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 Over Murderer. I'm Kristin Dilly and.
Speaker 4: I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: We're here today to talk about American Detective with Joe Kenda,
The Homicide Hunter. Bill re you familiar with Joe Kenda
and The Homicide Hunter. Before they decided to do a
piece on the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 2: I'd heard quite a bit about Joe Kenda over the years.
He had this very successful show called Homicide Hunter. If
people are not familiar with Joe Kenda. Joe Kenda was
a Colorado based detective and was very successful, and some
people say he had a ninety five percent solve rate.
Whether that's an accurate number or not, I can't say,
but he was regarded as an extremely smart and successful detective.
The premise of Homicide Hunter was him discussing and then
doing recreations of cases that he had worked and solved.
Homicide Hunter ran nearly a decade. By the end of
the show, they had run out of cases for him
to discuss. You and I've met Carl Marino who plays
young Joe Kenda on Homicide Hunter.
Speaker 3: Yes, he has been a crime con favorite. I don't
think he was a crime con last year, but he
absolutely was very popular every time that he showed up
to crime Con and I actually do remember him showing
up at Savannah Crimexpo once. So yeah, we are familiar
with Carl Marino, who played the fictional Joe Kenda American Detective.
Is Joe Kenda? The real Joe Kenda's documentary series covering
various cases. We were lucky enough to have the Colonial
Parkway murders take a front seat in the first episode
of season five of American Detective tell us how this
all came about. Because you and I knew this was coming.
We weren't able to talk about it, but we knew
this was happening. Give our listeners the backstory on when
did you get approached by Joe Kenda's people? What was
the shoot like for you?
Speaker 2: I think this goes back to at least a year ago.
The folks from Jupiter Entertainment, who or a television production
company who work with Joe Kenda, had approached me and
asked me if we would be interested in having them
cover the Colonial Parkway murders. Now, Joe Kenda has moved
back from Colorado to Virginia, where he and his family live.
Apparently he had taken a real interest in the Colonial
Parkway murders, and, as Joe explains on the TV show,
he had had Danny Plott, a former Virginia State Police
investigator whom we know very well from his work on
the Colonial Parkway murders. Joe had had Danny's guest where
they were telling the story of another Virginia case that
Danny was involved in helping solve. They approached us and
asked us about the Colonial Parkway murders. I said, I
thought we'd be very interested. That began a back and
forth with the producers, and I put them in touch
with other family members. We've got some idea of who
wanted to participate in this show American Detective. What Kenda
is referencing is these different guests each week are typically
former detectives themselves telling their story, and Kenda is very
skill full narrator and sort of analyst. Now, one thing
that's interesting is that we didn't meet Joe Kenda. Those
segments where Joe Kenda and Dandy Plott sit at a
table and discuss the case, those are shot at a
different time. Even to this point, I've still never met
Joe Kenda. A number of us were interviewed. They rented
a big, beautiful house, almost like a mansion, in Norfolk, Virginia,
and then they cycled through with a whole bunch of us.
I think they might have interviewed me for gott to
be three or four hours, just asking tons and tons
of questions. They had a number of people, and actually
Andy Fox was on right after me, so I didn't
necessarily see all of the other guests. I hoped to
meet Joe Kenda at some point the story came about
as a result of their inquiry. It's gotta be a
year ago. I felt like it was in the spring.
Speaker 3: No, I think it was too and it was. I
remember that you came down in October and did the shoot,
and it was very very short because you were only
here for like two days I think it was. And
I saw you for maybe one evening because I had
a ton of stuff going on, as I always do.
But I remember you and I and Joyce were able
to get together and have a quick meal and kind
of catch up on the parkway cases we do whenever
you're in town. You had just done your shoot for
American Detective. I remember we were talking about whether or
not you've had gotten to meet Joe Kenda, and I
was like, well, that sucks you didn't get to meet
him like that. I think would have been a pretty
cool experience.
Speaker 4: It is what it is.
Speaker 2: I will say this that people from Jupiter Entertainment, the
production company, were absolutely wonderful. They treated us really well.
They had done a lot of homework and research, so
they had very good questions and they were a real
pleasure to work with. I know, as we go through
the discussion today. We may have a couple of minor
criticisms of the show, but I do want to emphasize
I'm now watching the show for a second time. If
you haven't seen it, we urge you to watch it.
