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 Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm
Bill Thomas. We're back for part two of our recap
of American Detective with Joe Kenda talking about the Colonial
Parkway murders. Bill and I had the pleasure of looking
at this documentary you the day it came out, me
a couple of days afterward. We wanted to make sure
that we shared our thoughts and do a quick recap
before getting to listener questions.
Speaker 4: So, Bill, you liked it.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's the best today coverage, long form
coverage that we've had at the Colonial Parkway murders. I
thought Joe Kenda and Danny Plott did a fantastic job.
It was great seeing Steve Spingola, who's another friend of
ours who's done some outstanding work in the Colonial Parkway murders.
I thought it was extremely well done. I didn't agree
with every conclusion that they came to, and we'll talk
more about that as this conversation unfolds.
Speaker 5: But that's okay.
Speaker 2: I don't have to agree with everything, and there may
be things when this case is fully solved, which is
an important thing to talk about. I may be right
about some things, and I may be wrong about plenty
of things. Of course, there's always been the question back
and forth, are these cases all related or are they
independent events? I feel like consensus is building that moves
us more towards connections rather than independent events.
Speaker 5: But time will tell. I was really pleased.
Speaker 2: I appreciated the outstanding work, and I thought it was
the story was told with a kind of a light touch.
I think I used the word elegant. I thought it
was beautifully shot. Loved all the aerial footage, the drone
footage of the Colonial Parkway, and the areas where the
crimes took place, and I thought they presented the story
well and pretty fairly.
Speaker 4: I agree with all of that.
Speaker 3: I too, did not agree with all of the conclusions
that they came to, but again that's fine because we're
not investigators and we don't have all of the information
that they have. I like any program that is shot
well and beautifully in this one was I like any
program where I am able to learn information that I
did not necessarily have before. And I did learn some
new things from this, which is always refreshing because I
feel like I have lived and breathed this case with
you for so long. I'm like, my god, how can
there possibly be anything I don't know? Actually, there's a
lot that I don't know, and that's refreshing. And there
were also new storytelling elements that were brought into.
Speaker 4: This that I had.
Speaker 3: Not seen or were merely only alluded to in The
Lover's Lane murders, and I want to get to those
in a second, but first I want to give kudos
to Joe Kenda for describing the Colonial Parkway as when
you get on the Colonial Parkway you're in a Stephen
King novel for twenty three miles. I wrote that down
because I loved it.
Speaker 2: Joe did an outstanding job, and I felt like he
had taken a real personal interest in this case. Now,
I've still never met Lieutenant Kenda, now retired, but I'd
like to and I look forward to that. As a
matter of fact, I'm going to put that on my
bucket list. He's someone that I would love to sit
down and have dinner with. Well, you and I could
take Joe Kenda and Danny Plott to dinner.
Speaker 5: That would be an interesting evening.
Speaker 4: I would love that. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 3: You had mentioned Steve Spingle at the top of the pod,
and I want to make sure that for anybody who's
not familiar with Steve's work, we mentioned some of the
work that he's done on this case. Now, most people
are familiar with Steve from Cold Justice with Kelly Siegler,
which is absolutely the thing that you should know him from.
But what a lot of people may not be aware
of is that he did some work on the Colonial
Parkway murders case and he created a short but very
informative work that you can only find unkindle called Predators
on the Parkway?
Speaker 4: Bill?
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about predators on
the Parkway?
Speaker 2: Some years back, Steve Spongola and his investigative partner came
down to Virginia. Steve lives in Milwaukee. He's a pretty
renowned homicide detective himself. He had come down and we
covered their expenses. They were really minimal. I remember seeing
the receipts, and they really traveled very inexpensively. They weren't
wasting the Colonial Parkram murders families money.
Speaker 5: That was for sure.
Speaker 2: Steve, as part of his reporting back to us on
what they found, he ended up writing this. It's not
book length, it's more like an in depth report. I
encourage people if they have kindle or other formats that
allow them to buy it. It's available on Amazon. It's
not very expensive. It's very well written, and I don't
necessarily agree with all of Steve's conclusions, but he's got
some really really interesting things to say about the case.
And that's another example where you bring in a veteran
homicide detective and have them take a look at the
Colonial Parkram murders, they come back with a lot of
really interesting observations, much like Joe Kendem.
Speaker 5: So there was a.
Speaker 2: Hard copy available of Predator's on the Parkway for a
number of years, but I think it's out of print
now and so that's where you can only get it
on kindle, typically through Amazon. But if you haven't read it,
I do encourage you to read it. Very very interesting.
