones who can get the job done. Ultimately,
we can't go out and arrest people, interrogate people, or
anything else. We don't have that knowledge, we don't have
that skill set. We don't even have a set of
handcuffs we can do it with. They are the ones
who have to do these things. Our job is to
encourage anybody who has information to report it, and our
job is to hold them accountable. I'm hoping that this
relationship will go a little bit more smoothly now that
we have a new set of people in hand and
we can start with a clean slate. Is that too optimistic?
Speaker 2: Certainly my goal. They're been a lot of times in
the last eleven years since this case agent took over
where I've thought to myself, I have no idea why
we're butting heads like this. But she had said some
things to me, like you think you're going to solve
the Colonial Parkway murders. And I stopped her and I said,
at no point have I ever said that, And at
no point have I ever thought that Kristin and I
are not investigators. I'm the brother of a murder victim.
She is a victim's advocate and a writer, and we
do a podcast together. But we don't think, nor have
we ever thought, we have the capability to solve the
Colonial Parkway murders. I'm putting air quotes around that that's
the FBI's job. And there have been times, and you
can mix in your favorite profanities here where I've gotten
completely exasperated. Do your efin job. No, we're not thinking
we're going to solve the Colonial Parkway murders. We're asking
you to do your job. Over the years, I have
provided a ton of information things that have moved on
to our radar as a result of doing this podcast
and our advocacy in this case. But we share that
information with the FBI on a regular basis. I typed
the information up and I sent it to them. One
of the areas where we got most tangled in a contentious,
argumentative period was at one point when someone that approached
us at crime Con a couple of years ago with
an important tip. We've talked about this before. I had
missed the opportunity to grab a notebook and write down
this woman's contact information, and she very much wanted to
meet you, and you had not yet arrived on seeing
you were delayed with flame trouble.
Speaker 3: As I recall now, it was a late it was
a weather delay trying to get into Orlando. And yeah,
that wasn't the best crime Con ever heard, because we'd
started out that way, and as soon as I arrived,
you had told me, oh my god, this person had
offered this wonderful tip. Machine never came back and I
wasn't able to get down her information. I remember we
were both stewing about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this was one of those situations where, like
an idiot, I mentioned this to our case agent when
we got back from crime Con. She was very interested.
I didn't have contact information at that point for this
individual and her husband. They had both approached. They lived
in Virginia, they did have a connection to the Colonial
Parkray murders, and they were really trying to be helpful.
But like I said, like an idiot, I didn't write
down her name, phone number, or email address, anything like
that because I thought we were going to see her
the next day, and for whatever reason, that didn't happen. Eventually,
after a two week push by the two of us
and with crime CON's help, we put out notice is
on our Mind Over Murder podcast that we were looking
for these individuals. We did hear from them, and the
woman was really nice and she never said anything. But
I actually think they were on vacation. I think they
went to Disney World or something, which is right next
door to the Orlando location. In the meantime, I have
our case agent literally threatening me, insisting that I'm withholding
information in my sister's murder investigation, and I was furious
and I said, on what effing planet am I going
to withhold information in the Colonial Parkway murders, which I
remind you is my sister's murder investigation. This is insane. Yes,
I'm embarrassed that I didn't get this woman's contact information.
Kristin and I are doing everything we can to find
this woman, and we were successful. So two weeks later
we were able to hear from this woman. I talked
to her. I typed it all up like we do
every single time it into the FBI, and they said
thank you, and then they followed up as appropriate whether
or not that tip led anywhere, that's for the FBI
to decide, not for Kristin Dilly or Bill Thomas to decide.
But it's things like that where they actually threatened me.
They actually said we're going to bring you up on
federal obstruction of justice charges, and of course I just
blew up and I was like, go right ahead, if
you think that's going to change things.
Speaker 3: There have been times where I have posed the question
to myself, and one time when I posed it out
loud to you as to whether the biggest issue in
this case is with the Bureau as a whole, or
with that case agent in particular, for what it's worth.
And it's not worth a whole lot, because I'm not
the brother of a murder victim. I'm just a victim's advocate.
I think the biggest issue with the case over the
last couple of years has been that agent, not the Bureau.
And I know you don't agree with me necessarily on that,
and that's fine. I'm willing to be wrong, but for
what it's worth, I think the biggest issue recently has
not been the FBI as an umbrella, but more the
issues that came up with that particular agent.
Speaker 2: Speaking of willing to be wrong, I was shocked by this.