I think it's the best long form reporting on the
Colonial Parkway murders that's been done to date. It's a
beautifully put together show. I don't agree with every conclusion
that Danny Plott, or Joe Kenda or any of the
other experts make. That's okay, I don't have to agree
with everything they say. I think it's so well done,
and even now watching it a second time this afternoon, man,
it's a good show and it's a good presentation of
much of what's happened in the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 4: Could they have covered more?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And we'll touch on some of those points today.
I think it's a very very well done series.
Speaker 3: I agree entirely. You were able to watch it before
I was able to. It came out on April first,
and it was so funny because we had posted about
it and somebody in the comments section on our page
Road April Holes. We were like, no, it's no, no, really,
it actually did drop, so you watched it before I did.
I wasn't able to watch it until Saturday night. I
have been on spring break this week, thank heavens. And
it was only when my life partner and I were
down in the Outer Banks with friends of ours that
we were able to sit down and watch the series.
And of course, my life partner has heard me talk
about this so often. He just kind of sat there
and played on his phone the whole show.
Speaker 4: It didn't grab him the way it grabbed us.
Speaker 3: He has heard me talk about this case so often.
And he's not a true crime person. He I mean,
he's just he's not. I can talk to him about
some of this and he's like, oh okay, yeah that's interesting,
and like he'll support me in whatever I'm doing, but
this is definitely not something that he's interested in watching.
So he was doom scrolling on his phone while our
two friends and I were sitting there watching like I'm
taking notes, you know, on a notepath. And it was
really wonderful, and it was interesting watching it with our
friends because they stopped during the commercial breaks and they
were like, Okay, what did you think about that? Is
that true? What? Are they leaving out. There's got to
be something that they loved out right, and they were like,
what information do you have that you're not telling us?
So that was actually a lot of fun to watch
with people who know that I have more information than
they're able to put up on the screen. That was fun.
But I sat there and I took pages of notes
and I thought, you set off air. A couple of
minutes ago. You said you felt it was very elegant,
and I agree with you. It is beautifully beautifully shot.
I love all the drone footage. They did a wonderful
mix of archival footage from Andy Fox, from Wavy ten
original crime scene photos. It's really really beautifully shot and
beautifully put together. And we're not knocking any of the
other presentations that have been done on the Colonial Parkway
murders case. All of those have been very well done too.
This one is just the most recent. I think it
looks really wonderful. I was very pleased with the work
that they did. I just wish that there had been
more hours.
Speaker 2: I know I could have easily seen another two episodes.
That essentially was two episodes back to back, and they
had told us they wanted to do a kickoff for
season five, and this case that had been of great
interest to Joe Kenda since it was moved on to
his radar. Apparently he really took quite an interest in it.
I thought it was extremely well done. One tremendous advantage
that American Detective has over any of the other shows
that have been done so far about the Colonial Parkway murders,
and I'm dropping a hint here there will be more,
is that one advantage is that a year ago, Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior was identified as a suspect. And we'll
get into more details, so they have a much stronger
starting point because now we've identified a suspect in at
least one of the Colonial Parkway murders, which creates an
opportunity for interesting conversation and analysis by both Joe Kenda
and Danny Plott, who are basically the leads in this conversation.
Speaker 3: Four years ago, maybe it's almost five now, we did
the Lever's Lane murders. I found myself wondering how differently
that would have turned out if we'd had news on
Wilmer at that point. I would have loved to be
able to present Marine O'Connell and Laura Pettler and Jim
Clemente with here's information about Wilmer. Now, what do you
guys make of it? I would have loved that. I
think that would have been interesting. And I actually hope
that the folks at Oxygen, who may or may not
be listening to this, but hopefully they are, will consider
doing Lover's Lane Murders reboot now that we have this
new information, now that we have a suspect, how about
you go back and revisit it and do the same
premise again and see what comes up. I do really
enjoy the fact that they were able to get into
Wilmer for the first time on a long form program.
Speaker 4: I'm ready to move into questions.
Speaker 3: One of the things that we like to do whenever
we have a new media offering, whether it's a podcast
or documentary, is to open up the floor for people
to ask questions. We took all of the questions from
our listeners Onmind of a Murder and our followers on
the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page, and we compiled as
many of them as we could into this large document.
