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 5: We're back for part two of our episode about the
Kathy Thomas and Rebecca DOWSTI solve in the.
Speaker 3: Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 5: Bill, did you think we were ever going to get
to a day where we were talking about this?
Speaker 2: Of the days I would say no. I was funny.
I was smiling listening to you. To the intro. You said,
we're coming back for a part two, and I thought
to myself, and this would be part two of seventeen parts.
Speaker 5: This is going to be a very long series of
episodes that, honestly, I don't think anybody's gonna mind.
Speaker 2: I hope not funny. When we were recording our previous episode,
I was thinking to myself and I'm putting out questions
that are I think we're going to create more questions
in people's minds, which is not my goal. The truth is,
there's still so much that's unanswered here in the Colonial
Park by murders, and of course I'm hoping that we
see an ongoing investigation here. And we've got Keith Collin
Cassandra Hailey's disappearance to solve, we have Anna Maria and
Daniel brutal murder number four in the Colonial Park by
murders to solve, and so many other unsolved murders around
that same time. Remember we've got Wilmer killing two couples
now Robin Edwards and David not Kathy Thomas from Rebecca Dowski.
And then we have him killing two individuals, both women,
Teresa Powell and Lori Anne Powell. And that was four.
And then with this identification on Tuesday. Now we're up
to six, and I think Wilmer is good for so
many more.
Speaker 5: I think so too, I really do. Which and actually,
what you just said kind of tease up a question
that I'm sure a lot of people are having right now,
which is what's next for us? Because here is Bill
Thomas who has achieved his goal of thirty nine years.
Speaker 3: You got answers for your sister.
Speaker 2: Which at least some man, seriously we got.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but seriously, we got to take a minute and
really acknowledge you have worked on this so hard for
so long. There is not a day that goes by
when I haven't talked to you where you've had this
case on your mind all of a sudden. Boy's it
must be like taking a breath of fresh air, of
deep breath for the first time in nearly four decades.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I might feel a little bit more that way
if we've gotten more satisfactory answers to our many questions,
because Bob and I had so many questions, and a
lot of the answers that we got felt stock. Also,
there was a lot of deflection where they they said, oh,
we can't talk about that because of the call Haley
investigation and support right, And I thought to myself, Oh, okay,
now we have a new excuse. There's always been. It's
an open investigation and we really can't comment on that. Remember,
there is the possibility and this was a discussed of accomplices,
and that was something that we talked about. So I
do understand. I haven't lost my mind here. I understand
that these other murders must be solved, and I'm determined
that we can be part of that, and we obviously
want to facilitate that. We're not investigators, as you like
to say, Kristen, but I'll do everything I can to
help this investigation move forward. I would dearly love these
other families to have answers. It's not going to bring
our loved ones back, but at least, as I've said before,
we know what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: That does kind of lead into the question of what
is next for us? Are we going anywhere? And the
answer is no, We're not going anywhere. We still have
work to do. Yeah, we have a ton of work
to do now. As you and I were talking about offline,
we may take some well deserved break time for a
week or two, or you probably need a month in
the Caribbean just to kind of get.
Speaker 2: Over all, well, that sounds good.
Speaker 3: I get out of snowy Connecticut and go down to
Jamaica or something like that.
Speaker 2: My guy guy, I like it. I like it.
Speaker 5: But this podcast is not going anywhere now that we've
found answers in Kathy and Becky's case, we are still
fighting for the calls, the Haleys, the Phelpsas, the Lowers,
and all of the other potential Wilmer victims.
Speaker 3: Because you guys know, he didn't stop.
Speaker 2: No, he did absolutely stop, absolutely not, And there's so
much more work to be done. I love the idea
of a month in the sun. That's not going to happen, but.
Speaker 3: Maybe a week in the sun, maybe a week at
the Jersey short.
Speaker 2: You gotta wait till it warns up, you know what
I'm saying. Yeah, there's so much more work to be done.
Without question. Now that being said, I did say to
Pamela when I got back that I'd like us to
try to focus in twenty twenty six this year on
having more fun if you think about it. I, like
a lot of other people, I've received a very powerful
reminder in the last few months that life's too short.