And I didn't get a chance to see Steve when
he was in Virginia. I thought his observations on camera
were really really interesting.
Speaker 5: As always, I.
Speaker 3: Really was very interested in Predators on the Parkway because
for a long time, before A Special Kind of Evil
came out, that was really the only long form piece
that had been written on the Parkway, other than obviously
all that remains from Patricia Cornwell, which is not in
any way a work of fact.
Speaker 4: It is a work of fiction.
Speaker 3: So for a while, their Predators on the Parkway was
all that we had. And so I have read it.
It is very good, very interesting. I am looking right
now to see if you can find it on Amazon,
and unfortunately nothing's coming up. I'm looking right now and
I can't find it. Somebody had asked if they had
done an audio book of it, and I don't think.
Speaker 4: There is one.
Speaker 5: No, I don't think so either.
Speaker 3: It is still very much worth your while. For some
reason or another, I can't find it. I do see
a mug that says got Spangola, so sure, I'm sure
Steve loves having that.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic.
Speaker 5: I need one of those.
Speaker 2: I'll reach out to Steve too. I'd love to talk
with him as always, so I'll report back on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, we got to give a lot of kudos
to Steve Spinola for being willing to come out and
be a part of that series.
Speaker 4: I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 3: Talked last episode about the family members who are willing
to participate in these which is very emotionally difficult, but
again I want to offer kudos to them. Kudos to
Andy Fox. Andy has been reporting on this case since
the very very first case in nineteen eighty six. Kathy
and Becky we were joking off air that you would
mention to Andy that you can really sort of measure
the passage of time by his hairstyle.
Speaker 2: Well, when he starts out thirty seven, thirty eight years ago,
he's got a full head of dark hair, and that now,
all these years later, he still looks great, but he's
got a full head of white hair.
Speaker 5: And now we've all gotten older.
Speaker 2: But when you see Andy as like a very young
kind of cub reporter, you know, standing there doing his reporting,
which is.
Speaker 5: Very very good.
Speaker 2: Yes, but he looks like such a kid, and now
he looks like a grown man with a full head
of white hair.
Speaker 4: He's a seasoned veteran exactly.
Speaker 3: And of course we were always happy to see Blaine
Pardo and talk about the wonderful work that he's done
so far on the case. I think Jupiter Entertainment couldn't
have done any better than get the people that they
had on camera, So kudos to them for reaching out
to as many case experts as possible. The two things
that I was really interested in before we get to
our listener questions that came up and the presentation. I'm
not going to call them rabbit holes necessarily, but they
are things that were not brought up in the Lover's
Lame murders and haven't been typically brought up even in
our own coverage.
Speaker 4: And that was the mention.
Speaker 3: Of Becky's ex boyfriend who were not going to name
the fact that there was some looking very closely at
him for the murder of Kathy and Becky. I was
very surprised that they actually went down that road, because
that isn't something that we've spent a lot of time
on because we do not want to name him. He's
still haunted about in the world. Nobody's totally cleared until
a homicide is cleared, but he has been cleared as
much as he can be, and so we don't want
to name him. But I was interested that they actually
mentioned that. Did you know that they were going to
go down that particular investigative path there, Bill.
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 2: Now, first of all, for everyone's benefit, the name they
use there is an alias that's not his real name.
Now I do know his real name. We actually know
a fair amount about him. Yeah, because I've looked into
any number of people who are potentially involved in the
Colonial Parkway murders, he was a likely suspect. And of
course anyone that's been following true crime knows that they
will look at the girlfriend, the boyfriend, the husband, the wife.
Those are people that could be involved in homicide like
Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski. Now keep in mind, at
the time he was looked at, the other murders haven't
taken place yet. When you're looking to see who might
have killed a Naval Academy grad Kathy Thomas and a
William and Mary senior Rebecca Dowski, obviously men that they
had dated are possible suspects, and this guy, in particular,
with his Muslim background and being thrown over by Becky
Dowski for Kathy Thomas, which would have been Kathy's second
relationship with a woman. She had also dated the woman
that she met aboard the Ussy Spear, Becky in her
first lesbian relationship that we're aware of with my sister
Kathy Thomas. Our understanding was that Becky's former boyfriend, who
had attended William and Mary with her, was very put
out by the fact that he'd been thrown over, and
then he found out he'd been thrown over for a woman.
He has motive and one area where I'll push back
politely on something that Joe Kenda said, which is that
this former boyfriend had an alibi which put him in Washington,
d C. The weekend that Kathy and Becky were killed.
