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 Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: We're joined today by Catherine Miles, author of the amazing
book Trailed, One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandomo Murders. Kate,
thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4: It is always an honor and a privilege. I am
so glad to be with you both. Now.
Speaker 2: If we only had some things that were worth talking about, we.
Speaker 4: Could talk about my garden I'm planning some sunflowers. Is
that helpful?
Speaker 3: I love sunflowers. Yes.
Speaker 2: And we just had a garden tour come through our gardens,
which are really Pamela's gardens. Y see, we could talk
about gardens too. I can only talk to a limited extent.
I know a fair amount about hauling mulch and taking
brush to the recycling center. Enough of that foolishness.
Speaker 3: We do have some big news to talk about. And
the first person that I thought of when I heard
this big news the other day was Kate. My first
thought was, how is Kate reacting to all of this? So, Kate,
why don't you tell us what the big news was
and how did you react to all of it?
Speaker 4: So the big news is that the FBI hosted a
press conference in which they announced that they believe they
have now found the individual responsible for the nineteen ninety
six double murder of Julie Williams Molly Winan's that his
name is Leo Jackson Senior, that he is a known
serial rapist and someone who was known to frequent trails.
As to how I found out about this, I happened
to have been teaching a writing workshop in a very
lovely part of upstate New York that had very bad
cell reception and even worse Wi Fi reception, And we
happened to be taking a quick break that morning and
I checked my phone and it had blown up with
requests from national media sources, from national TV places like that,
do you know what the press conference is about? Do
you know what the press conference is about? And my
first response, of course, was what press conference? And luckily
my very good friend Bill Thomas had also texted and
so I can't remember if I called you, or I
think I called you and was like, what is this about?
And you, oh, by then had found your way to
the press release that had not been sent to me,
despite the fact that I have national journalistic credentials and
obviously ought to have been there. And as soon as
you started to read to me the number of high
ranking individuals who were going to be at that press conference,
it became very clear to me that they intended to
announce that they were going to solve it.
Speaker 2: And we had heard from our media sources that there
was going to be a press conference. This was all
on very short notice. Much of this is remarkable.
Speaker 4: Classic FBI, by the way, classic.
Speaker 2: And exactly the same very unfortunate scenario created by the
FBI which we experienced back in January eighth, twenty twenty four,
when they announced the first ID in the Colonial Parkway murders.
Our media context reached out to us and they had said,
were we going to be sitting in on this press conference?
And we were like, what press conference? The same reaction
you had, and then we got a media alert with
a dial in number, And then of course I was
desperately trying to track you down, and you're off doing
good work teaching other talented writers how to be even
more talented writers. But I remember you were like, Okay,
what's the bottom line here? So I said, I can
send you the press release. I think I actually read
some of it to you, because you wanted to hear
the meat of what was going to be announced. They
didn't identify a perpetrator or an offend or anything like that,
but once you saw the list of heavy hitters from
law enforcement who were involved, it was very clear they
had some significant news correct.
Speaker 4: And I, again, I was teaching writers who had spent
a fair amount of money and traveled a very long
distance and left jobs and families and things like that,
so that they could come do this, and I explained
to them what was happening. Now. I was obviously having
a lot of emotional, I think, and mental responses to this,
and I had said to them, listen, I am here
for you all right. Now. I've alerted my TV producer
that this is happening. They're going to be there, They're
going to record the press conference. They'll text me. And
these incredible students were like, no, absolutely not. We will
sit here and quietly write and you will go join
this press conference, which was incredibly generous of them, and
so I did, and I was able to hear it
in real time and had, I think, along with every
other human who was a part of this, a very
wide range of emotions and responses in terms of what
was said.
Speaker 3: Hey, what we did is we asked people on Mind
of Murder to submit some questions that they wanted to
ask you with regard to this press conference. And this
seems like a great idea to jump to this very
first question, which I think is the question on all
of our minds, and the question from Jamie is I'm
curious if Leo Jackson was someone Kate was aware of
at all. When she was researching her book, Kate, had
you heard this guy's name before?
Speaker 4: I had never heard his name, and Hi, Jamie, great
to meet you and thank you for the question. I
had not heard his name ever before, and that's not
super unusual in these cases. I think sophisticated killers are
great at flying under the radar, and a lot of
times were surprised to find someone. However, I will say
that some of the sources for my book believe that
they saw Jackson in the days immediately after the murders
in the park and prior to the press conference, had
described this individual to me in a way that tracked
as credible once I finally saw a picture of Jackson.
