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.
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 3: Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: Mister Thomas, you're wearing your La Union Rep sweatshirt. I see.
I've never seen you wear anything from entertainment executive days,
so that's interesting to me. Today. Normally you're wearing you know,
I think the latest thing is gifts from our friends
in New Zealand that say huffer. But I've never seen
you wear in La Union rap stuff. This is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Well, this is because it's cold here and the snow
is coming, and so I've been digging through the closet
looking for warm fuzzy jackets and sweatshirts and stuff.
Speaker 3: I love the fact that you were giving a fuzzy
sweatshirt slash jacket in La It does kicked cool.
Speaker 2: At night there, and it's known to rain sometimes.
Speaker 3: I was going to put it to the thingcationally every
once in a great while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like this one. I get a lot of compliments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean it's it says right there La
La Union.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We don't hear enough stories I think from your
music EXAC and entertainment exec days. And you know, if
we choose to pivot this podcast to things other than crime,
I think we need to do who are the cool
people that Bill knows? Because every once in a while, guys,
he'll just drop something on me, like he told me
the other day he knows somebody who knows Alison Janny
And I'm like, excuse me, She's my favorite actress. What
do you mean you know someone who knows Alison Janny.
I'm sorry, Well.
Speaker 2: It would be more meaningful if I'd met Alice and
Janny herself. I know sometimes it'll come up, particularly with
musicians and film and television people. A name will come
up and all realize, oh, yeah, I met that person.
Speaker 3: Hadn't you said you met Sting or something like that,
And I was very impressed.
Speaker 2: I didn't think I ever mentioned the stingmeister, But there
are plenty of others the stingmister.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what he asked everybody to call him.
Speaker 2: Gordon Sumner is his birth name.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, he was see where he goes by sting
with them.
Speaker 2: He was a school teacher. Did you know that? No?
Speaker 3: I did not.
Speaker 2: Actually, if you listen to this song, don't stand so
close to me, which is why you know that one.
Nabokov but I think they're sting would probably soon me
for saying this. I'm actually wondering if there might be
a little bit of autobiographical element in that song, because
it's all about a teacher and an yeah, in a
potentially inappropriate relationship with a younger woman.
Speaker 3: So no song, that song has always creeped me out.
Speaker 2: So wow, it's it's designed too, by the way. Every
breath you take, which is one of the police's biggest hits.
If you listen to it carefully, It's not actually a
romantic song at all. It's about stalking. It's about a
man who is stalking a woman and sting himself. Has
said in interviews that he is baffled that people want
to play every bath you at weddings and other celebrations.
He said, it's really a creepy saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and those of us in the true crime space
have been have known for years it's about stalking. It's
not great.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, before we get into how things have been over
the last couple couple of weeks since the big announcement,
we've had a couple of people ask us when are
we going to do an episode on Nancy Guthrie, And
I want to go ahead and acknowledge that, like never,
we're not going to. And it's for this simple reason
that there is already too much background noise around the case.
There is literally nothing that we can add to anything
that is going to help in any way, shape or form.
So we've been discussing amongst ourselves how things are going
in the guth three case, but we're not going to
put out an episode. There is literally nothing that we
can add to it.
Speaker 2: There's so much out there already on the guth Three case,
and quite frankly, I think there's too much out there. Yeah,
the baseless speculation and people tossing out theories and blaming
the family. I get very uncomfortable. You and I are
both following the case pretty closely. We're amazed how many
friends of ours are being asked to appear on various
news and talk proms to give their perspective. But these
are experts. You know, a lot of former law enforcement,
former FBI people that we know, and we've seen a
lot of folks up here on various programs discussing what's
going on with the Guthrie case.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was talking to a friend at school who
you know, follows our podcast and on our activities very closely,
and he said, yeah, I was watching the nudes the
other night and one of your friends was talking about
Nancy Guthrie. And I said which one? And he goes, oh, no,
I don't keep track of him. And I said, well,
was it a profiler? He goes yeah, and I said,
well Jim Fitzgerald. He goes, no, who's the Who's the
tall bald one? And I was like, oh, Jim Clementy
and he goes, are you sure there's not any others?