We lost my older brother, Richard, a very distinguished Navy
doctor and a captain, to lung cancer as a result
of exposure to us bestos. We also have this news
about Kathy's murder, which just brings that whole thing back,
and just it's like hits you in the chest with
the sadness, really profound sadness that all just comes welling back.
One of the things I said to Pamela is we
have got to have more fun in twenty Yeah, twenty six.
We can't work seven days a week on this case. No,
and Pamela's art career and all the other stuff that
we do. Do I need to finish that book on
the Colonial Parker murders, you bet you, But that's going
to take time, tell ye. At the same time, we
really are going to do our absolute best to do
some more family things and travel a bit. We'll be
around and you and I have a lot of work
to do. But yeah, I'm going to be desperately trying
to I don't even know if I can relax anymore,
but I'm going to try.
Speaker 5: I think it's important because all of a sudden, this weight,
it's maybe not entirely gone, but certainly it has shifted.
It may have become a little less. Another question that
I think is pretty interesting here is what additional work,
if any, will investigators continue to do on Kathy and
Becky's case, Like, now that they have a porpetrator, does
all the work stop or do they continue doing investigation
talking to people like is this ended or is there
still more going on?
Speaker 3: Or do you have an answer to that?
Speaker 2: My sense is that it's still going on. Remember, too,
we talked about accomplices. I'm not going to name names
on this podcast, but I did name names in the
room of people who are alive who I think are
accomplices to Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior, and they were very
interested in that conversation. I brought up two people specifically.
There are others I could have thought of. Sometimes, like
I said, I'm watching very carefully when Bob's talking or
I'm saying something. I'm trying to see is this landing?
Is it registering? Do I see a flicker of acknowledgment
that kind of thing. I brought up two people specifically,
and I wanted to see how they'd react. The case
agent in particular was very interested in talking about those
potential effod accomplished because Wilmer may not have acted alone.
Speaker 5: And you and I have been doing a lot of
even though we're not investigators, We've been doing a lot
of investigating of our own and.
Speaker 3: I think we have plenty The FBI will want to hear, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: She made that very clear. They want to hear from us.
Like always when we receive tips, I want to do
our research work with our research team and give the
best info that we can to the investigators. They're the
FBI agents, they're the Virginia State Police investigators. They have
to handle this. We're not cops, we're not investigators. At
a time when it felt like, particularly over the last year,
we were hearing nothing, Yeah, I wanted to do everything
we could to keep the conversation moving forward, and I
will continue to do that with your help and the
help of the rest of our team.
Speaker 5: This is actually a pretty interesting question here. I really
like it. Over the years, you both have likely had
multiple PET Series potential suspects and different rabbit holes that
in their own right seemed convincing and that you entertained.
What is it like having more concrete answers in evidence now?
Does that free up mental space or is there a
part of you that still has certain dissonance of relingering
questions regarding potential suspects, accomplices, and theories.
Speaker 2: I think we're definitely in the dissonance category. And also,
as I mentioned last time, I have a lot of
family members. These are victims families, the four families we
sound like, the mob, Thomas Daowski, Call and Haley families,
the four FBI cases, and longtime friends, people that knew
Kathy from all the way back in the Navy and
then Naval Academy. There's a lot of people that are
not buying what the FBI is selling about Wilma being responsible.
A number of people have said, Wow, this is awfully convenient.
Blame the dead guy. Blame the guy who's already been
linked to four other homicides, including one of the Colonial
Parkway murders. It feels very convenient to them. I'm not
saying this is where I'm coming from, but one thing
I'm really struggling with. A number of these people are
asking me to vouch for the FBI's work, and I've
made a lot of criticisms of the way they've handled
this case. And I still feel the same way. And
I got to tell you this puts me in a
really uncomfortable spot. I'm not saying to friends and family
and our supporters that it's not okay to ask this
kind of question. It's more than fair. One thing I
am not really comfortable with for me personally is I'm
not going to vouch for the FBI's work because they've
been a lot of problems in this case. And I
talk to them about a number of the problems. Discarded evidence,
they threw away Kathy and Becky's rape kids, they leaked
crime scene photos. They had Wilmer and let them go.