As you and I have discussed on mind Over Murder before.
I believe you could make it from Williamsburg to Washington,
d C or return at night with light traffic in
maybe three three and a half hours. Now, remember, the
timeline for Kathy and Becky involves them going missing on
a Thursday night. Their bodies are not discovered until so,
so the timeline's a little fuzzy. Kathy and Becky are
essentially missing for almost three days, so there is more
than enough time for Becky's former boyfriend to drive back
from Washington, d C, kill them, and then either stay
in Williamsburg or return to Washington, d C. Again, this
is a pre internet, pre cell phone environment, so he
supposedly had signed on to some network or something which
proved I'm putting quotes around that that he was in Washington,
d C that weekend. I think it's still possible. I'm
not pushing the point, but it's possible that he could
have returned to Williamsburg and, perhaps working with accomplices, killed
Kathy and Becky and then either returned to Washington, d C, or,
having established his alibi, remained in Williamsburg. I don't think
the fact that he was in Washington, d c that
weekend and gives him any kind of ironclad alibi.
Speaker 3: I can definitely see that the other rabbit hole I
would call it, because there are so many in this
case that I was actually quite surprised to see the
filmmakers get into. And by surprised, I guess I mean
why this rabbit hole instead of other more likely rabbit holes.
Was the inclusion of Sammy Reider and his rather convoluted
interjection into the investigation into David.
Speaker 4: Nobbling and Robin Edwards murder.
Speaker 3: For anybody who is kind of blanking on Sammy Reider's name,
can you give everybody the five cent version of Sammy Reader?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sammy Reader. And I've spoken to the retired sheriff
about this. This is the sheriff of Isle of Wight County.
Sammy Reider told law enforcement that he was there the
night that Robin Edwards and David Nobling were killed. After
a kind of a shifting story about what he was
doing there or keeping in mind this is a place
that's known as a lover's Lane location and also a
place where low level drug deals would take place. Reader
claimed he was there after a date which I apparently
might not have gone that well, because he had time
to be out wandering around at the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge.
He claimed that David Nobling and Robin Edwards were outside
the truck when he arrived. It seems a little unlikely
because it was supposed to be a drizzly kind of
cold evening, so that seems unlikely. He claims that he
got into the truck and went through David's wallet and
stole some small amount of money that was in his wallet.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Reader seems to have made a real effort to put
himself there. I think because he realized that since he
was there and he had opened the cab of the
truck and climbed on board, that he likely would have
left fingerprints, and so I think he was sort of
looking for a cover story as to exactly what was
he doing in David Noblings for Ranger pickup truck. Reader,
by the way, ends up dying under kind of mysterious
circumstances a couple of years later, in what appears to
be an autoerotic asphyxiation incident. I was about to call
it an accident, but I'm not sure. He supposedly he
hung himself and was found dead in his garage. Apparently
there were you know, there was pornography there. And the
idea with autoerotic asphyxiation is that people, typically men, will
masturbate and will actually hang themselves, at least partially. The
idea is to cut off the flow of oxygen and
it's supposed to intensify the pleasure felt by.
Speaker 5: An an individual.
Speaker 2: Some people may remember Michael Hutchins, the lead singer of
In Excess. They had said that that had possibly been
how he had ended up killing himself. So the question is,
did reader kill himself? Did someone kill him in stage
it to look like autoerotic asphyxiation.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've gone into such an in depth
description of how this all works. And you look kind
of slightly pink faced.
Speaker 3: I did not expect that to be a thing that
we got into today. Yeah, I mean, nothing that you
said is wrong. I just don't think I ever expected
to hear that explanation. I mean, out of my podcast
partner's health. And also, but thank you for the music
trivia as well. I actually did not know that about
Michael Watchins.
Speaker 2: Remember we were talking last episode about the radio and
the possibility that a radio from the Gloucester County Sheriff's
Department was discarded after possibly having a connection to this case.
It's like the Samuel Reader incident that ended his life.
I realize there's all kinds of stuff that I am
aware of in this case that it just seems to
go on for days.
Speaker 3: It is one of those things where I kind of
have to be careful sometimes when I'm talking to people
who are asking about the case. What am I not
supposed to know that I'm not supposed to tell?
Speaker 4: Man? What is it okay to tell people?
Speaker 3: I feel like I may need to start keeping a
list of these things. The Sami Reader story is interesting.