And I'm like, no, it's it's probably Jim Clementy. And
he's like, how many profilers do you know? And I
really had to think about that. Yeah, there was like
I think the answer is like five.
Speaker 2: Oh, I would say at a minimum, yes.
Speaker 3: Its Ray, Jim, John Douglas, and Julie Colly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's five right there, that's five right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, there's just too much going on with the
case right now, and as you said, the baseless speculation
and the finger pointing, it's terribly uncomfortable. And I mean
I imagine that from a family member's perspective. When the
Colonial Parkway murders first, you know, sort of came on
to the radar, how much media was there? Were you
and your family being asked to give statements and such
like on a fairly regular basis or I mean it's
we're in a very different place now with the news cycle.
This was huge news when it first started. So what
was the media experience like for you?
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is, from my parents' perspective, they completely
shut the media down when Kathy and Becky died. None
of the other victims had been killed at that point,
so they were the first. There was a tremendous amount
of interest, mostly from the Boston media. My parents house
in Lowell, Massachusetts, which is up north in Boston, and
so that's the Boston TV market. My family was flooded
with inquiries, but my parents just shut them down. They
said no to everyone. The only interview they did they
did one interview with the Lowell Sun, which is the
newspaper up there. I mean, I remember the Boston Globe
and the Boston Herald and all the TV stations. If
my parents had cooperated, I'm sure there would have been
all sorts of additional coverage of Kathy and Becky's murder.
But because my parents decided that they were not going
to do any interviews beyond one single interview with the
Lowell Sun, they basically shut the media down. And so
you're not going to get much from the FBI, and
local law enforcement wasn't leading the investigation. So there was
a lot of coverage in Virginia because it was a
local story, but in terms of up in Boston or nationally,
because my parents made the decision to completely shut down
the media, the interest in the case died very quickly.
The story could have exploded. I remember the New York
tabloid to see that the Daily News or the Post
had this terrible front page story, full size front page story,
co ed throats slashed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I've seen that.
Speaker 2: Only photographs they had of Kathy and Becky were like
driver's license pictures because a, yeah, my parents didn't provide
any pictures. I don't believe the Dawskies did either. There
was a lot of coverage in Virginia, but unless there's
somebody willing to talk about it, the interest in the
case begins to slow pretty rapidly. It was also a
very different world, because that's almost forty years ago. Now, yeah,
we've talked about thirty nine and a half years is
a long time to wait for answers in a case
like ours. It's very important to understand, though, that the
world was a very different place back then. It was
mostly driven by newspapers, which I still hold in very
high regard, and television. Those are the two big media outlets. Again,
no internet, no cell phones, no podcasts, certainly.
Speaker 3: The podcast no streaming service is nothing that fine. No,
And then I mean, over the years when you started
hitting big anniversaries and people started thinking the cases were linked.
So when you hit year ten, you're twenty, was there
more of a media presence? I mean, certainly, you and
I made sure that there was plenty of media presents
for thirty and we were going to do a bang
up job for forty also if it got that far,
god forbid. But was there a lot of media presence
for ten and twenty some in Virginia?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It wasn't until I got involved in the case
in a much more serious way after the FBI crime
scene photo leak story hit the media, and that would
have been in September two thousand and nine, and I
found out about it a couple of weeks later, just
by chance, as we've talked about on the podcast here.
After that, as things moved forward, the families working together,
we were actually seeking additional coverage because we felt that
we could use the FBI's embarrassment about the crime scene
photos to leverage their embarrassment, which they deserved and worked,
and to force them to put resources back into the case.
And this was all a very conscious decision on our part.