Speaker 2: When you described what they had said and how they
described a person which we believe could be Jackson, the
way they described him was pretty spot on. When you
actually see his photograph from back in the day, he
really looks essentially exactly the way they described him. They
mentioned a particular actor who really does look a fair
amount like Leo Jackson.
Speaker 4: Yes, and so for folks who are not familiar with
the book, there were a group of women who were
hiking through Shenandoah when the murder happened, and I followed
their story for a variety of reasons. First, I feel
like it really set the tone of what it was
like to be a hiker, and especially a female hiker
in the park while all this was going on. I
think it's really important to remember that we believe the
women were killed on May twenty eighth. Their bodies were
found very late in the day on the last day
of May, the morning of June first. At that point,
no news had been released, the crime scene had not
been processed, the bodies were still at the scene until
very late about eleven am on June first. The park
deliberately chose to withhold information about the murders for several days,
and then when they did finally release this late in
the day that Tuesday, which would have been the third
they first tried to say it was a bear attack,
and then they tried to say it was a murder suicide.
So I think that's just some important context here. These
women encountered two men very early in the morning on
June first, so again before any news had been released anywhere.
They were approximately thirty miles north of the crime scene,
still in Shenandoah National Park, and they encountered a man
who purported to be a through hiker who immediately asked
them at about seven am, did you hear about the
murder of the two women? And then he was very
quickly joined and was rendezvousing by with a friend in
this parking lot. And again this is pre cell phone, right,
so nothing was coordinated here. Information was not traveling the
way it travels in twenty twenty four. This friend showed
up also knew about the murders. These men had a
very performative conversation about the murders. And the women have
always described this man in the car to me as
a driving a beater car and b looking just like
Philip Seymour Hoffman. And if you look at the picture
of Jackson.
Speaker 2: He looks like Philips Seymour Hoffman.
Speaker 4: And what they've said to me is the minute we
saw that photo, one of them said to me, I
like all the hairs on my neck stood up. I
got goosebumps. I felt it in the pit of my stomach.
She had this very visceral reaction to seeing Jackson's photo
that in the nearly thirty years since this crime she
has never had. And I put a lot of stock
in that, and I put a lot of stock in
the fact that they have been telling me this story
since twenty eighteen, long before Jackson, and so far as
I can tell, the FBI and National Park Service never
followed up, despite the fact that they immediately told a ranger.
So by eight am at the very latest that morning,
they had told Arrange about this experience. Within a day
or two, they had called the FBI. Within a day
or two after that, they had gotten the photo of
the through hiker developed and sent to the FBI. And
when readers read my book, a lot of them will
email me and they'll say this through hiker. When I
was making a case that I thought mark of on
its should have been looked at in more detail, very
perceptive readers would write it and say, but yeah, but
does the through hiker look like mark of on its?
And I'd be like, no, he doesn't. And I'd be like,
that calls mark of on It's into question for me,
which is the exact right response here. Again, I think
it's one of those very unfortunate cases where people citizens
and women in particular, are ultimately discredited by investigators as
not having useful information when that information ought to be
very valued.
Speaker 2: Kate, We've used the expression through hiker several times for
the benefit of someone that's never been to the Appalachian
Trail or maybe from another part of the world through hiker.
Speaker 4: Great question, thank you. So the Appalachian Trail is approximately
twenty two hundred miles long. It begins in Georgia and
it goes to Maine, all along the Appalachian Mountain Ridge.
A through hiker is someone who takes about usually four
to six months to hike the trail from beginning to end.
So if they're a northbound through hiker, they start in
Georgia and they continuously hike all the way to Maine.
If they're south bound, it's obviously reversed. So these are
folks who are going to do the whole trail in
one bit, as opposed to flip flop hikers or section
hikers who are going to break up this trip. So
this person purported to be a through hiker, I will say,
having covered hiking for a variety of publications for a
very long time and spent a lot of time on
the trail, first of all, and I say this with
great love to all through hikers. Through hikers have a
very distinct smell after they've been on the trail for
a while. You can't watch it on your gear out.
I've written on stories about through hikers who have not
been allowed on planes even after they've showered and washed
their gear because it still has that special funk to it.
So through hikers have a look, they have a demeanor,
they have a smell. These women always thought that this
guy looked way too clean. They thought his pack was
way too small to be carrying. They thought he was
really going out of his way to establish to them
that he was a through hiker in a way that
didn't really feel legit to them. So he has always
stood out to me and to readers as a very
peculiar part of this story that can't but needs to
be explained.