In the last few weeks of her time with the FBI,
she actually said to another family member who we're close with,
that we the families were going to be embarrassed when
they solved the Colonial Parkway murders. Now, I love the
optimism that the FBI is ultimately going to be able
to solve this case. I really do appreciate that. But
the idea that we're going to be embarrassed, and when
she says the family members, let's be really honest here,
she means me because I'm the most outspoken family member
regarding the Colonial Parkway murders. So what she's saying is
we I am going to be embarrassed when they solve
this case. And I'm like, really, thirty eight years later
and I'm going to be embarrassed. I'm totally willing to
be embarrassed. So far, I haven't been able to wrap
my brain around that one.
Speaker 3: It embarrassed for what for? What for speaking out, for
kicking up a fuss, for being irate that your sister's
case has not been solved in thirty eight years. It's
going to be thirty nine years this year, and the
year after that it's going to be forty. There is
nothing embarrassing here other than the fact that this case
should have been solved long ago. When you told me that,
I saw red, and I don't see red very often
in terms of my temper, but boy, that was enraging.
Speaker 2: If I owe anybody an apology, they'll get one. And
I have made misstatements over the years, as I said
to this case agent and others, I'll apologize for anything
I got wrong. Point it out. Please tell me where
we got it wrong. And I will suck it up
and apologize, but I am fully prepared to be embarrassed,
but somehow I'm doubting it.
Speaker 3: As much as I hate to end the FBI bashing,
we probably should. I want to make sure that you
have a chance to update everybody on the two questions
that people ask us most about. Number one, what's going
on with DNA and number two, what's going on with
Cotis and Wilmer. So I'm going to go ahead and
ask you about the first one, what is going on
with DNA results? Is anything new coming down the pipeline?
Speaker 2: We're hopeful, real important. Remember the discussion we had a
few minutes ago about the breakthrough in the Robin Edwards
David Nobling part of the case, which was due to
WITHSAKE grant, the Sexual Assault Kit Initiatives grant. After the
success of that grant, the Virginia Department of Forensic Sciences
requested additional grants for cal Haley and Thomas Dowski, and
we were promised updated DNA results in October twenty twenty
four for cal Haley and in November twenty twenty four
for Thomas Dowski, but we still don't have any results,
which is really frustrating. I feel like this is always
such a moving target. I understand ours is a cold case.
It doesn't get the high priority that an case that
involving a terrible murderer, what have you, that might have
happened last week. We do understand that. But when grants
have been provided by the SHAKE program, what's the hold
up here? Now? We did hear from the FBI regarding
Carl Haley that they were going to do an amplification
technique in the DNA that they were testing from Keith
Calls to at Oslica. Apparently they did find DNA and
they were amplifying it. It's like a signal boost. We
were expecting results in December twenty twenty four, but here
it is now March twenty twenty five, still no update.
And then we never heard anything in Kathy Thomas and
Rebecca Dowski's DNA retests that woul due in November twenty
twenty four, So that part it's still a frustrating moving target.
You mentioned the codis thing. We've been asking a lot
of questions over the past year. Why wasn't Alan Wade
Wilmer Seniors DNA ever placed into the codas system, which
to our knowledge it still has never been placed in COTIS.
That's the combined DNA index system. Unfortunately, according to the
rules in the Commonwealth of Virginia and every state is
a little different, Wilmer was never charged with a FELT,
so his DNA was never placed in the CODIS system.
Apparently they can do one to one testing, that is
looking at Wilmer's DNA versus individual cases, but we are
really looking as families for a one to many search,
which is what CODIS typically provides.
Speaker 3: Yes, So that's a good example of what we call
the CODIS gap that we've talked to Lindsay Wade and
others about. And that is something that I think can
probably just be solved with some legislation, which hopefully the
AG's office would be willing to help us out with
or someone else with a footing Capitol Hill, either up
in Richmond or up in DC. And that's something I
think that we're still going to be looking into. I
think that things are probably going to move slowly for
a while because we do still have a team that
is trying to get up to speed a case that
has extended for thirty eight years. I heard someone I
don't remember what book I read it in or I
heard someone say it, but they are. They talked about
this concept of tonnage of a case that has so
much paperwork and files to it that it gets crushed
under its own inertia. I would assume that there is
a ton of paperwork and files to go through in
the lifespan of this thirty eight year old case. So
I'm betting that our new case agents are probably going
to take a little bit to get up to speed,
and I'm not going to begrudge them that time to learn.
