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. I'm Kristin Dilly and
I'm Bill Thomas, and we are back for another ask
Us Anything episode. This is going to be ask Us Anything,
Part two. We are covering questions sent in by our
various listeners. We're going to cover a series of questions
from our listener and top fan, Robert William. He asks
us wonderful, thoughtful questions. Every time we haven't Asked Us
Anything episode. We noticed that some of his questions covered
a particular theme which is of importance to us here
in the month of October. So I'm going to be
posing some questions to Bill as related to Kathy and
Becky's cases, and we're going to see how many Bill
can answer. So the first question that Robert asks, and actually,
I don't think I know the answer to this one,
so this will be interesting. Robert asks, were Kathy and
Becky's fingernails clipped and examined for evidence? If so, is
that evidence still being stored and could it be examined
for perpetrator DNA?
Speaker 2: Robert, I think you've heard me say before that getting
a straight answer out of the FBI is exceptionally difficult. Now,
my level of detail is greater in Kathy's part of
the case because I have her autopsy reports. I don't
have Becky's autop two report. I could probably get it
from the Dawski family. But I think the answers I
provide for Kathy probably applied just as well to Becky.
I'm always offering these answers with asterisks attached because it
is so hard to get a straight answer out of
the FBI. They just refuse to answer questions in a
straightforward manner, but I can say this definitively. I know
that at autopsy Kathy's fingernail clippings were preserved. I believe,
underline belief, that they've been tested for DNA because they've
gone back and tested and retested. Just a reminder for everybody,
this case originates in nineteen eighty six. This is before
DNA is being used in a forensic capacity, So it's
basically DNA exists, but it's not being used in a
law enforcement application. I know that they have looked for
DNA from under Kathy's fingernails. I have been told by
FBI agents and experts have worked the Colonial Parkway murders
that Kathy struggled with her killer and that they would
have looked for DNA under her fingernails. I know that
her fingernails were clipped and preserved, and I know they've
looked for DNA when the last time that was These
are all questions I still want to know the answers
to I can't say because they won't tell me, but
I know that they have looked for evidence of that type.
I would imagine the same goes for Rebecca Dowski again,
I'm not a lawyer, but I know sometimes I start
to sound like this could be true, but that could
be true. All I can tell you is what I
know definitively, and that what I believe to be true.
But I believe the answers I gave for Kathy would
also apply to Rebecca Dowski, her girlfriend.
Speaker 3: And then let's just make sure for anybody who may
still be trying to catch up a little bit on
the case. When it comes to physical evidence from Kathy
and Becky, you've given an answer about fingernails. We also know,
based on a response from last ask us anything, that
Kathy and Becky's rape kits were burned as medical waste
at the FBI's ordering several years back. Bill shaking his head,
what else do we know of from the car or
from Kathy and Becky themselves? Has been tested.
Speaker 2: Real hard to give a definitive answer, because I've been
asking questions for decades. Based on what they've told me,
I believe that they have preserved the interior parts of
the car, things like floor mats, carpets, samples from the
seats in my sister's Honda Civic, which were like a
tan fabric, A lot of those items have been preserved.
And obviously clothing and other items from the car have
been preserved over the years, so there's a fair amount
of evidence. And as recently as a couple of years ago,
they were going back and retesting some of the articles
of clothing and the interior parts of the car. Remember
they were specifically looking at the floor mats again, things
like that. So they seem to have hung on to
a fair amount of the interior of the car. Now,
by the way, these cars, there's four vehicles in the
four double homicides and the Colonial Park by murders. To
my knowledge, none of those vehicles were preserved, and to
be fair, I'm not sure that the FBI or the
Virginia State Police would have even the storage capacity sure
to hang on to a car for more than thirty years.
A fair amount of interior parts and trim from my
sister's Honda Civic have been preserved.
Speaker 3: And just as a reminder for other people, can you
tell us what Kathy was wearing that would have been tested.
Speaker 2: Kathy was wearing at the time of their homicide. She
is wearing a white cotton BASF jersey. I worked for BASF.
I gave Kathy that white cotton jersey.
Speaker 3: What does it stand for?
Speaker 2: Oh? About a sh analysts and soda fabric. It's a
German chemical company. They're most famously known for inventing recording tape.