They had Ron Little, another longtime suspect from New Zealand
who was deported in nineteen eighty nine, which actually roughly
when the Colonial Parkway murders appear to end. He died
a couple of years ago. He told his family repeatedly
after he was deported back to New Zealand, particularly his
young sons. He told them repeatedly up to the day
he died a couple of years ago, now that he
was involved in a series of unsolved murders in Virginia.
Remember he's deported before. The name Colonial Parkway murders is
necessarily used all that widely. And he's back in New
Zealand where he continued his criminal activities. He was involved
in meth cooking, drug distribution, gang activity. He suspected of
killing at least one man and burying him under a
highway which was under construction at the time. There is
a videotape of Little and other men torturing a man.
I'm not joking. This is not a nice man. So Little,
who died a couple of years ago, is certainly maybe
very liable suspect. And here we go again. Rather than
properly investigate Ron Little, the FBI and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service deported him back to New Zealand. And long
time lasts will remember, it's Little who inserts himself in
the Colonial Parkway murders in this very bizarre public way,
claiming in interviews and a letter that he wrote to
all of these legislative and public leaders and Oprah and
who knows, claiming that he was being harassed by the FBI,
which he probably was, and claiming that he knew who
was behind the Colonial Parkway murders. So these are all
very strange behaviors to my eye. And I think yours
ron little needs to be checked out. There's a lot
of very bizarre open issues here.
Speaker 5: One of the things that I as you were going
down your litany of terrible things done by the FBI.
Speaker 2: And that was only the short too. That's the short list.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you and I know the long list, and
I have reiterated the list long and short in the past.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 5: But again, another thing that came back to me when
I learned that it was Wilmer was boy, If the
FBI and whoever at York Picosen followed these orders, they
are not entirely free of responsibility in this. If they
had not ordered the destruction of Kathy and Becky's rape
kit and that kid had been available to be tested
via sake Grand, would we be in a much different
place now? Would we have learned about this several years earlier?
Because I don't believe for a minute that Wilmer, who
in all of his previous cases so far, it's been
proven that he sexually assaulted his female victims. I do
not believe for one minute that he didn't assault Kathy
and Becky. I'm sorry, I don't believe it, right, And
I realized that's very hard for you to hear as
Kathy's brother, but.
Speaker 2: It's definitely something I've thought about. And remember, of.
Speaker 5: Course it is because you're pragmatic enough to have thought
about it. And even more, as soon as I heard
that it was Wilmer, I immediately thought, I know we
don't swear on the podcast, but I'm joining it right now.
I immediately thought, mother, if they had not destroyed that
rape kit, we might have had this two maybe three
years sooner.
Speaker 2: And the FBI said to me in two thousand and nine,
when I called them out on the fact that they
had destroyed Kathy and Becky's rape kits as medical waste
per order of the FBI, I told him I thought
it was a huge mistake. And I had tracked down
the former chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia,
Marcella Fierro. She's actually the real life chief medical examiner
and the case Garpeta character is based on Marcella Fierro.
Doctor Fierro said to me, mister Thomas, you never destroy
evidence in an unsolved burder case. And she said, I
don't care what the FBI is trying to tell you
about the fact that your sister and Missdowski were not raped.
She said, those kits represented perfect, clean DNA samples of
your sister and Misdowski, which could be used for future tests.
And it's very interesting what she said next. She said,
you never know what will come online in twenty ten.
We're having this conversation with fall two thousand and nine
that will be more sensitive. Think about this. She's talking
about stuff that happened ten fifteen years later, but she
knew where things were going to go. And she said, yes,
it does appear that your sister and Missdowski were not raped,
but the new tests could be much more sensitive and
be able to detect a rape that we aren't able
to detect now. And she's absolutely right. And so the
idea that the FBI ordered those rape kits destroyed in
I think it's nineteen ninety four. It was eight years
after Kathy and Becky were killed. What is unforgivable? And
she said to me, I don't care what they're telling
you now, they're lying. She said that to me. Yeah,
God bless doctor Fierro, like all these amazing people that
we've met. Every time you and I have a chance
to talk to these amazing brilliant scientists, investigators, forensics people.
I hang on their every word because they're so much
smarter than I am, and they know so many more things.
And you and I are both, I think, intensely curious
people that want to learn and want to figure out
how these things that we might learn about will be
applicable to in this case, the Colonial Parkway murders.
Speaker 3: We already addressed the DNA questions.