Speaker 2: And these women, it's Is it fair to refer to
them as the Ands? These are the ans who were
referred to in Trailed your book?
Speaker 4: Yes, I call them the Ans, conveniently because all three
of them are named Their first names are Ann And
so this was to be their first real sort of
multi day backpacking experience. They had for it for a
really long time. They'd prepared. It's through their experience that
I think we really see the very real fear that
was happening because of the misinformation and lack of information
that the park Service was giving to folks in the
park who rightly wondered about their safety.
Speaker 3: The sixty four thousand dollars question from two of our listeners,
Rebecca and Deborah is Leo Jackson, the man the ANNs
saw on the trail and took a photo of.
Speaker 4: No and I have that photo. I'm still in the
process of trying to track down who that individual was.
But that individual knew his friend who rendezvoud in the
parking lot with him. And again this is pre cell phone,
So rendezvoyenne at seven am off of a trail in
a parking lot without contact, it's hard to do. In
nineteen ninety six. The ANNs strongly believe that the friend
that rendezvoued in this so called beater car is in
fact Jackson.
Speaker 3: And did they happen to recognize the car?
Speaker 4: So they want to be I should just say, first
of all, they're great humans, and they take all of
this very seriously, and they've been really scarred by all
of this they believe it to be. But they are
also very cognizant of this kind of influential thing that happens,
like when you see a car, your brain does that
own kind of version of confirmation bias and says, oh, yeah,
that's the car. So will they swear on their life
that it was the car? No? Are they really certain
this was the guy they saw on the parking lot?
Speaker 2: Yes, and it is twenty eight years later. Some people
are into cars, some people are not, and they weren't
necessarily fixed on those details. But it is very striking
that the man who drove up for the rendezvous with
the guy who presented himself as a through hiker so
strongly resembled Jackson as we see him now.
Speaker 4: And again they told me this years ago. Right, if
they had just called me on Sunday and said, Kate,
did we mention that the guy looked like Philip Seymour Hoffman,
my journalistic spidey sense would go off and I'd be like, Okay,
prove it. But again, I have this in notes going
back years, and I think that lends a lot of
credibility to their experience. And I also frankly believe in
our bodily responses to things like these are sophisticated humans.
They're outdoors people, they're professionals. Like, when you have that
strong of a visceral reaction to something, I key in
on that. I think there's something to that.
Speaker 3: I want to go back to some of our listener questions,
because when we say they've been clamoring to hear from you,
we are not exaggerating in any way. So many people
as soon as we put the word out, and I
think it was immediately after the press conference and Bill
was like, we got to talk to Kate. I put
out a little thing and said yes, we're having Kate
Miles on the pot and everyone was like yeah.
Speaker 2: They blew up. They were so excited. There's a lot
you have a lot of fans.
Speaker 4: I need to say how much that means to me,
just really quickly. This work is so hard, as you
two know, and you sometimes really feel like you live
in a vacuum and it's a really ugly, yucky vacuum,
and so I just want to quickly say that hearing
that just makes this work that much easier. And so
I just want to thank you all for that so much.
Speaker 3: And this actually leads into a comment here from Raven
and she starts by saying that you're an absolutely wonderful
person and she is so thrilled to have done an
interview with you when Trailed was released. I'll do first
and last names a little bit later, but you may
know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: I know exactly who you're talking about, Okay.
Speaker 3: She said, I'm so glad that Kate gets to see
some resolution, as most of us who write about cold
cases do not. How do you feel about the fact
that you have an answer? Finally, for Julian Lawy, that's
got to feel. I actually don't want to put words
into your mouth. You tell us, how does it feel.
Speaker 4: I was not prepared for the significance, and I'd even
go so far as to say the severity of the
emotional response that I had when this happened. I think
I had thought about it intellectually, but I hadn't thought
about what it would mean. And as I say in
the book, Lolly and Julie's story had resonated with me
on a very personal level from the start by sheer coincidence.
Beginning in two thousand and one, as a twenty seven
year old, I took my first college teaching job at
Unity College, which is where Lollie had been a student
when she was murdered, and so I was immediately thrust
into her friend group. Her professors had become my colleagues,
and along the way I have gotten to know their
friends and family, and I've seen firsthand how significantly this
has impacted them. So there was a lot going on
in my tiny little brain that day, and I am
obviously delighted that we can hopefully say we know who
did this and move on. And I think that's really important.