They invented okay, which is why I worked for them
when they were making cassettes in the eighties. And then
Kathy had long black track pants she was an athlete
and running shoes. And then Becky was wearing.
Speaker 3: It with shorts and a red wind breaker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like running short. It was warm enough in October
that she would have been comfortable wearing shorts and this
red wind breaker. And I bet there's something on under
the windbreaker, but I'm not sure from the photographs that
I've seen exactly what that would be. I would imagine
it would be like a T shirt or a top. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And because people are going to ask, do we know
the status of the rope around her neck? And do
we know the status of the hair?
Speaker 2: Again, it's sounding like a broken record here. Getting straight
answers from the FBI is very difficult. We've gone round
and round on the hair in my sister's hand at autopsy.
One point I exploded in dealing with our former case
agent and said, you guys can't even keep your fin
lies straight. I didn't say f and I used the
full strength word. And I'm not proud of myself. My
mom would not be proud of me for losing my temper.
But it's just so exasperating to not get straight answers.
The hair in my sister's hands has turned into like
this bizarre political football between me and the FBI, where
they keep changing their story about what the status is
on the hair and my sisters. Their most recent position,
which is absurd in the extreme, is that there is
no hair now. About five years ago, I was introduced
to a man named Ed Green, and doctor Ed Green
is one of the most advanced forensic scientists in the country.
He runs a lab out of Santa Cruz, California, where
he's a professor, called Astraya And you might read about
Astraya Labs because Ed Green and his team, including Kelly
Harkins Kincaid, who's his number two person. I've spoken to
both people at some length, developed a technique to extract
DNA from the shaft of hair, which is highly innovative.
For many years, the only way you could extract DNA
from hair was if you were lucky enough to have
a piece of hair that had the root ball, that
little round kind of soft white tissue that is sometimes
attached to hair, but hair itself is actually dead material.
More or less. Ed developed a technique to extract DNA
from the shaft of the hair, which was incredibly innovative.
He works very closely with the FBI and they've solved
a number of cases with this Astraya Labs technique. Now,
about five years ago, when the Golden State killer case
had broken, and I'm always reaching out to people and
introducing myself, I had the same conversation every time about
who I am, and I'm hoping to learn more from
them about the techniques they're using, because I'm always hoping
to find new techniques that might help us move the
Colonial Parkway murders forward. When I talked to Ed Green,
he told me he would be happy to test the
hair in my sister's hand or any other evidence for us,
and I spoke to our case agent and our case
agent keepping Mind. This is the same case agent who
later maintained there was no hair. She spoke to Ed
Green and then she refused to confirm that they'd had
a conversation. But of course I circle back with doctor
Green and I asked him and he said, yes, we
spoke for over an hour. He's not going to tell
me what they discussed because he has to keep his
confidences and the FBI of the responsible agency, but he
did confirm that they spoke for over an hour. Now,
if there's no hair, why would the case agent be
wasting her time and doctor Green's time on discussing hair
that doesn't exist. I'm sorry that doesn't wash. It never did.
I don't know why they can't tell me what the
status of the hair testing is. But I know for
a fact they spoke to Astraya about this, and like
I said, it's probably five years ago. Now. I've spoken
to doctor Green since and he maintains he spoke to
the FBI about the hair and he said he'd be
happy to test the hair. I don't know what the
status is, and I recognize I probably selling an idiot
no that I can't get a straight answer to the
most basic questions I can think of. There's an example.
Speaker 3: Now, you sound like someone who's been stonewalled by the
FBI for years, which is not your fault. The second question,
did Kathy or Becky have a journal, a notebook, or
a calendar that documented their lives and behaviors close to
the time of their murders.
Speaker 2: Not that I'm aware of now. I do remember right
after Kathy and Becky died, remember the rest of the
Colonial Parkway murders haven't happened yet. I remember the FBI
went to my sister's apartment and they went through everything
in her part, which we were fine with. And I
remember right at the very beginning of the case they
were reaching out to my family, and I remember one
of the things the FBI agent said was, the girl
is gay, meaning Kathy, and the parents know that she's gay,
so there's not going to be any surprise. For instance,
Rebecca Dowski was in her probably first romantic relationship with
a woman, my sister. My sister was in her probably
second romantic relationship. She had been involved with a shipmate
aboard the Ussly Spear and they broke up, and then
she ended up dating Becky. They went through every single letter, postcard,
birthday card, you name it now, very Kathy Thomas. She
had organized everything in these plastic boxes, probably by date.