I'm going to be reading them. I will attribute the
questions to the person who asked them, and then we're
going to try to answer as many as we possibly can.
So we'll kick off with this question from Ashley. H
Ashley asks, have they, I'm assuming that means FBI or
law enforcement done any kind of victim profiling where they
try to see a connection between victims. I'm wondering if
there is some sort of characteristic that ties them all
together and maybe could help tie in other cases.
Speaker 2: What's a great question, Ashley. The FBI, in particular, together
with the Virginia Stay Police, have filed the Colonial Parkway
murders several times. They were profiled back in the eighties.
My understanding, and the FBI is not good about sharing
information in a straightforward manner, so I often have to
offer these asterisks because I can only tell you what
I know. My understanding is that they reprofiled the case
within the last couple of years. They have looked for
relationships and similarities between the victims and the Colonial Parkway murders,
and they haven't really found anything. There are some connections,
which we'll talk about in a minute. For the most part,
they seem like couples, cars, isolated rural locations, lovers, lane locations.
It feels like someone approaches these hairs of people because
they're not necessarily romantic couples, while their vehicles are stopped,
at least initially, seems to present themselves in a way
that appears non threatening to those couples. Now, whether that
person is presenting as full law on law enforcement or
rolling up behind them with bright lights on that might
blind them. Jim Clemente has talked about this. It is
quite possible for one well organized offender to assume control
over a couple, particularly if there's a gun involved. We
know for a fact that Robin Edwards and David Nobling
were both shot to death. It's quite possible that guns
may have been used to establish control early on in
a number of these Colonial Parkway murders. Ashley's question about
whether the cases have been profiled, Absolutely, yes, But I've
never heard of anything beyond those basic parameters of the
Colonial Parkway murders. There's no through line that we're aware of.
Speaker 3: For all that, Bill and I regularly say that we
are not investigators because we're not we're not profilers. Neither
of us have had the training asking ourselves whether there
are characteristics that tie the victims together and doing that
sort of victimology work that a actual experience trained profiler
would do. Bill and I just kind of do that
amongst ourselves. We just talk and spitball ideas around each other.
One of the many commonalities that we have found that
may or may not actually lead to something later is
the fact that we did have several victims that we're
all related to liberty security in some way or another,
and run little when we're sitting and talking about the case,
which is something that we just do because this is
such a big part of our lives. We are doing
a certain amount of that victimology ourselves. But because we're
not law enforcement, we're not investigators, that's not being taken
into account by anybody. We do ask that of ourselves,
and in the dark of night when I'm thinking about
this case, I write things down in my own books
and start thinking to myself, what else you might be
connecting these victims together. It's an excellent question, Ashley. The
next question comes from Debbie Debi C. She is asking
about Kathy and Becky's murder. This is a question that
a number of people had, so it's Debbie and many
others who wanted to know the sixty four thousand dollars question.
Was there DNA on the piece of nautical line or
nautical rope that was found behind Kathy's hair after she
was taken to autopsy. Do we have any report on
whether or not there was DNA found, Bill.
Speaker 2: I've discussed it with the FBI. They were trying to
extract DNA. The piece of rope, which has often been
described as nautical rope, was also soaked in Kathy's blood,
so it is a complicated situation. To my knowledge, we've
never been able to extract anyone else's DNA from this
piece of rope. They believe that the rope was used
us to strangle Kathy and Becky, and that the offender
likely cut the ends of the rope. It's an odd
thing to leave behind. I've seen the rope in the
crime scene pictures and actually the way it was presented
on the television series, which is a mix of actual
crime scene photos. And by the way, if you watch
the show that when they use actual crime scene photos,
it says actual crime scene photo on the screen. Those
are mixed in with some recreations, some of which made
me shudder a bit, but I understand they're trying to
convey to those of us as viewers what has happened.
The rope, it appears, was cut at both ends and
left behind by the killer. To my knowledge, they've never
been able to extract DNA. Obviously, they could have extracted
Kathy's DNA from the blood that had soaked into the rope,
but I don't think they've ever managed to extract anyone
else's dm.
Speaker 3: I feel like this might be one of those times
where they could try using the MVAC on it. I
don't know if Jared Bradley's wonder machine would actually have
the ability to do what I'm hoping that it will do,
which is extract separate DNA profiles from a piece of
rope that's saturated in blood. But I'm wondering if that's possible.