I think the word closure is a tricky one. I
don't know that anybody has closure because of this. I
think that potentially being able to identify the perpetrator here
is important and great. I personally left that press conference
with far more questions than I had answered, and it
definitely created these two minds of me where I was
feeling and experiencing and talking to friends and family who
felt some real relief. They also were very angry, as
I am as well too. So I think parsing all
of that out is really tricky, Even these number of
days later.
Speaker 3: Absolutely I can see that. And so then before we
get to more listener questions, let's go ahead and jump in.
Let's talk about the press conference. As Bill and I
are fully aware, there is a lot that the FBI
will not say in their press conferences, and there was
a lot left unsaid here. So Kate, why don't you
run us through what didn't you get an answer to
that you feel is really appropriate for them to answer.
Speaker 4: The short answer is just about everything. Right. Look, I
have made no secret that a the FBI is a
black box indefensible ways that make it very difficult for
journalists to do their work and make it very difficult
for family members like Bill to exist in the world,
and they need to improve on both of those things immediately. I,
as a journalist, am always paying attention not only to
what is said, but what is not said, and I
think both of those things are really important here. First
of all, the FBI, I think really misled folks in
some real ways in that press conference, particularly concerning their
treatment of Darryl David Rice, who your listeners may recall
was indicted for capital murder in two thousand and two. Again,
John Ashcroft and the DOJ were seeking the death penalty
again Daryl Rice. They prosecuted to the point of persecution
Daryl Rice. They excluded all other suspects because they were
so single minded in their belief that Daryl Rice was guilty,
and they persisted in that well after the publication of
this book. So what I did not hear, for starters
was any accountability in terms of the treatment Darryl Rice had,
and I would be happy to unpack that in more detail.
They certainly did not apologize to Rice. They did not
acknowledge the tremendous damage they've done to him. They did
not acknowledge the way in which their own confirmation bias
meant that we only now think that Jackson has done
this after he is dead. So this case will never
officially be closed because they can only say they believe
he's responsible based on the DNA, so that prosecution will
never happen. And because that prosecution will never happen, we
will never get any more answers than the FBI wants
to give us if in the case of Dale Rice.
One of the main reasons I was able to do
the work I did in the book is because of
what's called discovery rules in court. Right. Discovery rules are
the prosecution of the defense have to exchange evidence before
the case, and because that occurred, I had a lot
of resources available to me. Because this is never going
to court. The FBI doesn't have to answer any questions,
does not have to show their work. And there are
myriad questions, both in terms of what they said, some
of which I think is patently misleading at that press conference,
and what they didn't say and what they are now
refusing to say. That is not acceptable for anyone.
Speaker 2: This is beyond garbage. Because now the FBI plays it
both ways. I can't help but can compare and contrast.
In the Colonial Parkway murders, they're saying, oh, no, we
can't answer those questions of the suspect in that case
because it's an ongoing and investigation. And I do understand
that to a certain extent. But when the question came
up January eighth that the murder of Robin Edwards and
David Nobling as part of the Colonial Parkway murders had
been resolved, a number of press people sent in foyer
Freedom of Information Act requests for more information, In other words,
how did you solve this case? All of a sudden,
the FBI and the Virginia State Police are backing up
saying we didn't mean to say that the case was closed.
Oh no, we can't provide any additional information. Now turned
to Julian Lawley's case. It is truly exciting news, and
it is good news. I would argue, as the brother
of a murder victim, when you've been waiting for twenty
eight years for answers in terms of who killed your
loved one, to have those answers, it's not going to
make your life perfect, but it is something you've been
seeking for nearly thirty years. Your point that they're not
going to answer any more questions, this is beyond the beyond.
This is completely unacceptable. There are so many questions that
I have about how they arrived at identifying Jackson as
a suspect. And I think, and I will say this
repeatedly until the FBI responds in a meaningful way. They
have a responsibility to the people of Virginia and the
American citizens. We have a right to know how this happened,
how was this case solved. I'm not a big fan
of Daryl David Rice personally. I think he has his
own set of extreme issues. So I'm not liked in
the Daryl David Rice camp with both feet far from it,
but I know they're never. The FBI will never apologize,
they'll never admit fault, they'll never say they were sorry.