Knowing Kathy, so they read everything. They read all of
her letters, all of her cards, etc. I've never heard
about a journal or anything like that. Robert, it's a
great question. Again, I know more of the details of
Kathy's situation than I do Becky's. I've seen letters that
Kathy wrote to her friend Dab and others, which were
also provided to law enforcement, because obviously, anything we as
family and friends can provide from Kathy, Becky or any
of the victims is something that could be important because
it might highlight something about what was going on in
their lives. I'm not aware of a journal or a
calendar or anything like that in terms of what Kathy
and Becky were doing.
Speaker 3: I actually have copies of those letters that you were
talking about. One of her friends provided, and I remember
just looking at those letters, and her handwriting is so
neat and so beautiful. But she's got these she's got
these wonderful little asides that she puts in here. Look
at the bottom of it. There's one that says smile
at least once every twelve hours. And she has another
one that's labeled April thirtieth, nineteen eighty six, and then
it says so short I can walk under doors. And
that's my favorite one is it's a joke. Here we
go at the bottom this one. It says, joke of
the week, What were Krista mccaulliff's last word? What's this
button for? And then she says, don't laugh, it's sick.
Speaker 2: Remind everybody who Christa mccauliffe was.
Speaker 3: She was, She was on the Challenger. She was actually
one of the first school teachers to ever go up
in the Space Shuttle, and unfortunately she did not survive.
Speaker 2: And I hope no one takes that joke to mean
that Kathy was mean spirited or cold hair.
Speaker 3: No, she she absolutely was not. It's just I'm looking
at her writing and it looks so upbeat. She ends
all of her letters with smile. Kathy, I just I
never knew her. I wish I could know her. I
feel like I know her a little bit through you.
But boy, you just get a sense of one of
my facious person she must have been through those letters,
and so even just that little tiny bit that I have,
she just must have been a hell of a person.
Speaker 2: Bill. Oh, she was a hoot, no question about it,
and she was very big. We've talked about this before
at the Naval Academy and when she was in the fleet,
and for instance, her friend Deb is also a naval officer,
acknowledging the challenges that this group of women who were
incredible innovators and were in the Navy and the other
branches of the service at a time when they were
really made to feel terribly unwelcome. It was awful how
much harassment they put up with. But Kathy was known
at the Naval Academy and in the Fleet as the
kind of person that would buck up her fellow service personnel.
She used to have this expression at the Naval Academy.
She'd say, suck it up, buttercup, and it was designed
to just make you laugh, acknowledge the absurdity of the
extreme harassment that they suffered, and she'd keep bucking up
her male and female classmates, especially the women that she
served with.
Speaker 3: I don't think i've ever asked you this. Did she
ever have nicknames for you or Richard or Jack? As
her older brothers, she must have had some sort of
nickname for you.
Speaker 2: I know nothing that I recall, but then again, maybe
it's something that she never said in front of us.
Now I think we were pretty good, big brothers, and
we were very supportive of her, So I don't think
she would say anything too terrible, but nothing that I'm
aware of. I'll ask my brother Jack the next time
I talked to him.
Speaker 3: You guys got along fairly well as siblings.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, very much. And of course we talked
about my older brother Richard just died in August and
we're having his memorial service October eleventh in Annapolis, and
so that'll be a little bit of a family reunion
of the four original kids of my family. Now we've
all lost my older brother on the second oldiced than
my brother Jack, and then of course my sister Kathy.
Of course we discovered we had a half sibling you
never knew anything about until a few years ago. That's
a conversation for another day.
Speaker 3: The next question in relation to Kathy and Becky, were
there any receipts in the car that would have indicated
where Kathy and Becky may have bought food or any
other items in the time leading up to their murder,
which is an excellent question.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of pieces of paper that are very interesting.
One is a game card from McDonald's and it's got
the Washington Redskins on it. One strong possibility is that
when Kathy and Becky left the campus at William and Mary,
they were supposedly spinning off to go get something to eat,
and your evening dining options in Williamsburg were a lot
more limited back then.
Speaker 3: Yes they were, so they're still kind of limited now
to be real about it.