Speaker 5: We did discuss the last episode that it was DNA
that was found on Becky's PRA and that it had
nothing to do with the hair right.
Speaker 2: Very dissatisfying from my perspective. No specificity about what kind
of DNA, And I think we have a right to
know these things. Sure, I'm going to pursue answers from
the FBI.
Speaker 5: The sixty four thousand dollars question from most everybody in
the comments is, well, now are they going to add
him to Cotis.
Speaker 2: Remember we were talking about we're going to try to
have more fun this year and all that. Yeah, I
think we have a new project on our hands. We've
touched on this before. Oh yeah, but I think we
are going to be pursuing getting the Codis law in
Virginia changed. Let me explain for our listeners that might
be new to this part of the conversation, because Alan
Wade Wilmer, Senior was never convicted of a crime while
he was still alive. His DNA was never put into
COTIS because he was never convicted of a crime according
to Virginia state law. And I am rolling my eyes
as I say this, we still can't put his DNA
into COTIS. So every single one of these very well
done tests that are being conducted by law enforcement agencies,
DNA Labs International, and other labs around the country, every
single one of them has to be done on a
one to one basis. Right now, our case agent is
going out and meeting with other cold case specialists at
different law enforcement agencies around the country, and I think
this is a fantastic initiative, and she's urging them to
go back and take a look at their cold case
is to see if something might fit the Alan Wade
Wilmer mL perfect. One of our friends in law enforcement
said to me a couple of years ago, Bill, They've
got to figure out a way to get Wilmer into
CODIS right in the main system, Because he said, I
believe that if they put Wilmer's DNA into the CODA system,
it will light up like an f and Christmas tree.
That's what this expert said. And this needs to happen.
A couple of things. I think it's insane that we
have lost like this on the books in the Commonwealth
of Virginia. I want to see this changed. We have
a new governor in Virginia. I don't live there, but
other folks who. We have a new governor, we have
a new attorney general. We are going to be seeking
a meeting with the AG. We met last year with
Jason Mieris, who was the Attorney General at that time,
and he was fantastic, very supportive of the idea. He
was also very upfront and his team were incredibly impressive,
very supportive. Interestingly, all women. So it was Jason Mehras
and a group of really highly accomplished women, several of
whom are gone now because there's been an election and
the governor and the AG are elected positions, and Jay
Jones is the new Attorney General. I'll be seeking a
meeting with other families. Last time around, it was myself
Joyce called Canada. Terry Hailey Holman, Cassandra's sister, and Paula
Hailey Meehan, who is also Cassandra, So there were four
family members and we got a great reception. They did
make it clear that timing wise, at the time we
met with them, which is about a year ago, it
was very far into the legislative session. They were very supportive,
but they said it was going to be a heavy lift,
and they thought that waiting until the next legislative session,
which is twenty twenty six, probably made sense. And of
course there was an election and some of those people
are going to be gone. Mister Miras specifically, this is
something we want to pursue. One other thing I'll add,
I think it is also insane that we have fifty
different sets of state laws governing CODIS. For gosh sakes,
it makes us sound like a third world country. We
should be setting federal standards for CODIS and having one
set of national standard. This is actually something I believe
the FBI should be working on, the Apartment of Justice
should be working on. Why do we have fifty different
sets of standards for Code of Sentries. This makes no
sense to me whatsoever. And the fact that we can't
upload a serial killer who's now linked to the murder
of six young people, that we still don't have the
right to load his DNA and DA codis Since when
to the rights of a confirmed serial killer exceed the
rights of the Colonial Parkway murders families to get answers
in our loved ones murders. I'm sorry if I sound
like I'm climbing up on the soapbox, but I guess
I am.
Speaker 3: You have every right to climb up on the soapbox.
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.
Speaker 5: The only other questions that people are asking over and
over was there any other unidentified DNA anywhere on Kathy
and Becky.
Speaker 2: We talked a lot about that. We had a real
hard time getting a clear answer. I'm not sure I
know that there could be other male I think Bob
asked the question, was there any other male DNA? Yes? Yeah,
found in the testing of Kathy and Becky's. Now, remember
we got this hit as a result of Becky's brocket.