I can see where the Jupiter Entertainment folks felt like
it might have been necessary to mention it because it
was somebody inserting themselves into the investigation. I do think, however,
given our copious knowledge of the case, if you want
to talk about self insertion into the investigation, the better
person to illustrate that point would have been going into
the long and convoluted story of Ron Little and his
security company in Liberty Security. But saying that, like as
I'm saying it to you, I realized that that would
have taken up a whole entire episode, like almost on
its own. So I feel like one of the things
that you have to do with something like this is
you kind of have to pick and choose what are
you going to do for storytelling? And I feel like
the Ron Little episode would have been so pronounced it
would have taken up a ton of airspace.
Speaker 4: Do you kind of agree with that assessment or not?
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, you know, we can have
another discussion about Ron Little at some point. We've discussed
him before in mind of a murder, But you're absolutely right.
You can't even begin to tell the Wrong Little story
without having a pretty decent chunk of time. He's also
now deceased. He died a couple of years ago. That
story in and of itself has lots of fascinating twists
and turns. And I still think it's possible that Ron
Little may be involved in the Colonial Parkway murders, And
certainly I think there's a strong possibility that Ron Little
is involved in the murder of Brian Patten, jur and
Lori and Powell, both of whom worked for Liberty Security,
the security company he owned, or co owned during that timeframe.
Speaker 3: I think that whoever is brave enough to take on
this case next is going to have sort of a
difficult time trying to figure out in a case with
this many twists and turns in rabbit holes, how do
you come up with a coherent narrative. I do like
the fact that what Jupiter Entertainment gave to us with
American Detective is much more coherent than I think I
was hoping to be able to get. Being inside the
messy middle of this case, you and I know how
many people have been looked at, how many people were discarded.
We know how many people have little peripheral connections to this.
Speaker 4: They didn't even get into fred Atwell. There are definitely.
Speaker 3: Things that you have to pick and choose as you
were creating a narrative. I think that whoever takes Thun
the whole entire Colonial Parkway story, they're going to have
to do fred At Well, They're going to have to
do run Little and everything related to it.
Speaker 4: It's a handful.
Speaker 3: I think that the way that they presented it, with
Wilmer being the main suspect because he has been connected
to three cases, is probably the best way that they
could have gone, especially given the time constraints that they had,
they only had two hours. We did have a couple
of people online say they felt like this should have
been longer, and I think we agree with that.
Speaker 2: I mean, the problem is it takes that long to
tell a story this complicated.
Speaker 3: Especially one this complicated that lasts as long as it has.
I really do think that what we have in front
of us right now is a really excellent breakdown of
the case so far. Anything else that you want to
get to before we go back to listener questions.
Speaker 5: You're listening to mind Over Murder.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5: We're back here at mindover Murder.
Speaker 3: So we're back with listener questions. These were provided by
the folks who are on our social media pages for
mind Over Murder and our social media page for the
Colonial Parkway murders. I'm going to start with the first
question from Kelly H. She asks, I'm curious about Bill's
experience with the law enforcement individuals who are introduced on
this show. Are these some of the folks who were
committed to the families and resolving the murders?
Speaker 2: I would say yes, I mean I know Danny Plott
pretty well. I've met him and we've talked numerous times.
I think the world of him. They are some of
the people that we've been very impressed with. I saw
in passing a number of the FBI agents who have
worked this case. Now, once again, the FBI makes a decision,
which I question, to not participate in a show like this.
I mean, Joe Kenda is law enforcement through and through,
and he's not here to make the FBI or the
Virginia State Police or any of the agencies involved look bad.
The FBI, as is typical, and I don't think this
is a smart move on their part. They usually will
not participate in these shows. Now, I did see a
couple of clips. I saw one clip with the late
IRV Wells, who was the Special Agent in charge of
the Colonial Parkway murders investigation in the early stages. He's
someone that I've met with and interviewed, and he's a
wonderful guy. He passed away a couple of years ago.
I wish the FBI and the Virginia State Police would
be more active in participating in these discussions, but they
don't seem to see the upside.
Speaker 3: I think it's important for people who were not as
familiar with the case day in and day out as
we are, to remember that there are a number of
investigative agencies here. We have the FBI, of course, that
is in charge of the Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski
murder as well as the Keith Call and Cassandra Haley
disappearance and murder. Then we have two offices of the
Virginia State Police, one that is in charge of Anna
Maria Phelps and Daniel Lauer, the other that is in
charge of Robin Edwards and David Nobling. And also a
police department in charge of the Terry Howell investigation, which
we later learned was looped in with Wilmer.