Speaker 2: But even much more so in nineteen eighty. Oh totally
a couple of possibilities that have been raised. Because they
found hamburger and shredded lettuce in their systems at autopsy,
they thought they might have gone to McDonald's or something
along those lines. Tacos Taco Bell mentioned as a possibility,
and of course the Yorktown Pub. There were unconfirmed reports
that two women were seen at the Yorktown Pub. That
would be a place you could go and get a burger. Yeah,
so those are all possibilities. The other interesting piece of
paper that I mentioned beyond the game card from McDonald's
was a flyer for a church. That one's a little
bit odd because Kathy wasn't terribly religious and it doesn't
seem like something that she would have necessarily hung onto. However,
Kathy was very interested in the environment, and so she
was a knee nick. She is definitely not the kind
of person that's going to throw a piece of paper, trash,
whatever out the window of her Honda Civic. So, for example,
if someone was flyering the parking lot at William and
Mary with let's say a flyer for a church service,
that could easily be the kind of thing she might
have put behind her seat on the floor of the
Honda with an eye towards I'll throw that away when
I'm near a trash can or a recycling bin. But
she definitely wouldn't have left it under her windshield flapping,
and she wouldn't have thrown it out the window. So
those are two things that are in the car. They're
visible in the crime scene photos, which of course I've seen.
I wish I hadn't seen them. Yeah, those two pieces
of paper definitely jump out. This church flyer and this
game card from McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Was the car dusted for fingerprints? And if so, have
the fingerprints been cross referenced with will fingerprints?
Speaker 2: Okay I did. I'm going to sound like a broken record.
I know the car was fingerprinted. I know there were
one hundred and fifty full and partial prints found inside
and outside the car, and I know they would run
through what they call the Aphis system. Now, were they
ever checked against Wilmer's fingerprints? Boy, would I like to
know why? I've asked, Yes, I can't get a straight
answer from the FBI.
Speaker 3: Yes, but they did fingerprint you, Richard and Jack to
exclude you from those prints in the car.
Speaker 2: Current, I don't think they ever have. They took our
DNA In about two thousand and sixteen, they took our DNA.
They came to my office in Los Angeles and they
met with my brother Jack in New York and my
older brother Richard at his office in Washington, d C.
So obviously they had something to check that against, and
they wanted to use our DNA for elimination purposes. They
were testing items inside the car, So you know, you
can draw certain conclusions here. This is twenty sixteen. DNA
has heated up tremendously from where we were in nineteen
eighty six. They came and they tested our DNA, and
I actually asked them, will we end up in the
Codis system? And they said no, that you're inside a fence.
That was the expression they used of the colonial Parkway murders,
and what they're looking to do at the time is
test against DNA evidence they found inside the car. But
since the three brothers, especially Jack because he and Kathy
were super close and he used to see her frequently,
and then me, and then to a lesser extent, my
older brother Richard, because he said he didn't remember ever
riding in Kathy's car. I remember bombing up and down
the East Coast several times, and my brother Jack many times.
He was going to graduate school at American University in Washington,
d C. And she was at the Naval Academy, So
they would see each other frequently because DC in Annapolis
or I don't know, thirty five miles apart or something
like that. He would see her frequently if she had
a free weekend. So obviously, Bill, Jack, and to a
lesser extent Richard's DNA belongs in the car. And what
they were trying to do is eliminate DNA sources that
are not offenders. Other people that might have been eliminated.
It would include like the first responders, sure, people like that.
I remember I tracked down. I've done this so many
times I can't even count. I tracked down the first
responders who were there the night that they pulled Kathy's
car off the banks of the York River. I remember
one of them telling me he actually climbed in the
car with the bodies to examine them. You wouldn't do
that now in twenty twenty five, by the forensic standards
we have now, But in nineteen eighty six it was
a different world from a forensic perspective. But again, they
were trying to eliminate DNA as often as possible.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting, though, because surely they would have compared
fingerprints for elimination purposes. You would think. I don't know.
Speaker 2: They never asked me. They never asked me for mine. Look,
I would do anything that helps all these cases. So's
they ever asked me, could we fingerprint you? I would
have said absolutely, But I don't recall them ever doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I figured they would have done it automatically. Now,
because Richard was a medical doctor and also in the service,
would his fingerprints have been in aphis already?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. This is the kind of question I'd
love to ask Richard, and I can't talk to him.