I dreamed this idea up that we could start hammering
on the FBI about the crime scene photos. And I
remember I talked to the Call family first, and I
was on the phone with Joyce Call Canada. She was
Joyce Call at that point and her younger brother Chris,
and I ran this idea past them and they were
very enthusiastic and they said, that's a great idea, let's
do it. So we really began a media blitz in
Virginia to push the narrative that the FBI needed to
put resources back into the case. And it worked, and
the FBI even admitted to us it was working. They
didn't say anything publicly, but they said to me privately enough,
we get it, we understand you guys are upset, and
we commit to putting resources back into the case, which
they did do. In that way, media can be very good.
Where I get concerned with a situation like Nancy Guthrie's
case is I'm not sure all of this endless media
spotlight is a positive thing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's helping the case. I'm not sure
it's helping the investigation. Some of the interests almost begins
to feel unhealthy. I read something interesting today, which is
that on the Today program which is where Savannah Guthrie
normally works. They've led with that story about Nancy Guthrie's
whereabouts every single morning since she was kidnapped until today,
and then today as a result of Andrew formerly Prince Andrew,
being arrested in the UK, that was the first time. Wow,
in what are we looking at? Two weeks here, seventeen days?
I think that they haven't led with Nancy guthries whereabouts
on the Today program.
Speaker 3: You know, we posted an article yesterday on the might
have murdered social media page about the New York Times
is reporting the fact that this does feel very very
it's unhealthy, it's intrusive. You know. They were mentioning the
fact that there are people live streaming twenty four to
seven from outside of Nancy Guthrie's house, just waiting for
that break in the case. And it reminds me very
much of the people who would pull up stakes and
drive out to Idaho or fly out to Idaho and
stay out there for weeks waiting for something. With the
Idaho four case, it becomes in this quest for clicks
or views or likes or shares or whatever it is
that you're going after, it becomes a holy obsessive and
I think quite unhealthy. It's not good for anybody. It's
not good for the people who are doing it, and
it's not good for there to be this much scrutiny
on the case. I feel very, very bad for the
Guthrie family. I feel terrible for the people in her
neighborhood who are doubtless having a hard time doing daily
living things when you've got the press, the FBI and
everybody else sort of swarming constantly. And I feel bad
for the sheriff who has been put in a position
that I don't think anybody would want to be put in.
I'm sure that James Fry from the Idaho from the Moscow,
Idaho Police Department didn't want to be in the same
position either. And it came down to finding out who
killed the four college students in Idaho either. This all
feels it feels very unhealthy, and it feels very unwise.
And this is where I definitely get the sense I
was talking about this with Cheryl McCollum the other day.
We've got to come up with a better way, like
as a community, both of sands and of content creators,
to do this more ethically. There has to be a
better way to do it. This is just so it
all feels very I guess rubbernecky is the word that
I'm looking for, and it's not quite the right word,
but do you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I think it's creepy. I mean, I'll be the first
to admit that there's a peculiar thing going on. We're
seeing it now with Nancy Guthrie of just this swarming mentality,
and I mean, you can go all the way back
to the Lindbergh baby or I don't know if you've
ever read or heard about Jessica McClure was a little
girl you fell down a well, Oh yeah, I remember that.
It was in the eighties and it just got none
stop coverage and it just went on and on and on.
I agree with you. I think it's unhealthy. I think
there's an aspect of sensationalism, just voyeurism. Voyeurism is certainly appropriate.
And then the thing I'm most troubled by is the
baseless speculation. Now here's this family who are clearly going
through a horrific time of it with their eighty four
year old mom and grandmom who has disappeared and has
not been found, and you said, I think it's seventeen days.
But then for people to start floating these theories which
don't seem to have any basis in reality, but then
people decide, oh, it's got to be the daughter and
her husband in law. They're after her money or whatever
it is. I find this stuff all really disturbing. I mean,
we're essentially attacking this family who are just trying to
get through what is probably one of the most challenging
things they've ever been through.
Speaker 3: It's coming from people who have no more idea of
what is actually going on in the case than anybody else.