Speaker 4: And then we have the Colonial Parkway.
Speaker 3: Murders Task Force, which I think some people might not
be aware even exists. Bill, Can you talk a little
bit about the Colonial Parkway Murders Task Force and Danny Plott,
because I don't think people are maybe familiar with his name.
Speaker 2: I don't think the task force exists at this point.
During the course of the Colonial Parkway Murders, task Force
was put to together primarily of Virginia State Police and
FBI agents who work together cooperatively to try to share
information and improve communication between the agencies, because you have
this bifurcated split case, as you were describing, and that
clearly was a problem, and this was an attempt to
address that. I don't think the task force exists at
this point. I think it was a step forward at
that time to try to improve communication and information sharing.
Speaker 3: Right And for anybody who doesn't know Danny, because I
don't think we've spent a lot of time mentioning him
on the podcast, probably he's glad of that, considering the
way that we slag the FBI on the regular can
you just mention, like who Danny Plott is.
Speaker 2: Danny Plott is a retired Virginia State Police investigator. He
was involved in the investigation of all the Colonial Parkway murders.
Most specifically was on the team that investigated the Robin
Edwards David Nobling murder and the murder of Anna Maria
Phelps and Daniel were those of the two Virginia State
Police investigations.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things that Danny shared on
the documentary that I had no idea about was the
fact that for a while there were male and female
agents put in cars on the parkway to see if
they would be approached by somebody doing the sort of
things that Wilmer was doing, walking up to people approaching them,
you know, maybe posing as a cop. Did you know
that there had been male female teams on the parkway
and that Danny had been a member of those.
Speaker 2: I didn't remember that Danny specifically had been one of
the couples that was out there parking, but yeah, that
was something I was aware of. It's funny how things
will come back to you as the story unfolds on
American Detective and I'll think to myself.
Speaker 5: Oh, yeah, they did do that.
Speaker 2: They did bust some people for peeping Tom kind of activities,
and they did question a lot of people about what
they had seen in her particularly couples. And one of
the things that needs to be made clear the FBI
and the Virginia State Police were aware of the fact
that they had police impersonators on the parkway. They knew
they had people, they weren't sure if it was one
person or multiple people who were harassing couples and pulling
couples over on the parkway. This happened, I would say
without exaggeration. Dozens of times they thought there might be
a connection between those police impersonators and the Colonial Parkway
murders as they unfolded. I think they may be right,
because certainly Wilmer moved on to the radar the FBI
within days of the disappearance of Keith Colin Cassandra Haley,
and of course that very distinctive truck that Wilmer was
driving resulted in them finding him, questioning him about the
disappearance of Keith Colin Cassandra Haley, and then ultimately being
polygraphed as they covered on American.
Speaker 3: Detat before we get two questions about wilmer host mortem
and the investigation into Wilmer. And it's not like the
FBI is cluing us in on the regular as to
what's happening. I do want to make sure that we
acknowledge the fact that the case has not been solved yet.
There were a number of people who commented on our
social media that they felt that the implication by the
end of the episode was that Alan Wade Wilmer Senior
had been proven to be the person responsible for all
of the cases. We're here to remind you that is
not true. He has been linked via DNA to Robin Edwards,
David Nobling, and Teresa Howell. He has not been linked
by DNA to anyone else. There are still three cases
that need to be solved, Thomas Dawski, Al Haley and Phelpslower.
So please, we don't want people to think that this
is solved.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 2: If I have a criticism of the show, that's my
strongest criticism. There are a couple of minor errors of fact,
as we talked about last time. My biggest concern is
that I do not think you can say that Alan
Wade Wilmer Senior committed the Colonial Parkway murders. We don't
have proof of that. And as I've said on social
media and I will continue to say, the FBI and
the Virginia State Police have a lot more work to
do in this case. These other cases are not solved.
We've solved one of the Colonial Parkway murders, Robin Edwards
and David Nobling. As you mentioned, we've also discovered via
DNA testing that Wilmer is responsible for the Teresa.
Speaker 5: Howell rape murder.
Speaker 2: The rest of this case is still open and there's
a lot more work that needs to be done. I
will push back strenuously on the idea that Wilmer is
responsible for all of the double homicides and the Colonial
Parkway murders. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's easy for people to say that
if he did one, he must have done them all.
But that's slipshod and that's not giving the families the
kind of information And dare I say it, Dare I
use the word closure that they deserve. We all know
there's no such thing as closure, but that's the best
thing I can think of right at the moment. Is
it easier to go with the assumption that probably Wilmer
did all of them? Yeah, that's easier, But is it
the truth not that we're aware of until we have
DNA to prove it. I agree with you one hundred percent.