I would dearly love to know if there were other
unidentified samples. I know that was a concern with our
previous case agent. She talked to us about that that
there might be multiple sources of DNA evidence, some of
which might be completely innocent. There are lots of other
reasons why someone's DNA is in Kathy's car or even
on Kathy and Becky's clothing. We asked the question, but
we didn't get a really super clear answer.
Speaker 5: There are also there are so many sweet people out here.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of people who want to know.
Were they respectful of you? Absolutely, they were very professional.
They handled themselves really well. There's been longtime listeners know
there's been a significant amount of friction.
Speaker 2: I didn't pick up on any of that. They were
They treated us very well. Like I said in the
previous episode, we broke at about the two hour mark.
I had in my head probably another two hours worth
of questions. We ended up getting steered to a close, which,
in retrospect, I'm very unhappy about that. On some level,
that was Bob and Bill's part, because if I think
we should have insisted that we stay. It wasn't like
sac Evans suddenly said I got to go or anything
like that. That's probably on us. We should have even
taken a two minute bio break and then kept going
because I had a ton of additional questions. They were very,
very professional and very respectful. I would have no complaints
whatsoever in that regard.
Speaker 5: There are just so many amazing, wonderful, sweet comments from
people here who just want you to know how much
they admire you, and how much they say that this
wouldn't have happened without you. There are even some people
who said that it wouldn't have happened without me, and
I really appreciate that you.
Speaker 2: If it's true for me, it's true for you as well.
Speaker 5: It has been really amazing to hear from so many
people who are so happy for you and for Becky's families.
So whenever you're ready to process some of this, there
are so many kind, loving and thoughtful messages from people
who just say they're so glad. There are people who
said that they cried when they heard. There are people
who said that they they prayed. There were lots of
lots of yay emojis and tear emojis, and it's wonderful.
We're so glad that so many people have been so
kind about it, that so many people are as invested
as we are this case. It has meant a lot
to this whole area for a really long time. There's
no time that's more evident than looking at the comments
section on our page right now. Anything that we may
have missed that you want to talk about.
Speaker 2: I pressed the Special legend in charge Evans several times
on this. I said, you need to have a press conference,
you need to take questions on camera. Look, the Virginia
State Police has already had two press conferences, first for
Robin Edwards and David Nobling and Teresa Howell and Virginia
State Police, FBI, Hampton Police were all there, took questions.
And then in November twenty twenty five, when we were
thrilled to find that they had a solve in the
Lori Anne Powell homicide, the Virginia State Police hosted again
and took questions from the audience. I remember FBI and
other agencies were also there a second time. Now here's
the FBI making this announcement. I'm putting air quots around that,
and no press conference, no questions on camera. Dominique Evans,
the SAC recorded a video yep, we'll think on our
Facebook pages, which I thought was fine, but there's no
way to interact. And of course it's not lost on me.
I recognize I've criticized FBI Norfolk and FBI Newport News
plenty over the thirty nine years hear me, thirty nine
years of this investigation. I have criticized them plenty. But
I stand by every single thing I said. I remember
getting into a bit of a tussle with our former
case agent and she was saying how critical I'd been,
and I said, if there's anything I ever said that
was incorrect, please tell me and I'll correct it. But
right now, I stand by every single thing I said.
One of the responses that I got the other day
was that they want to solve the Call Haley disappearance.
Remember that's an FBI case, the phelpslower murders on Interstate
sixty four. That's a Virginia State Police case. So she's
not going to address a VSP case. She's going to
talk about the FBI's areas of responsibility. She gave me
the strong sense that they would be willing to have
a press conference after Call Haley is solved. Now I
am not necessarily a terribly prayerful person, but I really
appreciate it when people tell me they're praying for me,
because I figure someone with a soul as dark as
mine could use all the prayer I can get. I
got the strong sense that they would be willing to
have a press conference when they solve the Call Haley disappearance,
and that nothing could make me happier. It's not lost
on me that, as someone who's had a lot of
criticisms of the way this case has been handled, You'll
notice there was no opportunity afforded to me, which there
was to the other families. Think about this, Yeah, I'm
always in the corner, just like you are for the
families many from I know, but I'm always in there
wanting the best results for them. And I know sometimes
it's difficult for any of us with a heart to
watch people speak at these press conferences, but they typically
want to thank law enforcement. They also want to talk
a little bit about their loved ones and what they
were like, which is very understandable. You'll notice how they
did not give me any opportunity whatsoever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nobody wants to put a mic in front of
Bill Thomas more than he already has one.