Maybe that's a question we asked Jared Bradley. They keep
in mind, too, that all of the evidence in this
case related to Kathy and Becky and Keith and Cassandra
is controlled by the FBI, And as much as we
want them to do the things that we want, which
is namely test at all, they have control of the evidence.
There is no amount of coercion is not the right word.
There is no amount of persuading that we can do
to convince them to turn it over to an outside lab.
There are many people who express frustration with that in
the comments on our social media pages, and we feel you,
But unfortunately we can can't make the FBI do anything
they don't want to do, or can't do, or don't
have the time for. And unfortunately that's kind of where
we stand with some of the DNA testing there. They
have the evidence and there's no way of getting that
away from them.
Speaker 2: FBI does have an MBACK machine. We've talked to Jared
Bradley from mback about that. They've actually had a machine
for a number of years, and he actually brought the
latest version of the DNA extraction device. It's, as he
describes it, it's kind of a medical grade vacuum cleaner. Yeah,
but they have solved a number of cases using the
m BACK and law enforcement around the country, including the FBI,
do use it. So I think that's a possibility, but again,
getting a straight answer from the FBI about what's been
done and what hasn't been done. I do distinctly remember
discussing with our case agent that they were attempting several
years ago to extract offender DNA from the rope. To
my knowledge, they have not been able to find any
offender DNA on that rope sample.
Speaker 3: Before we get away from Kathy and Decky's case and
move on to another question, I did want to jump
to something that you had said a moment ago, Bill,
and it really concerns the reenactments. You watched them do
the Lover's Lane murders. You watch them do reenactments, then
I know you weren't able to see the reenactments for
this one. Does it bother you essentially seeing these reenactments?
I can't see how it wouldn't. Does it bother you
watching this stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I don't like them. I actually will be honest.
I don't like reenactments on cases that don't have anything
to do with my sister. We're watching the Long Island
serial Killer series right now, which is very very well done.
Gone Girls. They've got some recreations. They're not terribly graphic.
Over the years, I think I've seen some stuff that
is very difficult to watch. It's hard to watch the
recreations of the Colonial Parkway murders. You and I were
actually on set when they were shooting the Lover's Lane murders,
and you know, I had this very disconcerting experience of
meeting a woman, a young actor with long red hair,
who was playing my sister in these recreations, and you know,
we sat down and had a brief meal together before
the next segment, and it's it's disturbing, it's not fun.
Speaker 3: I've never loved it for that reason, because I can't
imagine that anybody who is the family member or friend
of a murder victim would enjoy watching that recreated. I
think they did about as tasteful a job as you can,
although there was one or two shots that kind of
made me shutterer when they showed sort of the neck
wound on the woman playing Kathy and the woman playing Becky.
The one thing that I did note, and this is
where I think our friends enjoyed watching with me, because
I spotted in a inaccuracy during one of those re enactments,
and I kind of, I don't know, yelled a little bit.
I was like, wait, that's not right, and so they
had to wait till a commercial break and they were like, wait,
what wasn't right? In the recreation of the finding of
Kathy and Becky's crime scene Kathy's car, it shows the
police officer actually opening up the hatchback to find Kathy inside.
That is not accurate. They actually smashed the back wind
screen rather than raising the hatchback. And actually, if you
look at those crime scene photos that they did show,
there's one of Kathy crumpled up in the back of
the car, and you can see that she's covered in
broken glass from that smashed wind screen. I think that's
something that only those of us who were really deeply
into the case would be able to catch. But that
is one thing that I noticed right off, like, oh,
they didn't show them smashing the back windshield, and so
that was one thing that immediately sort of went down
on my paper almost instantaneously. Other than that, I feel
like they did a fairly decent job of it.
Speaker 4: I think so too.
Speaker 3: Let's see, we have some more questions here. Let's get
to the Call and Haley case. We had a number
of different questions about this one. Okay, let's get to
another question. Question number two is from Charlie C. Charlie
asks has the FBI looked at the police officers in
the region of the state and looked at their log
in times and logout times, who was off and who
was working at the times of the murders.