I don't know a question I've never been able to
get a clear answer on is whether service personnel whether
their DNA is in codis I believe the answer is no.
We have a lot of family in the Navy, and
I know now they take their DNA in case sadly
they're killed in action or whatever, so that their body
can be identified. I've always wanted to know if the
service personnel records of DNA are accepted by the Code
of System. I think from what I've been told, they
are not. They are separate system. 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: This last one, I'm not sure if there's any way
to figure this one out in terms of the second
part of what Robert is asking. So the first part
is do we know if Wilmer was right or left handed?
Is there any insight into the wounds on Kathy and
Becky that would indicate the perpetrator had a specific dominant hand,
like I'm assuming that means to slash across the throat
and has anybody I'm wondering if anybody has ever looked
at that to try to determine handedness. And whether you
can tell handedness based on links and wits and depths
of cuts.
Speaker 2: I have discussed this with the FBI before, they have
looked at it. To be clear, I don't remember what
they said about handedness left, right hand dominant. It is
something that they've looked at. I'm going to have to
go back and see if I can refresh my memory
if the offender was left handed or right handed. I
know it is something they looked at. Okay, specifically in
Kathy and Becky's case, and then regarding Wilmer's dominant hand,
I'll try to talk to some of his friends from
Lancaster County to see if anybody can tell me. So
I've got some homework to do there. I got to
go back and figure that out and see if there's
any coincidental information there that, like what hand was Wilmer's
dominant hand and what hand was used to cut their throats.
Speaker 3: One thing that I want to mention just in closing here,
that has come up over the last couple of days
on our Colonial Parkway murders page, and we want to
make sure that everybody is clear on this. A couple
people had expressed a desire they hope that Wilmer's family
would cooperate with the FBI or we'll talk to us. Yes,
as if there was some sort of implication that they
had not, that could not be any further from the truth.
The Wilmer family has been very helpful and incredibly gracious,
both with the family and with the FBI. If anyone
ever gives an indicator that they have not been cooperative,
we cannot tell you they've been wonderful. They've been very
helpful during what has to be an incredibly stressful and
shocking time for them to learn that your family member
is a serial killer. I cannot even imagine the toll
that takes on you. But they have been wonderful the
way that they have stepped up and helped. So we
don't ever want anyone to think that they have not
been helpful or forthcoming. They one hundred percent have been.
Speaker 2: Bill.
Speaker 3: Do you want to add to that.
Speaker 2: We saw a lot of that, and it's funny different
questions or topics will start to get some heat, and
some people were expressing outrage that the Wilmer family hadn't
cooperated with the FBI and the Virginia State Police. And
I can tell you definitively that they have cooperated, and
I can imagine this would be truly shocking to be
told that your father, grandfather, in some examples husbands and
husband nex husband is a serial killer. That's got to
be incredibly shocking. We have no problem whatsoever with the
Wilmer family. They have been very cooperative with law enforcement,
and anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know what's going on
because the family has done everything they can to help,
and we have no bone to pick with any member
of the Wilmer family.
Speaker 3: We don't want anyone to ever think that anyone has
been less than cooperative. The only people who've been less
than cooperative about this investigation are the people who are
investigating it. Everyone who can help us has tried very
hard to help us, and that even includes people recently
who have responded on the Colonial Parkway murders and been
tagging other watermen and saying, hey, did you know this guy?
Are you familiar with him? The fact that we see
an outpouring of support and arise in tips after crime
con before holidays, it's astonishing. We love the support from
the community because it does mean so much. It really
could just take one tip to push the investigation in
a new direction. We can't thank everybody enough for the
ways that you are supportive of this case and these families.
Speaker 2: Interesting note, by the way, Keith Wilmer, the older brother
who passed away, I think it's to the end of April,
he actually gave his DNA to law enforcement the day
they came and raided the various Wilmer brothers' homes. He
might have been upset about it, but he did agree
to cooperate, and he gave the same oral swab that
all the Thomas family and Carl Haley Dawski, all the
various family members have done over the years. I have
certainly hinted that I think that Keith Wilmer could have
been involved in the Mary Keyser Harding murder on the
Rappahannock River. At the same time, he gave his willingly
to law enforcement when they came to his homes, so
I can't criticize him for that at least.
Speaker 3: The onus for this investigation now is really on the FBI,
and whether it moves or whether it doesn't is on them.