Speaker 2: My point is, let's be honest as always you know
why they're doing this. They don't want to give me
a microphone. Not because I'm a big mouth, but because
I criticized the FBI. And I don't believe I've been unfair, No.
Speaker 3: Not at all, not in the least.
Speaker 5: But they don't want their We've said from day one
that they're all about saving face.
Speaker 2: Oh that's FBI job number one, folks. It isn't about
solving crime, and they can take all the offense they want.
This is still Jaya Garoover's FBI, and it's always about
what makes the FBI look good. It isn't and they
can be offended all the way to their toes. Listen carefully, FBI.
It isn't even about solving cases. It's about whether or
not they look good. I don't see any change in
today's FBI. They've always been all about what makes us
look good and never acknowledging anything that makes them look bad.
And when I looked at the SAC and said, you
need to own this, you need to speak about this
on camera, you need to take questions from the audience,
I'm thinking to myself even as I said these things,
and there may have been some finger pointing, I thought
to myself here not bloody likely Bill. Interestingly, things did
end on a pretty cordial note, and I thanked all
of them, and I really do appreciate their hard work.
I asked sac Evans if she would come on Mind
over Murder, and she said.
Speaker 5: Yes, hell yeah, we're gonna be IPI on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Guys, I would I truly would welcome that.
Speaker 3: Yes, seriously, I would love to have her on. I
would love to have this conversation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it would be great because, look, we
have plenty of friends, many of whom are our guests
on this pod regularly, who are affiliated with the FBI.
We do not have a problem with individual agents at
the moment. We have a problem with the institution and
the fact that it can sometimes run repshot over justice
and not do the job that it is supposed to do.
We would love to be able to have someone on,
whether it's sac Evans or our current case agents.
Speaker 2: Oh, I would love for one to talk. I'd love
to Actually, no disrespect to the boss, but I'd really
love to have our current case agent on. It was
very evident, and again I'm not taking anything away from
the other incredibly impressive, well spoken, smart people who interacted
with us at the meeting, the person that had the
greatest amount of case knowledge. And this is perfectly natural.
I would say this is probably true at any agency.
The case agent's only been handling the case for the
last couple of years. But she's really smart, and she
definitely knows what she's talking about, and she definitely had
more detailed case information than anyone else on her side
of the table. I'd like to get her on the
podcast even I'll even go a step further with your permission, Kristen,
I didn't be willing to submit the questions in advance.
I'm not trying to skunk anybody.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is not good gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, we don't
want to play gotcha. We are legitimately interested. Are there
going to be answers that we may not want to
hear because it's upsetting or frustrating. Yeah, I'm sure there
are going to be those, but we are interested. At
the end of the day, how did you solve this case?
What do we know about Wilmer? What do we still
not know about Wilmer? We really want to know, because
this is the FBI is uncovering in the vspes, not
forget the VSP is the one who identified him first. Yes,
the FBI and the VSP have uncovered a serial killer
in Virginia, previously unknown who flew under the radar for years.
Apparently have more of my students listening to this every day,
which is.
Speaker 3: A little scary.
Speaker 5: Hi, guys, But somebody asked me today and sometimes kids,
teenagers can't get down to really good fundamental questions.
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes we forget.
Speaker 5: To ask ourselves as adults, like what well, And this
one kid just looked at me and he goes, how
do you get away.
Speaker 3: With it for so long?
Speaker 2: Boy?
Speaker 5: This is a good It's a great question. And he goes,
did his family not know? And I said, no, we
did not have any idea. I don't I don't think so,
and for family did not have any idea. But there
he goes hot. He goes, how do you kill that
many people and live with yourself? And I said, buddy,
I don't know, but I think it's a great question
that you're asking.
Speaker 2: At that point, you have to start looking up psychopaths
and sociopaths, because I'm not sure how someone lives with
themselves either. I don't want to mention the Wilmer family
without letting everybody know they I continue to maintain and
I know Kristen does. Two. The Wilmer family have been
nothing but cooperative and as helpful as they can be.