They did the same thing to our families when we
found out they had destroyed my sister's rape kit and
that of Rebecca Dowski. They burned them as medical waste,
eight years after the fact, and they refuse to apologize,
They refuse to even call it a mistake to burn
someone's evidence in an unsolved capital murder case. The FBI
owes the American people an explanation for how this case
was solved, full stop.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, And before we even get to that, let
me just remind folks that, regardless of your thoughts on
Darryl Rice, let's just quickly unpack the incredible links they
went to to try to coerce a confession from this guy,
despite the fact that their lab repeatedly demonstrated that his
DNA could be exclusively excluded from all of the evidence
taken from the seat. And let's also remind folks that
Darryl Rice had an ironclad alibi for May twenty eighth,
which is when the medical examiner said that the women
were killed, and that when that happened, both the FBI
and the Park Service walked back the date of death
three days, and all of a sudden, we're like, oh,
the medical examiner using the best technology available to determine
time of death was wrong. It was actually May twenty fifth,
and again the women were found on May thirty first,
there was no sign of decomposition on the women, and
so then again they went out to discredit and intimidate witnesses,
like there is actual malfeasons that happened here, and that
doesn't even go into the untold resources that they spent
after Daryl Rice's DNA was excluded to try to entrap
and coerce him into a confession.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder or we'll be right
back after this word from our sponsors. We're back here
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just wanted to remind you that we have a go
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and specifically to push the Colonial Parkway murders investigation forward.
We'd love it if you could support us in any
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your support. Now back to mind.
Speaker 4: Over Murder, putting undercover counter terrorist investigators in his cell,
a three year pen pal campaign, fabricating issues of The
Washington Post using Darryll's mental illness to try to coerce confuction,
and then even after he was released for the nineteen
ninety seven crime, planting stories about Darryl in papers such
that Daryl basically had to go underground, which is where
he is now.
Speaker 3: Can I quote from your own book for a second, please,
because I was just rereading this earlier today and I
went through and like I'd annotated it even more than
I already annotated at the first time.
Speaker 4: I just send you a new copy by.
Speaker 3: That, But I just this really encapsulates what you were
just saying, and I happen to have highlighted it a
little bit earlier today. Over the next five years, investigators
went to extraordinary links, not just relying on forensic analysis
and physical evidence, but also employing extensive psychological profiling, exhaustive interviews,
and an undercover FBI agent whom they embedded in Rice's cell.
But in the end, the only evidence they had implicating
Rice was, by Tim Alley's own admission, only circumstantial. Mic Drop.
I mean, you couldn't put it any better than that.
That's insane.
Speaker 2: They hounded this guy for decades and destroyed his life,
There's no question about it. Not the FBI's finest hour.
Speaker 3: No, it's not. And the fact that you know, as
Kate was saying, are not going to apologize. You said
this too, Bill, and I agree with you. They're not
going to apologize. They're not going to offer accountability. That's
so important. You and I have used that term a
number of times with regard to our friends at the FBI,
good evening, to the analysts who are listening. Accountability and
transparency are not their strong points, and they know it
because it is all about reputation and face saving. And
here again is another example of them deciding, you know what,
we screwed up, and we know we screwed up, but
we're not going to mention that to anybody. Hopefully they're
going to forget about it. Kate didn't forget. Bill didn't forget.
We've got the receipts it's right there in Kate's book.
It's garbage what they're doing.
Speaker 4: And not only that, but at this press conference, they
went out of their way to try to justify the
fact that they had honed in on Darryl Rice. And
these are my words, not the words of the FBI
that then proceeded to say that they basically had to
have a series of lemonade stands to pay for this
new DNA testing. And I really want to unpack all
of that, to which I say, hey, guess what, had
you not hounded Darryl Rice to these indefensible means when
your own lab told you he wasn't the guy, you
would have had the financial resources that you needed to
test this DNA. Dale Rice's legal team had been asking
repeatedly for this DNA to be retested. They've been asking
since two thousand and four for this, and we kept
being told it didn't need to be retested. And again,
I am not anti law enforcement. I am not. However,
I will say that when you make the kind of
egregious mistakes that were repeatedly made in this case over
the course of almost thirty years, you would buy a
lot of trust with the American public. If you would
own that, and I would really like to see the
Attorney General's Office and the Department of Justice stand up
and say, look, we did this wrong, and we're going
to immediately have an internal investigation to understand why this
went sideways so badly and so that it doesn't happen again,
because we see again and again this level of confirmation
bias completely steinying investigations, which is why we have two
hundred and fifty thousand cold cases in America right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're seeing a new number, by the way, from
reliable sources that now put that number at three hundred
and fifty thousand unsolved cold case homicides in the United States.