The only people who really know what's going on inside
the investigation are people inside the investigation. Bill and I
were talking offline yesterday, and as much insider knowledge as
we have in our own case cafing backing the rest
of the Colonial Parkway murders, we still don't know what
actually went on inside the investigation. We've never been invited
into a room with the FBI, We've never been given
information about here's what we were thinking and here's what
we did. We still know next to nothing. So even
our reporting on things that we know inside and out
that we can both recite in our sleep. We still
really are only getting that secondhand that anybody can pretend
to know the motives of people that they've only vaguely
seen on the TV screen. I found that ludicrous in
the extreme. It's ridiculous the amount of cat sighting that
I've seen in comments sections. Well, how could you possibly know? Well,
how could you possibly know? Well, if you guys know
these people, you know personally.
Speaker 2: Well, and I'm not going to waste my time, and
I know you're not either. We do a true crime
podcast here. If we wanted to be covering the Nancy
Guthrie case NonStop, I guess we could, and we could
be getting people to talk to us online here and
telling us what their theories are. I mean, you know,
the latest thing I'm seeing is that could this be
the Mexican cartels because Missus Guthrie's home is fairly close
to the Mexico border. I mean, we can just keep
going down any bizarre road we want to, you know,
I mean, I don't know why no one's come up
with the aliens have clearly kidnapped Missus Guthrie, or whatever
other insane crap you want to put out there.
Speaker 3: The troop of Cabra.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a good one. I shouldn't laugh because
this is probably being discussed online somewhere as we speak. Honestly,
so we are following the case. My heart goes out
to the Guthrie family, all of them, and I hope
that all of the law enforcement agencies can work together
and get to the bottom of what happened to this
poor lady. I am sadly not optimistic based on you know,
the people that we've talked to about the case offline,
including people that are experts in terms of kidnapping and
things like that, particularly from the FBI, and this is
an area of expertise for them. The whole thing I
think is pretty distasteful, and I'm not passing judge one
on anybody that finds the case interesting. I certainly have
read my share of articles about what's going on with
the case. By the way, thank you you put up
that very interesting New York Times piece, which precipitated some
very interesting conversation it did. Yeah, and some people who
are listeners of Mind over Murder have said they're kind of.
Speaker 3: Over it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very sad situation. I hope it works out. Yeah,
I'm not terribly optimistic. Just based on what we know
about the history of how kidnappings work. I would expect
we will mention it from time to time, but we're
not going to go all Nantic Guthrie all the time.
Speaker 3: Bill, How has it been over the last three weeks
since we had our big revelation from the FBI that
Alan Wade Wilmer Senior was linked to va DNA to
kathyin Becky's murders. It's been a hell of a ride
for both of us. Know how you're doing, how you're
holding up?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm fine. At the same time, I'm very frustrated
with the FBI. In the three weeks since we had
our face to face meeting, they have completely shut me
out again. They are not telling us anything. I requested
a follow up conversation, which likely would have been a
phoner three weeks ago, and I have heard absolutely nothing.
And one of the things that's really infuriating is that
Bob Dowski, Becky's older brother, who was there with me
at the meeting, he requested a meeting for a similar
follow up, and they spoke with him for several hours
two days after our meeting, I made a similar request,
referencing the fact that they had follow up meeting with Bobdowski,
and I requested similar treatment, and I'm getting nothing. This
is so typical of the FBI. I felt like we
were very badly manipulated during the meeting, and some of
the things that we discovered after the meeting, for example,
the fact that they dropped a press release exactly at
nine am, which referenced the fact that Bill Thomas and
Bobdowski were there at the announcement when there was no announcement.
All they did was they sent out a press release,
the one that thanked us for attending the announcement, and
Dominice Evans put out a brief statement. She's the special
Agent in charge of the Norfolk Office. I had no
problem with what mss Evans said in her video. We
were given no opportunity whatsoever to say anything about our sisters.