Speaker 2: The answer is yes. Now, this is something that makes
a lot of people uncomfortable, including the FBI, the Virginia
State Police, and other agencies, because nobody likes the idea
of looking at law enforcement officers as potential suspects. This
would include National Park Service rangers, by the way, keeping
in mind that the Colonial Parkway is a national park,
so they have looked at National Park Service rangers and
other lawlaw enforcement officers as potential suspects.
Speaker 3: Following up on the park ranger idea, Amy l Asks,
isn't no longer a theory that any of the murders
may have been committed by a park ranger.
Speaker 2: Well, the investigators have said to me for years that
no one is cleared until a case is solved. Now,
years ago, I was told there were one hundred and
fifty persons of interest in the Colonial Parkway murders. A
number of them are law enforcement officers who have been
looked at current and former law enforcement officers that could
have been involved. And as we talked about a minute ago,
there's this sense that someone rolls up on these couples
while they're parked and presents themselves in a non threatening way,
at least initially, who would do that.
Speaker 4: It could be a.
Speaker 2: National Park Service ranger or other law enforcement officer. I
don't think that idea has been scrapped, but it seems
less likely now that we know that Alan Wade Wilmer
is good for at least one of the Colonial Parkway murders.
But I don't think anything's been put aside Until the
case is completely solved. You can't really say this is
not an operative theory because it could still be a
situation where one or more of the Colonial Parkway murders
might have been committed by someone in those categories.
Speaker 3: And of course one of the things that the series
did not have time to get into. This is where
I think it would have been helpful to have more
than one episode, is the idea that there are probably
other cases that are tied into Alan Wade Wilmer Senior.
We've been vocal about the fact on the pod that
we think Brian Pettinger Lorian Powell could be tied in.
We know, for example, that Terry Howell is definitively tied
to Wilmer, and there are many many others around the
area that we think could be a match for Wilmer.
Is just going to be a matter of people doing
a little bit more digging and pulling those files out
of cold case storage.
Speaker 2: You're listening to mind over m We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors. We're back here at
mindover Murder.
Speaker 3: Another question from Charlie C was about the Lori Ann
Powell case that we think may be related to Wilmer.
So he asks, what about the portable radio found at
the site of Lourie Ann Powell in Back Creek? In
Newport News it said that a radio belonging to the
Gloucester Sheriff's office was found by the state Belief dive team.
It was kept under wraps and only a handful of
people know about it. Where is that radio?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: And Bill, I don't remember hearing this story, so I
think you've got the goods on this. Can you fill
us in?
Speaker 2: Well, Fred Atwell, who is our whistle blowing deputy sheriff
now East the person who is responsible for the two
thousand and nine story that broke about the FBI losing
control of the crime scene photos. Atwell and I talked many,
many times in that two thousand and nine to twenty
twelve or so timeframe. At Well talk to me about
this radio numerous times.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Fred Atwell, who was a crook then a deputy sheriff
in the Gloucester County Sheriff's Department who then went back
to being a crook, told me some wild stories about
this case, and he brought this radio thing up numerous times.
He suspected that another man who had worked in the
Gloucester County Sheriff's Department was involved in the Colonial Parkway murders,
and he talked to me about this radio being tossed
into the water, and then later discovered. I don't know
where Charlie's getting his info, but it's good info, is
what I'm getting at a lot of people don't seem
to know about this, and it's not something I recall
ever discussing publicly, but it is something that I've heard
about numerous times. And I don't know where that radio
is located. Now, this would have been like a walkie talkie,
you know, a police radio. The implication from talking to
Otwell about this was He seemed to feel that the
radio might have been used as a weapon, that it
might have been used to strike someone or bludgeon someone.
He felt that this Gloucester County sheriff deputy that he
had worked with was somehow involved in the disposal of
this radio, and I remember him talking about it being
thrown into a creek or a pond or something like that.
It's been a number of years since I talked to
Outwell about this, but very interesting. I'd love to talk
to Charlie further about where Charlie. I assume Charlie is
he where he learned about this, because this is not
something that's very publicly known.
Speaker 3: Very interesting question, and I did reach out to Charlie
on our social media page. So Charlie, if you're listening,
we do have some additional questions, please reach out. Let
me move to questions about the cal Haley case. This
question is from I think it's rainier and my apologies
if I'm saying it wrong. My dad, I do my best.
Rainier asks was the mud on Keith's Toyota Celica's tires
ever tested? If Keith and Sandy were intercepted and taken
to were forced to some isolated location. The testing of
the mud on the tires might possibly give valuable clues
as to where they were any idea.