Speaker 4: Many of which, like Lolly and Julie, are solvable if
you are willing to continue to look at this with
a beginner's mind, right or retesting DNA or for instance,
loading DNA results to CODIS, which I know you all
have had some experience with in terms of even being
able to figure out what DNA is loaded to codis
and why. But look, we had Jackson's DNA a long
time ago, we had the DNA technology needed to test it.
The FBI lab has had the DNA technology to test
this for twenty years, really, and so this idea that
new techniques have suddenly emerged that make this possible, I'm
going to call BS on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, now I will as well. One of
my first reactions to reading the FBI press release, which
came out shortly after the press conference started, was, wait
a minute, there's nothing in this material as put out
that indicates that there's anything new about the evidence that
they've had in this case since nineteen ninety six. I
do agree there have been significant advances in forensics in
the last ten years, certainly in the last five years
post Golden State Killer, but that evidence was all there,
this entire.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and let's be clear. They had the saliva of
the perpetrator. They had hair that was in the duct tape,
They had hair that was in the gloves, They had
cigarette butts, they had a beer can, all of which
we believe. There was a Mountain dew bottle in a
Walmart bag, which was not brought by Lollly and Julie.
They had the evidence to retest again back in two
thousand and four. What they did not say, among other
things at the press conference, is what of this DNA
they tested. We don't know, for instance, if it was
trace DNA. We don't know if it was the saliva.
We don't know why it was sent to a private
lab when FBI Forensics at Quantico is more than capable
of taking care of this. We don't know what DNA
technique was used to test this. The other thing that
was very notable to me was the fact that they
stated that had Jackson been alive at the time of
the press conference, that he absolutely would have been charged
not only with two counts of murder, but also with rape.
That is new. That is new. Rice notably was not
charged with rape. I have the medical examiner's reports. No
semen was found, no sperm were found. I'm not saying
that Lolly and Julie were not raped. We've always believed
that this was a sexual crime, and we've always believed
that Julie was a target. But that's a bomb drop
that all of a sudden we know without the fact
that these two women were raped. So based on what exactly,
and again I'm not doubting the findings, but I am
saying it is notable that they are not explaining any
of these findings.
Speaker 2: And after twenty eight years of maintaining that Julie and
Lollie were not sexually assaulted to come out and say
that they were sexually assaulted. Again, I agree with you, Kate.
I'm not disputing what they're saying. They owe us more,
and I don't mean the three of us, Kristen, Kate,
and Bill. They owe all of us more of an
explanation than we're getting for them to come out and
say the two women were sexually assaulted. Okay, by what evidence?
How did you solve this case? How did you connect
Jackson and Kate? As you're saying, this evidence has been
sitting in evidence lockers since nineteen ninety six, So what's
new here? Their failure to answer basic questions about how
they solved this. I get the fact that Special Agent
charge Meter is proud of the fact that when he
came in and took over that Richmond office, he ordered
a top to bottom review of this case. As I
understand it, that's great. So what did they find. We're
not taking Jackson to court here, There isn't there There
aren't going to be any charges filed. But I think
we deserve answers to these questions, and we're just starting
on the first pass here. Now, you recently sent a
letter to the FBI with a series of questions.
Speaker 4: I did, and I asked them a variety of questions,
including what DNA was retested, what evidence was retested. I
asked them what mechanism was used to retest it. I
asked why a private lab was used. I asked whether
there was any DNA found that was not Jackson, Lay
and Julie. I asked whether there was going to be
an internal investigation. I asked whether there was going to
be an apology for Daryl Rice. I asked whether these
results were loaded to CODIS. I asked whether they were
going to be compared to some of the very similar
crimes that happened, including Alicia Showalter Reynolds, and I was
told that no further information would be forthcoming and that
they would not be answering these or any other questions.
Speaker 3: Those are questions very similar to things that our listeners
are also asking. One that I think was particularly interesting
is from a listener who lives in that area of Virginia.
Karen says, does Leo does Leo Jackson have links to
Virginia and what is the probability that he could be
the perpetrator in other unsolved cases in Virginia during the
times he was not incarcerated. I am not trying to
pin every unsolved case on him, but we now know
he was in Virginia at least one time. It is
so scary to think we had multiple creeps praying on
the area of the Commonwealth that I deem a safe
place to live, work and raise my daughters. And I
think Karen's bringing up a great point here, what do
you think about whether or not he might be linked
to some of these other crimes. I realize it's only
supposition on our parts, but do you want to lay
that out a little bit?