We were given no opportunity to insert a quote, which
it must be noted the Virginia State Police have had
two press conferences, the FBI has had none. And in
the FBI's insistence on power and control, which is what
this is really all about, yep, they completely blocked our
families from having any opportunity to participate in a live
press event or even to insert a statement about how
we would like Kathy and Becky to be remembered, which
is infuriating. And then at the same time, when the
Virginia State Police had their two press conferences so far
in the last two years, they invited the families and
ask the families to make a statement, which I would
have been perfectly happy to do. In my sense is
that Bobdowski would have done the same. So there's no
opportunity for us to weigh in at all. I don't
think there's much way around this. I don't think the
FBI wants to put a microphone anywhere near me because
they're afraid I will criticize the way they've handled this
case as I have for the last X number of years.
Speaker 3: Almost like they've never listened to this podcast before.
Speaker 2: Hmmmmmm, well, we know they do listen to this podcast.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's so funny that they opted not to
have a press conference, as if that somehow is going
to stop you from getting in front of the microphone
in your very own home and saying everything that you
need to say. They're going to hear it one way
or the other. Now it sounds like it might be
time for a little saber rattling, just to make sure
that they're aware that it's not appropriate for them to
try to shut you down entirely. You deserve answers. They
gave them to Bob. It is time for Bill to
get some answers too.
Speaker 2: 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, So I mean, I will continue to follow
up with them, but they are once again moving into
radio silence, saying nothing, providing no information. We've had a
lot of questions from listeners on social media, and we'll
do our best to answer them. But I think anyone
that's been paying attention is probably not going to be
surprised at how many questions I have and they have
that have not yet been answered. And I'm not terribly
optimistic because the FBI doesn't seem to be answering questions
in the Colonial Parkway murders. To be fair, they are
continuing to work on the disappearance of Keith Calling, Cassandra Haley,
and the murder of Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lower,
and those two things are very important to you and
me as well as to their families. So we are
completely committed to helping this case move forward. The call
Haley Phelps and Lower families deserve answers, just like the
first four families that have gotten answer in the Colonial
Parkway murders. So we're far from done, and I do
want to make it clear we do support the Virginia
State Police and the FBI in their efforts to continue
to move this case forward, and we do very much
appreciate all the work that they've done. There's more work
to be done. Anything I say here today or any
other time shouldn't be heard as me trying to discourage
law enforcement from moving forward.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. We do have some questions that came from
some longtime listeners, and I'll go ahead and start with
one that I needed a little explaining on. I think
it's probably a good time to go ahead and kind
of dig into what was the DNA evidence and what
was not the DNA evidence. We'd established on one of
our podcasts already that the DNA that was tested was
not the hair in Kathy's hand, But again just reiterate
for us, where do we stand with the hair? Before
I ask this.
Speaker 2: Question, we don't know what the status is with the
hair because the FBI refuses to answer the question. So
I've been asking this question for decades and I still
don't have an answer on what the status is on
the hair in my sister's hand. And for those who
are not familiar, in Kathy's autopsy report, the chief Medical
Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia clearly indicated that Kathy
had hair in her hand which they believed to be
human hair. That could obviously be Kathy's hair, It could
be Becky's hair and as part of a struggle, or
it could be the offender's hair, or it could have
come from another source. I still can't get a straight
answer from the FBI on what the status of the
hair is.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of people who jumped right to
the conclusion that it was the hair that was the
silver bullet in this case, but it was not. In fact,
it was DNA that was found on Becky's bra. So
let me start with this question from Heather, and I
like her little preface here. She says, I know you
don't curse on the podcast, So I will either, But
how which sometimes we do, you know, curse on the podcast?
So I won't either, But how EXPLOITIVI? And long have
they been aware of this DNA evidence on Becky's clothing?
It seems like this just came out of nowhere. Did
they just discover this samples existence after thirty nine years
or did the technology get better?