This has been incredibly difficult for them. Remember, we can
hate even what Alan Wade Wilmer Senior did to these
beautiful young people. Yeah, none of this has anything to
do with his ex wife. They were married for I
don't know six or seven years, don't hold me to
that number. But they had two kids who were little
kids at the time of the Colonial parkmy murders. I
think they were, off the top of my head, like
eight and ten. They're not going to know anything about
what their divorced dad is doing down in Hampton when
they're living in Lancaster County a couple of hours away.
They saw their dad, no way of knowing their little
kids and his ex wife had remarried. They stayed in
touch because they had two kids together and Lancaster County
is a lightly populated area, especially back then. They would
see each other, but it was handoffs of kids for
weekends and stuff like that. The Wilmer family had no
way of knowing what Allen was into. Even now, I
hope everybody would continue to treat the Wilmers with to respect.
They're lovely people. I've spoken to them directly a number
of times. You and I have met one of them.
I'd like to meet more. And this has come as
a terrible shock to them. Have to find out what
he was into. It has to be as shocking to
them as it is to the rest of us. So
I cannot thank them enough for their grace and kindness,
and I wish them nothing but the best. This is
very difficult for them. I know in speaking with one
of the family members back in November, they were very
upset by something. And I get this the way this
has unfolded, which is no one's fault. We've had announcement,
two years go by, and then there's another announcement, and
now what another another one later. Yeah, a couple months
go by and there's another announcement. No one's doing this intentionally.
It's just the way we've gotten asaki grants, and we've
got and the test results and they've put the cases together.
There's this horrible kind of drip drip quality too. Yes, exactly,
this family member said to me, we'd rather be hit
with a tsunami of all of the things that on
was responsible for, rather than when's the next announcement going
to be? And it's just more dreadful news. By the way,
the Wilmer family wasn't even informed about this FBI announcement,
which I think is actually shocking that they couldn't give
them the heads up. Now, the Virginia State Police not
only did they give them the heads up and the
two previous announcements, they afforded the Wilmer family an opportunity
to issue a statement offering their condolences and their shock
and sadness about what had happened. And I think they
have every right to that. The FBI didn't reach out,
didn't ask for a statement, and didn't tell them. They
found out about it after it broke on the internet.
And that's no way to find.
Speaker 3: Out, No no way, no way. That's terrible.
Speaker 5: We have so much more to go with this case,
and we have so much more work to do. Anybody
who's concerned, We're not going anywhere. This podcast is not
going anywhere. We will still continue to cover the same
things that we have always covered, will continue to really
dig and try to do some additional victim outreach and
advocacy and support to help all the other families that
are still in the position of not knowing what happened
to their loved ones.
Speaker 3: I want to close out.
Speaker 5: I know how much you love being complimented, Bill, but
I know I do want to finish with something that
someone said that I think is really just absolutely beautiful.
I think it's a great way to end the episode,
but I'm actually going to have to take a moment
to find it again because we have so many comments
I've lost them. Aut All, Right, here we go. This
is a great way to in the episode. This is
from this for our listener, Todd. I'm gonna call the
c ode to Bill Thomas. Bill Thomas didn't just want
or wish this case to be solved. He went to
the greatest length possible to achieve justice, not only in
his personal case, but also to all involved. Harm's way
never affected his path, and he never let futility enter
into his vocabulary. Although peace is always limited in this situation,
the peace afforded to him is so well deserved. On
earth and in heaven. We can all celebrate. His seeking
is no longer empty.
Speaker 2: Wow, Todd, I can't thank him enough. It's very kind.
Speaker 5: I feel like this is one of those times where
if we were on a game show, somebody would say,
Bill Thomas, you just won the grand prize, where are
you gonna go Disney World? But no, I think you
need to go for a month in king Kun and
barring that, like a week in the Berkshire's or something
like that. Oh wait, you live in there is it
should be like a week in the Rockies or something
along those lines.
Speaker 2: As we prepare for twenty inches of snow, yeah.
Speaker 5: Boy, we're looking at that here too. Y. That is
going to do it for this episode of mind Over Murder.
There will be much more information coming out in the
days ahead about the solve about everything else, But for
right now, thank you all so much for listening.
Speaker 3: 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 McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with crawl 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.