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on what tire testing was done
on Keith's Toyota Celica. It's a real good question. I
would like to think that the FBI would have checked
it out. We have this very strange situation where the
last place Keith and Sandy were seen was at the
party at Christopher Newport University at the old University Square apartments,
and then the car of course, ends up on the
Colonial Parkway. Keith and Sandy's families maintain, and they feel
strongly about this, that they do not think that Keith
and Sandy would have gone to the Colonial Parkway. And
as we've discussed before, the fact that they had a
curfew which they were trying to meet, which I think
was a two am curfew, and the fact that the
parkway was out of the way, taking them from Christopher
Newport University and the graft And section of Yorktown. The
Parkway was fifteen or twenty minutes out of the way
doesn't seem to make sense, which makes you feel like
they were either forced to go there to that location,
or the car was moved at some point and then
Keith's car would have been abandoned along the York River
the mud testing. It's an interesting question. I don't think
we know the answered definitively. Clearly begin to see a
pattern emerging of the movement and staging of these motor
vehicles post mortem. Keith and Sandy's families feel strongly that
that Toyota Selica was not driven there or voluntarily.
Speaker 3: I also want to make sure that we hit on
one other inaccuracy that people have asked us about a
couple of times online. I think a lot of people
picked up on this one. It was stated in the
documentary that the cars with the exception of Kathy's, were
left running. That is not accurate. That is not accurate.
The cars were not left running. Bill. Do you want
to comment further about the way that the cars were found.
They did mention that for some of them driver's licenses
were out, while it's various other things. Can you comment
on in each of the incidents? How was the car
found in staged? So to speak?
Speaker 2: I think the origin of the idea that the nission
was on with the engine running comes from Incident number two,
which is Robin Everards and David Nobling in David Nobling's
truck at Ragged Island. As Michael Nobling has explained on
other shows and other interviews, he and his brother David
had wired the stereo in the Ford Ranger pickup truck
so you could play the stereo without turning the ignition on.
When the truck was found in the parking lot at
Ragged Island, the ignition was in the on position. The
wipers were on I think intermittent, so they were sweeping
back and forth across the windshield from time to time,
and the radio was on, so I think that's the
origin of the idea that the engines were running. To
my knowledge, none of the four vehicles was actually running
when it was found. So that's incident number two. We've
talked a little bit about Kathy and Becky's crime scene
with my sister's Honda keys were in the car. It
had been pushed over the embankment, as they discuss on
the show. In incident number three, as we understand it,
according to the families, Keith calls Toyota Selica was found
abandoned along the Colonial Parkway with the keys we believe
in the center console, so convenient, but not necessarily in
the ignition. And of course there's a lot of question
about did Keith and Sandy drive the car to that location?
This very odd discrepancy where mister Call on his way
to work. This would be Richard Called, the father of Keith,
was on his way to work at the Anheuser Busch Brewery.
He passed by there routinely along the Colonial Parkway as
he was going to work, and he says he stopped
when he saw Keith's Selleca parked in one of the
half moon pulloffs. Mister Call's strong recollection he since passed away,
so we can't ask him, but his strong recollection is
that he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and
he swore up and down he did not see clothing
folded and piled up in the back seat. This would
have been Keith and Sandy's clothing, or at least some
of it. This troubled mister Call for years. He even
went under hypnosis to try to remember additional details about it.
So there are odd things about that crime scene. And
then finally, Anna, Maria Phelps and Daniel Lower, who were
found at the Hunt Club. Six weeks after going missing
along Interstate sixty four. His kind of beater Chevy Nova
was found at a rest stop, but in the wrong
direction of travel, that is, away from Virginia Beach, which
is their destination in the car. And there was this
roach clip attached to the outside of the window, which
struck investigators as very odd. They actually thought of it
as a taunt from the killer or killers. And the
car was very oddly placed. It was at the rest stop.
There are two rest stops on either side of Interstate
sixty four. They're kind of mirror imaged.
Speaker 4: It was parked about as far away.
Speaker 2: As you could be from the actual rest stop, you know,
the women's room, men's room, whatever else was there. It
was much smaller back then. This was parked way far
off in the truck acceleration lane, which may have been intentional.