Speaker 2: It's really the technology got better, Heather. You know, I've
had plenty of criticism of the FBI. They made it
clear to us they had tested items in evidence from
Kathy's car. This obviously includes Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski's bodies,
which were clothed. Kathy in the way back of the Honda,
Becky on the diagonal, in the back seat of this
two door small car. So they had tested lots of
items from inside the car, you know, the car interior itself,
the floor mats, the rugs, the sea and there's a
significant amount of blood. And don't forget we have diesel
fuel or kerosene that's poured over the bodies, which made
things a tremendous mess. In terms of where they found
this evidence, they had tested a number of times articles
of clothing. This is that my sister Kathy had a
white basf long sleeve jersey on and track pants. If
I'm not mistaken. Yep, Becky had on a windbreaker underneath
that was a T shirt. She was wearing a bra
underneath a T shirt and then shorts. And these were sporty,
athletic women and it was October, so they might have
been pushing the season a little bit, but they were
wearing sportswear. Now, apparently this time around they got lucky.
And they said this to us over the table. And
I'm not criticizing, I'm thrilled they had tested that evidence
before Kathy's shirt and pants, their underwear, Becky's jacket, T shirt, bra, panties, shorts, socks,
I'm sure, the whole thing, but they hadn't gotten a
DNA hit. Now, remember the evidence testing has gotten so
much better, and this is exciting. They tested as far
back as like twenty eleven and did not get a
DNA hit. And as they were explaining to us and
other experts have walks us through this before, you're in
mind over murder and elsewhere. DNA testing of this type
it's an educated guessing game. You're looking to see where
might an offender's DNA have been deposited. We know they
tested this evidence their clothing specifically a number of times,
but they hadn't gotten a hit. Now thanks to the
advancements in level of refinement of DNA, and we saw
this in the Robin Edwards David Knobling example as well
with the evidence from Robin's RAPEKP. We hadn't gotten a
DNA hit previously, same situation. And then with the more
refined tests. And thank you to DNA Labs International in
Florida that did the testing on all the Colonial Parkway murders.
As far as we know, they've done all the testing.
They got lucky. As how they characterized it to us
with the meeting with the FBI. So they discovered male
DNA on Becky's bra. As they said to us at
the meeting, there's no relationship between Wilmer and Kathy Thomas
and Rebecca Dowski, so there's no reason for Wilmer's DNA
to be on Becky's bra. If he were her boyfriend
or something like that, that might be a different story. Yeah,
it's mostly about the evidence testing being so much more sensitive. Heather,
I get your impatience, and I share it. The truth
is we got lucky, is how they put it, because
the tests are so much more sensitive than they ever
were before. The DNA on the bra was found this
time around where it had not been found in previous tests.
A frustrating follow up to that. Though Bob and I
are both very curious people, and we're both quite knowledgeable
about the case. We wanted to know what kind of
DNA it was. Was it saliva, was it semen? Was
it blood? Was it touch DNA? And they wouldn't say.
I'm going to go on a little bit of a
skinny branch here and say, in my opinion, it's likely
touch DNA. But they did not confirm that. And this
kind of makes me crazy because they did answer some questions.
For instance, right out of the shoot, I said which
outside lab did the work? Did the DNA work? And
they said DNA Labs International, which was a name we
were very familiar with. We knew they had done other
work in the past ten years. Their name had come
up several times. We knew that the Commonwealth of Virginia
had applied for ASAKI grant which they used in the
Robin Edwards and David Nobling and Teresa Howell cases, and
then again in the lori Ane Powell murder, the FBI,
working with the Virginia State Police, had applied for OSAKI
grant and they went with DNA Labs International, who have
the contract with Virginia to do this kind of testing.
Apologies for the long winded answer, but I think that's
an in depth response to Heather's first question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is definitely okay. Second one, also from Heather.
Bill had said before that he'd interviewed the person who
gave the two polygraph tests to Alan Wade Wilmer Senior.
Were you given the questions that the suspect was asked?
Do you know specifically which answers to questions were deemed inconclusive?
Speaker 2: Oh? Boy, would I like that to have this. Yeah,
the answer is no, they didn't give me this information.
We did have a terrific conversation. I'm not sure the
FBI was thrilled that I tracked down their retired polygraphic examiner,
but I did speak with this gentleman. I'd love to
speak with him again. Supposedly, polygraphic examiners are are very
organized from what I understand, and our case agent actually
trained to be a polygraph examiner herself.