Speaker 4: Sure? Absolutely, What the FBI tells us is that he
was an avid hiker. Again, it's not clear to me
how and why they know that, but assuming that they're
telling us the truth here, we know that we know
that he was a serial rapist. What forensic profilers are
telling me is, Look, it's a really big jump from
being a serial rapist to someone who commits a very sophisticated,
very controlled double homicide of two strong outdoor leaders who
also have a dog with them. This is a person
who arrived with a murder kit. This is a person
we know who had duct tape, who had a very
large serrated knife, who knew how to commit this crime
in a way that would leave very little trace. So
the idea that this that Jackson would go from serial
rape to super sophisticated controlled double homicide doesn't really work,
doesn't really track with many people, and so probably we
don't know. But probably if Jackson is in fact the
perpetrator here, there's some middle, pretty big middle chapter we
don't know about where he went from rape to double
homicide in such a controlled way. The other question, then,
of course, is what we know. Obviously, there are plenty
of serial killers and violent offenders who stop killing and
go on to live lives, so it is possible that
would happen. But it's also a little improbable that this
person would make the jump from serial rape to sophisticated
double homicide and then return to rape, which we know
he did almost immediately within, but then not return to killing.
That doesn't seem likely. It's possible, but it doesn't seem likely.
Is it the case, for instance, that Jackson is in
fact responsible for other murders? I think that's likely. To
what degree are we looking at? Has the FBI, for instance,
formed a special task force, which they did very briefly
with mark of Hoonness, but then disbanded that task force
before it had done any work. I think that these
are all again questions that need to be answered, and
what I'm being told by experts in the field is
that probably there was at least one, if not multiple
murders between rape and Lolly and Julie. So what's being
done to parse that out.
Speaker 2: Some of our experts have told us about escalation, and
we've talked about how offenders will start and they'll grow.
This is not in the positive sense, but they'll grow
into extreme violence, which ultimately may lead them to crimes
like this involving rape and murder. I'm disturbed that they
seem to be saying he's over here in Ohio committing
pretty heinous rapes and the word kidnapping has been used
as well.
Speaker 4: Yees correct at my point, which is good right.
Speaker 2: Now, but that could be part of a pattern of escalation,
without question, But they're really failing to address how they
think this guy got to this point. One other thing
I'm terribly disturbed about is they made this statement that
this was not a hate crime I don't know if
this was a hate crime. I don't know that it
wasn't a hate crime, and I'm sure not very comfortable
with the FBI blithely announcing this was not a hate crime,
because Kathy and Becky's murder in the Colonial Parkway murders
could be a hate crime as well. I don't know
yet if it is or it isn't. I hope to
have answers someday. I don't know how they can make
this statement that the murder of Julie Williams and Lawley
Wining's was not a hate crime. By what standard of
evidence are you telling me you've researched this exceptionally violent,
horrible man's history, because you're not finding any overt expressions
of homophobia or a hatred of lesbians. He certainly is
someone I could argue hates women on some level. He's
out attacking women repeatedly. Where does the FBI get off
suddenly announcing, oh, this wasn't a hate crime? Is that
because they made such a big deal back in the
DARYLD David Rice era that this was a hate crime
and now that we've clearly screwed up and that wasn't
the right guy, and now we finally identified the offender. Oh,
but it's not a hate crime because that's sterile David
Rice's department.
Speaker 3: For anybody who wasn't able to watch the press conference,
I want to put that remark in context here for
a second. This is what was said with regard to
the hate crime or not hate crime aspect. Quote, make
no mistake, this crime was brutal. This crime was definitionally hateful. Nevertheless,
we do not have any evidence that the victims were
selected for, or that Jackson had any knowledge of, or
was otherwise motivated by their membership in a protected class.
Quote hate You want to sure, Leena.
Speaker 4: First, I want to say that there's the legal definition
of hate crime, and then there's the social reality of
hate crime. This was absolutely a hate crime in the
sense that it did, in fact mean that a lot
of people who identify as feminine or female or queer
felt like they could not go to the wilderness after
this crime occurred, and in that regard, it had the
impact of a hate crime on an entire generation of people.
The legal definition of hate crime means that you're identifying
someone because of certain protected groups, and you mentioned that,
so obviously in this case, it's Lolly and Julie's sexuality.