If you want to learn the case inside and out,
you've got to do all the reading and talk to
everybody who's worked on it previously. So I do hope
that they are taking the time to really get to
know every aspect of this case the same way that
we are. If it means a little slow going and
then eventually pick up speed, I'm fine with it. What
are your hopes moving forward, Bill.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that all the changes at the FBI, which
start at the very top and extend down to our
case agents and ASAX and sacs in Norfolk. I understand
it's going to take some time to come up to speed,
But there are a lot of great leads and fantastic
work that's gone into this case that should be ripe
for the plucking. We understand that other suspects have been
identified but not named. We're aware of the fact that
there are at least three other suspects in the Colonial
Parkway murders. We'd love to see those leads followed up on.
We actually participated in some of that analysis, and we
provided contact information for some people that the FBI was
looking for. There was some confusion about names, and we
asked some people that know this case and they were
able to provide information, which again we turned over to
the FBI. They're the investigators, not two of us. I
think we did some really good work with some help
from friends of ours. We've got a lot of people
pulling for our success. I would love to see this
case move forward. I do get your point, kristin that
there are thousands and thousands of documents in the case file.
There's a lot of analysis that's gone into this case,
and a lot of work and a lot of terrific investigators,
forensics experts, and others who've worked this case. I just
think we need to try to find a way to
push this over the finish line.
Speaker 3: I agree, and I'm hoping that these newer case agents
are I'm hoping that in addition to a new fresh
set of eyes, they will have a new fresh set
of perspectives on this sort of help that can come
with a sort of partnership of information with victims, families, advocates,
and case experts. I would love to see the FBI
and other law enforcement agencies moving forward leaning into this
idea that reaching out to experts, civilian experts, crowdsourcing, various
other things. Those are ways of helping to solve cases.
I know that the Bureau kind of likes to kick
at old school, and that's fine. Maybe they're never going
to lean into this idea. But I would love to
see people and law enforcement agencies lean on people like
us because we do have a lot of case knowledge,
a lot of content knowledge. We have willingness to help,
we are eager to help, and I would love to
see all of these thousands and thousands, if not millions
of at home sluice citizens, sluice citizens detectives be tapped
for some use for some of these things. I want
to give a shout out to two of our amazing
research assistants, Debbie and Nancy, who are just they're absolutely amazing.
Every time that we have asked them, can you help
us do some research on something, They're there with it.
They are amazingly helpful, They're so supportive, they come to
all of our live events. They are really just top
Nutch people and we love them too to death. And
there are so many people out there like Debbie and Nancy.
There are tons of people like Robert Gray, who always
asks amazing questions. We have so many wonderful supporters out
there who want to help and are willing to help.
I'm hoping that as we move forward through the next
couple of years, law enforcement looks at all the citizens
sleuths out there and figures out a way how can
we tap into that knowledge because it is vast. There
are a lot of us who want to help. I'll
get off my soapbox now.
Speaker 2: And there's certainly one other person we should mention, which
is a geographic profiler, Doug McGregor. He was the one
who was incredibly helpful when we were looking for a
particular family member who had been associated with Wilmer. With
Doug's help, we were able to find this person and
pass along their information to the FBI. Whether or not
that pans out, they don't always tell us that hope
springs it. Ernel. We are really hoping that we can
see this thing through to a satisfactory conclusion with identified
suspects living or dead, and get this case solved.
Speaker 3: While we're doing shout outs here, though, we also want
to shout out Keith Mamacos, who is very good at
doing all things detail oriented with this case. We want
to shout out Michelle who comes to all of our
live events, Susan who comes to Crime con all the time.
We have so many wonderful people here locally, Heather who
works at a bookshop in downtown CW who is always
so nice and always sports beautiful mind over Murder t shirts.
You guys are the best, and we really could not
do this without you. You make us feel good about
the work that we're doing. You make us feel like
it's appreciated, and so thank you very much to everybody,
And also whoever recently updated the Wikipedia page for the
Colonial Parkway murders. That was spot on an excellent thank
you to whoever did that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just noticed that today We'd have some problems
with Wikipedia in the past, but somebody went in there
and did a very nice update, and thank you for that.
Speaker 3: If you all like the work that we're doing, and
we hope that you do because you're listening, please do
feel free to leave us five star ratings and reviews
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We do want to keep growing the podcast as much
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and so do be looking forward to patreons to live events.
We do have a live event coming up in May,
and of course we have Crime Con coming up in September.
We are still looking for other ways to engage with
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the pod, we appreciate that is going to do it.
For this episode of Mind and From 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 2: 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.
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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 3: Eight