Speaker 3: In former case agent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, excuse me for former case agent. He actually said
something about going back and looking at his records, and man,
I'd love to sit down with him. I mean, I'd
be happy to travel to his home and if he
was ever willing and sit down, Boy, would I like
to know what the questions were and what the answers were.
If I'm understanding what he said correctly, it was a
couple of years ago. Now it sounded like he would
still have complete records, which would be absolutely fascinating. I
think too, it would be the opportunity to sit down
with them, so I would welcome that, but I don't
know those answers.
Speaker 3: This is with regard to what happened on the day
of the FBI meeting. Did Wavy Ten or any other
members of the media know that family members would be
notified in a closed door FBI meeting at the same
time as their release of infoc Surely they could have
waited until Bill and Bob were able to share the
news with loved ones unable to travel to Virginia in
short notice before they released the information on the air.
You know, I agree, I really wish that they had waited,
I would have wanted to hear it from you instead
of getting it from waving.
Speaker 2: Well. I understand the impulse, the observation. The media is
a very very competitive business and there's a lot of
effort that goes into getting it first. My educated guest,
because remember I did media and public relations and corporate
communications for many years. Those press releases are usually sent
out in advance, and they are what they call embargoed
until a certain agreed upon time. And this is all
based on a general persons agreement between like in this case,
FBI Norfolk and the media outlets. And so those media outlets,
I believe knew that there was going to be an
announcement regarding Kathy Thomas and Orbckadowski in the Colonial Parkway murders,
and they probably had that information sometime before nine o'clock.
I didn't realize until later that they were actually keeping
us downstairs waiting until exactly nine. So when we walked in,
the meeting started right at nine o'clock, and that was
when the embargo was likely lifted. It's unfortunate because the
result was because the FBI didn't tell us in advance
what they were going to tell us, because remember it's
all about control. We didn't have an opportunity to say
anything publicly because we didn't know what the news was
going to be. I mean, we thought there was going
to be something important. They had asked us to fly
down there, and they even paid to fly us there
and put us up. The result was, and I'm not
saying the FBI did this intentionally, but they'd sure as
hell didn't think this through because we were tied up
in a meeting for about two hours. The story hit
the media, and so our families, who had sent us
there to meet with the FBI on their behalf to
find out what had happened to Kathy and Becky. Our
families found out about this the same way everybody else did,
which is on the World Wide Web. There it is,
it was, It was on the internet, it was on TV.
And the next thing, you know, my partner, Pamela, her
phone starts ringing because people looked me up on social
media and saw that I have a long term partner.
And the next thing, you know, her phone's ringing, and
it was reporters looking to get a hold of me.
And I was tied up with Bob in that meeting
from I don't know. I guess we must have been
there from exactly nine o'clock to probably at least eleven,
if not late when we got out of there. It
was a very unfortunate situation all the way around, and
I was shocked that this is how the FBI decided
to handle this important piece of news.
Speaker 3: You were in the meeting with the FBI. I was
in the middle of my film class, and so I
had figured I would have until about eleven when you
got out of your meeting, and then you would call me,
at which point I would be pretty much done with
my and then we could start hitting social media. But
now nine oh eight, I start getting twice from people
did you see? Did you hear? Did you see? Did
you hear? And at that point, not only am I
breaking the rule about we don't have our phones out
in the middle of the school day, right, but I'm
also realizing, oh shit, I need to make sure Joyce
doesn't hear about this on social media. I need to
make sure Jenny, who's Becky's sister in law, doesn't hear
about this via social media. So I'm scrambling to start
texting people and saying, hey, I know you don't want
to hear it from me. I know you would rather
hear this from Bill, but I don't want you to
hear it on social media. And there it is, and
so I'm you know, I'm doing a mad scramble, and
it just it is definitely something that I would have
wanted to hear it from you, not from Wavy. I
know that they don't think these things through, neither the
media nor the FBI. It would have been a whole
lot more helpful to everybody involved if they had allowed you,
guys time to why don't you call your families?