That is, they may have wanted to be as far
away from the buildings as possible when they abandoned the
car there. In some cases, Blaine Pardos talked about this,
He almost felt like cars were left in such a
fashion with the hope that maybe somebody might come along
and take the car, steal the car, because the keys
were either in the ignition or in the center console. Fortunately,
as far as we know, that never happened. It may
have been part of the intent of the offender to
see if they could get somebody else to steal or
move the car.
Speaker 3: Our next question comes from Vicky w. Vicky asks did
any police department that was working on this case ever
check any of the places that Wilmer lived to see
if personal possessions turn up from Keith and Cassandra.
Speaker 2: The answer, VICKI is yes. The FBI and the Virginia
State Police raided Wilmer's home, where he had been living
for a number of years now, keeping in mind he
had died in December twenty seventeen and the house he
lived in did remain in his family's hands. His son
and his family actually lived at the home at the
time of these raids, which is about a year and
a half ago now. They did conduct a very extensive
search of the home, and they were looking for certain
things what people sometimes refer to as trophies. There were
things that they think are missing from the crime scenes,
drivers' licenses, and things like that they were looking for.
And they did search these homes thoroughly and to my knowledge,
they'd never found anything that would tie Wilmer back in
directly to these victims.
Speaker 3: Before we leave Keith and Sandra, let's get one more
question in This is also from Rainier. There's a broad
consensus that Keith and Cassandra would not have gone to
the Colonial Parkway willingly or on their own. We've discussed
is there a theory that would explain the two separate
trails the search dogs were following on the morning of
April tenth. Any speculation on that bill.
Speaker 4: Well different people.
Speaker 2: I've offered some pretty worthwhile thoughts here. What Renyer is
referring to is when search dogs were brought in to
the cal Haley site, that is where the Toyota celica
was located. The dogs picked up the scent from inside
the car, and then they led their handlers through that
rest stop and down towards the water and actually wanted
to go into the water, which these search dogs will do.
Speaker 4: So there was a pretty.
Speaker 2: Strong feeling that it was possible that Keith and Sandy
were taken down to the water's edge. Now, if Wilmer's involved,
and Wilmer is a waterman and has a boat, the
thought was perhaps that Keith and Sandy were moved. They
could be alive and marched down to the edge of
the water. They could be dead and dragged down to
the water, either placed in the water or near it
by a killer. Unfortunately, this is one of the frustrating
things about our case, is that it's dragged on for
so long. Those dog handlers, who were a married couple,
they're gone now, they've passed on. They were insistent, however,
that the dogs were absolutely hitting on Keith and Sandy
sent and that took them directly to the edge of
the water at indian Field Creek, which runs into the
York River. And the dogs are typically not wrong, and
the handlers remembered this very clearly.
Speaker 4: You know, Bill.
Speaker 3: One of the things I was interested in watching this
is I always wonder if there's going to be a
new information that I don't know, and there was. There
were a couple of pieces of information in here that
I did not know. One of them, for example, was
the information that there had been search teams from the
US Marine who were helping search at Keith and Sandy's site.
I had no idea. That is not something I had
ever heard. I also was not aware of the information
that I think is very very interesting that there had
been a northeaster right around that time period that may
have washed Keith and Sandy out to see if their
bodies were in the water. I had no idea, but boy,
would that suddenly account for their absolute utter disappearance. Were
you aware of either of those two things, the marine
search and the northeaster.
Speaker 2: I remember the marine search, I don't remember the northeaster.
Speaker 3: I think that would really be something worth looking into,
especially the information about the northeaster, because we have spent
a long time wondering where Keith and Sandy actually are.
They ended up in the water. Good sized nor easter
will take them right out to a out to the ocean.
Maybe that was definitely something I didn't and I'm always
interested in what I'm learning here that is new information.
Speaker 2: There's another murder case up in Lancaster County that they
suspect that Wilmer could be involved, and that's the murder
of Mary Keyser Harding ms Harding, who worked at the
Lancaster Bank with Keith Wilmer. He's Wilmer's older brother with
Keith Wilmer's wife, Keser Harding was brutally murdered and her
body was dumped in the Rappahannock River. She was weighted
down with the kind of chain that would be used
by watermen for hauling oysters and crabs and things like that.
That's a very interesting, perhaps parallel and possibly related case.