We have done everything as family members and advocates that
we can do. We're hoping there's still a little bit
of leverage that we have. We're exploring some options on
meetings to have in ways that we can maybe put
a little bit of pressure on the FBI. But honestly,
the case and the solving of it comes right down
to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is their job
to get to work, get this case solved, and get
Bill to Amos off your speed dial.
Speaker 2: We know I'm off the Christmas card list, So.
Speaker 3: Kat, dammit, I think I am too a shoot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, okay.
Speaker 3: Robert also asks, I know Wilmer was a bit of
a recluse and a loaner, but did he have close
friends or acquaintances he can fighted in? How about drinking
or fishing buddies, coworkers or employees, talk openly about things
with his spouse, his siblings, his children, other relatives, et cetera.
So what do we know about Wilmer's social life and
family life.
Speaker 2: It sounds like Wilmer kind of led two lives. There's
Alan Wade Wilmer Senior as a relatively young man, marrying
his high school sweetheart, having two kids, working as a
waterman up in Lancaster County on the Rappahannock, et cetera.
After they divorce, he ends up shifting his focus to
what would we call that the Tidewater area, Crystal Virginia,
living down in coastal Virginia, sometimes living aboard the Denny Wade,
his small fishing boat, which doesn't look like it would
be a very comfortable place to live. He rents a
room from a man named Ricky Blaylock, and it's almost
there's a second part of Wilmer's life that doesn't involve
his ex wife and family up in Lancaster. But then
he has a girlfriend. He's living down in coastal Virginia,
running this room from Ricky Blaylock, and that's around the
time of the Colonial Parkway murders. So family members have
said that it's almost like Alan led two lives. Obviously,
we know for a fact that Wilmer is linked to
Robin Edwards, David Nobling, and Teresa Howell, and then is
strongly suspected of being involved in the disappearance of Keith
Colincussandra Haley. Further, when you go back to eighty six
when Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski are murdered, even from
the very beginning of the case, when the other murders
haven't taken place, the FBI agents told us they were
looking at watermen because of the use of the rope
knives and diesel fuel and the proximity to the York
River where Kathy's Honda Civic was found. So the idea
of a waterman or watermen plural being involved was part
of the mix right from the very beginning. Socially, he
has friends, some of them lifelong friends from junior high
school in high school. He doesn't seem to have confided
in anyone that we have met yet that he was
involved in these murders or anything like that. And he's
not regarded as a violent person or someone that got
in fights or was regarded as dangerous. Some people have
told me, though, that the Wilmer family in general was
a family that you didn't mess with. That he's the
oldest brother. He may have been short and stocky, but
he was very strong, and actually, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior
is actually a fire plug kind of guy, very athletic,
very strong upper body, but he's only like five five
five six. He's little. But Wilmer himself wasn't regarded as violent,
but his family was regarded as a family that you
didn't mess with, and that if you messed with one,
you messed with all of them. I don't think that
makes anybody a murderer. Certainly, Wilmer transitioned over after his
divorce into something pretty dark, definitely linked to three murders
and suspected of involvement in several others. I personally think
if law enforcement, particularly the FBI and the Virginia State Police,
do their job properly, I think Wilmer can be linked
to a number of other murders. Of course, here's another
example of why we need to put Wilmer's DNA into
the CODA system. So far, under Commonwealth of Virginia law,
we're not allowed to do that because he's never been
convicted of a crime, and now, of course he's dead.
Speaker 3: And if they would like a list of potential people
they think he could be linked to, they should definitely
see us. We have a whole list of people. Another
question is, and I think this one's actually really interesting too,
was Wilmer known to use any drugs or be involved
in the drug world, either as a consumer or as
someone involved trying to make money?
Speaker 2: Not that I'm aware of. This is definitely something we've
looked at, and there's always been rumors that group of
Gloucester County Deputy sheriffs might have been involved in the
drug trade. Obviously, there's gun running, smuggling and gun running, drugs,
illegal out of states, cigarettes, booze, all kinds of stuff
for actually hundreds of years, has been shipped into that
part of Virginia on boats and on fishing boats. We've
never found any evidence of Wilmer being involved in anything
like drugs or smuggling or anything like that. There are,
as I said, these odd rumors about the Gloucester County
Sheriff's department, which was apparently highly corrupt in the nineteen eighties,
but I'm not able to connect Wilmer into any of that.