Speaker 2: Not where That was clearly not a priority. It was never,
never going to be a thing for the FBI. They
also took another step which I strongly objected to. I
asked them we were flown to Virginia on a Monday.
The meeting was Tuesday morning at nine o'clock. We were
supposed to be there at eight thirty. As we were,
I asked for the earliest possible flight out on Monday
morning so I could get to Virginia to try to
prepare for what I thought was coming. YEA, and I
asked to be on a six thirty am flight out
of Hartford the closest airport to where I lived, and
they ended up putting me on a flight that got
me in around three o'clock instead of getting me there
at eight o'clock in the morning. And then on the
way back, I asked for the latest flight out on
Tuesday so that I could do some media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and of course me and the other families.
Speaker 2: Right, And of course they put me on a three
pm flight back to Hartford, Yeah, flying through Washington National.
So as a result, I was kind of out of
pocket on the way back. And after dealing with the
FBI for all these years, this starts to feel deliberate.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that the timing the twenty four hour
tight turnaround was deliberate. I'm sure that they did not
want you to have the ability to meet with the families,
the other families, or with me, and I'm sure that
they were just eager to get you the hell out
of there so that there was no opportunity for you
to do media hits. I'm positive that that's what it was.
Speaker 2: And let's not forget that two years ago when they
made the announcement via the Virginia State Police that the
Robin Edwards and David Nobling case and the Teresa Howell
rape murder had been linked to Wilmer, which is the
first time we publicly hear Wilmer's name. The FBI went
out of its way to tie me up on a
two hour conference call YEP timed to the minute for
one thirty pm that day, which is extremely unusual for
our case agent to do that. Look, there's no way
around this. That was all deliberate too. They wanted to
tie me up so that I couldn't respond to the
news two years ago about Wilmer. And then, interestingly, here
it is two years later, almost exactly two years later,
and now we have a significant update in Kathy and
Becky's case regarding the same suspect, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior.
And here we are again. After a while, I'm not
a conspiracy theorist or anything like that, but after a
while you think to yourself, you guys are doing this deliberately,
and it's really obvious.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I want to make sure doesn't
get left out here is the fact that the Virginia's
police were good enough both times to make sure that
the Wilmer family had a heads up well ahead of time.
This is what is coming. Both with Robin, David and
Terry's case announcement and then with Laurie Anne's, the FBI
did not give the Wilmers a heads up, and so
they learned that their father had been linked to two
other serial murders at the same time as everybody else
did on social media or on the TV.
Speaker 2: And that's deliberate. I mean it is. It's like they
don't really care what happens to the Wilmer family, and
they are doing their absolute best to make sure that
I don't have an opportunity to speak publicly about this news.
After a while, it starts to feel quite deliberate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm sorry it is. It's cruel of them
to drop that on the Wilmers. It really is. As
hard as it is for the victims' families, it's hard
for them as well. I have nothing but sympathy for
the Wilmers, because, as we have reiterated again and will
continue to do still, they had no idea of this
side of their father. They had no idea, and it
is not fair to take what would otherwise be a
very ordinary day and then decide to drop out of nowhere.
By the way, responsible for two more murders, really really,
just like Heinus nasty ones too. All of them are terrible.
Becky and Kathy's were utterly savage. It's unbelievably cruel to
be able to drop that on somebody with no warning.
We've got a lot more to talk about here, as
we always seem to, so we are going to carry
over some more questions into another episode. It's going to
be ask Us Anything, Part seven thousand, maybe the return
of ask Us Anything Anything, the third, the fourth, the fifth,
the sixth's it's gonna be like a franchise, Is it
never ever dies? Thank you everybody who has reached out
in support of us over the last couple of weeks.
We really do appreciate your interest, your love, your support,
your prayers, your praise, everything, and we ask you to
just please keep supporting in the case and supporting the podcast.
We are not going anywhere. We still have a lot
of work to do, and in our next episode we'll
answer some more questions and we'll talk a little bit
about what we are doing to try to make sure
that this case keeps moving forward. 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 Arnoits.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.