I think it's very important to remind folks that investigators
did not believe that this was a hate crime going
into this, and that what investigators told me is that
they were blind sided in two thousand and two when
John Ashcroft announced that he was going to be treating
this as a hate crime, because they had no evidence
of that. In fact, it took them quite a while
to realize that Lolly and Julie were in a same
sex relationship, and again to prove that this was a
hate crime, which was a pretty political stunt. In my opinion,
This is right in the wake of September eleventh, John
Ashcroft and the DOOJA is under tremendous pressure to show
that they're going to be tough on hate crimes, which
at that time we're escalating against Muslim Americans, people who
looked like Muslim or Middle Eastern Americans. They were under
a ton of pressure from various groups to show that
they're going to be willing to take action. In the
spring of two thousand and two, they announced the indictment
against Rice, and they announced that they would be training
it as a hate crime. What is very important here
is the evidence that they use to substantiate that. After
a very long interrogation, Darryl Rice was returned to a
holding cell where a jailhouse snitch was wearing a wire.
And I have this transcript in which Daryl says, this
is crap, basically, and the snitch says, what do you mean?
And Darryl says, they keep trying to get me to
say that I hate gay people, and the snitches that's bullshit,
and Daryl's like, that's right. And what they did is
they clipped that recording so that it just said I
hate gay peace, and they used that to seek the
death penalty against Daryl Rice when it was clearly taken
completely out of contact. So prior to that moment, there
was no evidence that Rice or anyone else even knew
about Lolly and Julie's sexuality. So again this is the
flip flopping. We don't know if the perpetrator knew Lolly
and julie sexuality. We will probably never know that, but
they from ninety six until two thousand and two it
was not a hate crime, and the perpetrator didn't know then.
From two thousand and two, until twenty twenty four, definitely
a hate crime. Definitely Daryl Rice and now all of
a sudden summer of twenty twenty four, definitely not a
hate crime based on what and why are you flip
flopping without again giving us any reason for these changes.
Speaker 2: I was shocked that they brought it up. There's so
much about this. This just doesn't pass the smell test here.
They're not giving, not even close to complete information. It'd
be one thing if they actually sat members of the
media down and took some pride in their work and
showed us how they got to where they got to
in terms of identifying Jackson. There's some great work that
went into this case, and there's probably some real aha
moments from people whose names we will never know by
not explaining their work, especially given all the screw ups
and all the wrong headed, waste of time approaches in
this case, focusing on Rice and then refusing to even
consider other alternative suspects, suddenly wanting to wrap this all
up in a tight little bow, this perfect little package.
It just isn't working. This press conference was woefully inadequate.
If anything creates more questions than any answers that it
would have provided.
Speaker 4: And let's look at other recent cold cases, like high
profile cold cases that have been solved. The folks at
Parabon Nano has done some great work with all the
genetic forensics. We've seen some high profile cases solved where
the investigators rightly stand up and proudly take credit for
the work. And yes, they should and we should all
be really impressed, right, So I'm not bemoaning that. Think
about a case like Dark Angelo, for instance, where they're like, look,
here's what we did. We took his trash, we found
a coffee cup, we took DNA from the coffee cup,
we loaded it to I don't know what it was,
twenty three and meters or ancestry dot com or whatever,
and we got this hit of his aunt or in
the case of the BTK killer right where all of
a sudden they're like, look, we went in and we
got the pat smear results of his daughter and used that.
So they've been very clear about how they did their work,
because again, we don't want to interfere with investigations when
they're happening. Investigations need to be largely secret. That's fine.
You don't need to tell us what you're doing while
you're doing it. But in a case like this, what
are they losing by telling us how they did this work?
I would argue absolutely nothing. I would argue again, I'm
super curious why a private lab, Why did you need that? Again,
what were you testing or retesting? And why is it
not in the public's best interest to know? When I
asked them through a foyer request to tell me whether
or not Mark A. Vonnitz's DNA has been loaded to COTIS,
because probably it hasn't been, I was told that it
was not in the public's best interest to know if
a known serial killer's DNA was loaded to codis. How
is that a defendable position?
Speaker 3: Yeah, which probably just means no, they haven't loaded it
and they don't want to admit it. Any kind of
non answer like that makes me go then you know
the answer is no, you didn't load it.
Speaker 4: And are you looking at Jackson for instance? Alicia Showalter
Reynolds very tragic murder? What about Anne McDaniels, what about
Philmas Froggins, What about these other people who are about
the spate of crimes? We may never know to what
degree those are ongoing investigations or to what degree any
of these now known perpetrators are being compared to these
other similar and contemporaneous crimes.
Speaker 3: We have so many more questions for Kayden, so much
more to discussing, so many more opportunities for Bill to
rail against the FBI, that we're going to go ahead
and continue this in a second episode for right now.
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode
of mind Over Murder. 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.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.