Speaker 3: And then one more, and I think I know where,
I know where Robert's going with us. One did Wilmer
ever moonlight or work odd jobs as a bouncer in security?
And I'm thinking in security. We're trying to figure out
is there a connection to liberty security? But what do
we know about Wilmer and various odd jobs he may
have taken beyond the tree cutting, wood chucking, and the
rest that we already are aware of.
Speaker 2: Those are the only jobs I'm aware of him holding. Interestingly,
by the way, Wilmer, supposedly as a young man, was
essentially a teetotaler. He didn't drink. His ex wife has
told people that he and she were regarded as like
this kind of straight arrow couple, high school sweethearts, married young,
not involved in drugs and alcohol and things like that.
There doesn't seem to be a connection to that kind
of activity in Wilmer's life. At the same time, though,
when you look at the Teresa Howell case, she was
last seen at the after hours club. She was last
seen at Club Zodiac, the after hours club which was
next to the White Horse, which is a more of
a traditional bar and kind a bit of a reputation
as a pickup joint. Now it's possible that Wilmer, who
often hung back in social situations, that he may actually
have been out in the parking lot and then when
he saw an attractive woman who I think was somewhat incapacitated,
he swooped in. I have a hard time believing that
Wilmer is spending all this time in bars and after
hours clubs and not consuming alcohol. I don't see him
as being a teetotaler his whole life, but I'm not
aware of him being involved in drugs or anything along
those lines. Ron Little and other suspects absolutely be involved
in drugs, meth manufacture, distribution. There's all kinds of stuff
going on with other people that are associated with the
Colonial Parkway murders, But so far, I'm not seeing a
link between Wilmer and smuggling. It wouldn't be the first
time that a waterman was involved in drug smuggling and
other transportation of illegal substances, but I'm not seeing that
so far in things I've learned. One disappointing thing we've
learned fairly recently is Kathy and Becky were strangled with
a particular kind of row which is commonly used for
nautical applications, and a small piece I'm gesturing here, but
to my eye, it looks like an inch and a
half piece of rope was left under Kathy's long red
hair embedded in her neck, which had clearly been used
to strangle her. I had made some inquiries a few
months ago. You may recall we were looking into where
that rope might have come from. I tracked down one
of the major suppliers of nautical rope in that area,
and I spoke to the president of the company, who
was a fairly young guy, and it's a family business
his grandfather started at and so I spoke with him.
He interestingly, he follows the Colonial Parkery murders. He's listened
to our podcast. It's a small world. But he went
back and he talked to his father and uncle, who
are still around. They're retired, and they told me something
extremely disappointing, which is, in all these years, no one
from the FBI or the Virginia State Police has ever
spoken to them. Weirdly, because both the Wilmer brothers were
customers of theirs and bought supplies from them frequently. They
even knew the two Wilmer brothers, Keith the oldest brother,
Alan the middle brother. Both of them were watermen so
well that they even knew they didn't get along very well.
So they were regular customers for years. And it's profoundly
disappointing to me that I'm asking questions of a supplier
that could have easily provided the rope that was used
to kill Kathy and Becky, and yet I've spoken to them,
tracked them down through two generations, and no one from
the FBI or the Virginia State Police has ever reached
out to them.
Speaker 3: How dare you, Bill Thomas? What do you think you
are an investigator or something? Do you think you're an
FBI agent?
Speaker 2: Come on now, Hell no would be the appropriate answer.
Speaker 3: But chuse, that's what people in the FBI are sitting
there fulminating about. Who does he think he is? He's
the one doing your job that you should be doing.
Into the FBI analyst listening to this, we hope you're
having a great day not solving this case. Sorry, I'm
just feeling a little salty about this.
Speaker 2: I am too, actually, so it is what it is.
Speaker 3: Well, by the time the episode comes out, we will
have reached the thirty nine year milestone for Kathy and
Becky's case. As always, I am so sorry for your lost, Bill,
for your family's loss. Kathy was a gift to the world,
and Becky was too, And I am so angry that
it has been thirty nine years and there are still
no answers. All of us at Mine Over Murder are
pulling for you, and we hope every single day that
we're going to wake up and this will be the
day that we find answers. Thank you 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 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.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.