The Mary Keyser Harding case is still unsolved. Will include
a link in the show notes to a fascinating article
called a Murder on the Rapid Hannick that tells the
story of that case. A man was wrongfully convicted in
that murder. Ultimately he was exonerated. I think it's about
thirty years later, and that case now remains unsolved. There
is the possibility of involvement by members of the Wilmer family,
and that would be another situation where a victim was
dumped in the water in an area river and weighted
down with chains.
Speaker 3: We have a lot more questions that we're going to
get to, so we're definitely going to pull this into
a second episode before we end. I wanted to make
sure that we give kudos to all of the people
who were involved in this series. Everyone did a wonderful job,
from Steve Spingola to Blaine Pardo, Joe Kenda, Danny Plutt.
But I especially, of course want to extend my sincerest
and warmest wishes to all the family members who were
willing to show up and relive this, because it's hard
to do so. Of the family members who it was, Bill,
of course, Mike Nobling, Joyce called Canada her brother Doug
call I really wanted to shout out Michael Nobling in particular.
I have not seen Mike speak up very often in
these series, but I was really really moved and affected
by the way that he shared his great love for
his brother. I really felt like I learned a lot
more about David, and I could feel Michael's intense love
for his brother and his desire to see justice for
his brother don Bill, how did you feel about being
involved in this case in this documentary and how did
you feel about Mike's involvement. I think Mike did a
great job.
Speaker 4: I think so too.
Speaker 2: We have over the years done a number of interviews.
The most unfortunate part about doing these interviews, of course,
they're very difficult emotionally. I've seen Michael interviewed a number
of times for the Lover's Lane murder series. There is
beautiful footage which unfortunately may never see the light of day,
of Michael talking about David, and you got a glimpse
into that in this American detective series as well. He
did a fantastic job, and he's a lovely guy and
smart and thoughtful. But it was really nice for him
to kind of take you back to what happened before
the murder and after and the emotional impact that it
had on his family. I mean, both Edwards and Nobbling
families have told stories about how they found out about
that their loved ones had been killed on the evening news,
which is just the worst way to find out, and
how shocking that was. And Mike talked about hearing his
mother's scream from the other room.
Speaker 4: Hard not to be moved by that.
Speaker 2: But I think they did an amazing job, and I
hope everybody's pretty clear by this point. You know, we're
doing these interviews because we feel that it's one of
the only ways we have of moving this investigation forward.
By putting media pressure on our friends at the FBI
and Virginia State Police and these other agencies, that's the
only way we can try to keep this case moving forward.
Speaker 3: I also think it's important because somebody had mentioned it
in the comments section. A lot of the siblings in
this case have had to step up and take a role,
like yourself, because so many of the sets of parents
have died. Can you just speak to that, Bill and
the fact that there are this has become a generational
thing now and it's become necessary for siblings and probably
at some point nieceays and nephews to step up and
take a role here.
Speaker 2: Well, last time I checked, there are eight victims in
the core part of what we call the Colonial Parkray murders.
That's sixteen moms and dads. This time I checked, we'd
lost nine of the sixteen parents. For those surviving parents,
they're getting on in age, and this is a difficult
thing to do emotionally. As we were just talking about
it falls to the siblings because if we don't talk
about this case, no one will talk about it. So
we all kind of shrug our shoulders and we just
keep talking about this case because we think good things
will come out of coverage like American Detective, because it
keeps people talking about the case. I've learned new things
not just from the series, but from the comments on
social media. So I want to encourage people to come forward.
They can private message us or make public comments. They
don't have to give us their real name. We're only
interested in trying to move this case forward, and if
it takes the siblings to do it, then so be it.
Speaker 3: It is a good time to remind people that if
they have any information about Allen Wade Wilmercy, it is
imperative that you come forward with that information because we
still do not know a lot about him, his movements,
or anything else. We will talk a little bit more
in the next episode about his family and how helpful
they have been to this investigation, but there is still
just a lot that we do not know. So if
you or someone that you know has worked with Wilmer,
socialized with Wilmer, anything else, please please please come forward,
either to us, to the FBI, to the Virginia State Police.
We still need to know so much about him. This
case is not closed. We'll talk more about that in
our next episode. In the meantime, please watch American Detective.
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: Executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 4: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
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.
Speaker 4: Five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.