We cannot say that the case has been solved. And
that also means that the Virginia State Police and the
FBI still need to be looking at other single homicides
that occurred around that same time period, like Laran Powell,
Brian Pattinger, and there are several others. Mary Kay's are
harding up in Lancaster County if you've been to any
of our live events last year, you saw that we
had a great deal of people who were interested in
the idea that Wilmer may have been committing crimes up
there as well as down here. I don't think that's
something that the can reasonably ignore.
Speaker 4: Chew that in.
Speaker 3: We also want to encourage anybody who has any information
about Wilmer to please make sure that you call the
FBI tip line at one eight hundred call FBI, email
tips to www dot tips dot FBI dot gov, or
questions at vsp dot Virginia dot gov. Very very very
very important that you continue sending in that information. There
is still so much we do not know about Wilmer,
and so to that in, we're going to answer as
many questions of these from our listeners as we can,
but please keep in mind that there's not a lot
that we know, but we'll try. Okay, So, the first
question from Heather l is this, why wasn't Wilmer's body
found sooner? Why was he so decomposed? Was he estranged
from his family?
Speaker 2: The answer is Wilmer was very estranged from his family.
He was divorced, he had two grown kids, He was
very much on the outs with his family. He would
occasionally see his ex wife. She actually delivered his mails.
Speaker 5: She was a postal worker.
Speaker 2: They would see each other, but sometimes not for weeks
at a time. He died around Christmas time. They think
he was at home, dead in his bed of natural
causes for perhaps as long as four weeks, which is
why his body was in such a state of advanced decomposition.
He was very much estranged from his family. It's a
sad way to die. I think I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 3: Heather also follows up with the second question, Has Wilmer's
family brought forth any information that will aid in the investigation.
Speaker 2: The answer is yes. We had a very interesting thing
to develop over the last year or so, one of
which was my phone started ringing shortly after the announcement
of the identification of the late Alan Wade Wilmer Senior
as the killer of Robin Edwards and David Nobling linked
via DNA, also the fact that he had been linked
via DNA to the Hampton murder of Teresa Howell, which
was being investigated by the Hampton Police Department. My phone
started ringing with strange numbers. I like a lot of
people screening my calls to a certain extent, and I
typically won't take a call from someone I don't know. However,
I started making an exception because I started getting a
lot of calls from people in Virginia, and I thought
to myself.
Speaker 5: Maybe I should talk to these people.
Speaker 2: So I started getting calls from family members that were
members of the Wilmer family, and they were very polite.
They were a little tentative at first, you know, kind
of a you don't know me, but my name is
so and so. Now once people started identifying themselves, I
was more than willing to talk to them. They were
polite and respectful. They were members of Wilmer's family. They
were mortified by what had happened, and I ended up
having lengthy conversations with them about Alan Wade Wilmer, who
was their relatives. Now this is a shocking situation, cuation
for them to find themselves in as well. And remember
I have no issue with Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior's family members,
and if anything, they were trying to help. They did
do the interviews with the FBI and the Virginia State Police.
Those that were asked to provided DNA samples, so they
did try to cooperate. One of the things that I
found frustrating, and now I'm able to laugh a bit
more about it a year has gone by, is that
they told me that they had been told over and
over again by the FBI don't talk to Bill Thomas.
Of course, I'm filling in a few blanks here, but
after this came up three four, five times, I'm not joking.
I actually said to our FBI agent, you know this
whole don't talk to Bill Thomas thing. It isn't working
because these people are calling me. I'm sure their initial
reaction was probably something along the lines of who the
heck is Bill Thomas? And then and they told me this,
Then they started doing some research themselves. Who the heck
is Bill Thomas? Then they started listening to Mind over Murder.
They realized who Kristin Dilly and Bill Thomas are. And
one of the things they said to me was, it's
very clear that you and Kristin are doing your best
to put out correct information about this case and to
answer questions about this case. Remember, they had a lot
of questions themselves, and just like I've commented on here
on the podcast, the FBI and to a lesser extent,
The Virginia State Police are not good about answering questions.
So for members of the Wilmer family who had lots
and lots of questions and really had no inkling that
their ex husband, father, uncle, you name it, was a
serial killer, he didn't display those kind of behaviors or
behave in any kind of suspicious way. And there is
some physical distance between Lancaster, Virginia, where he's from, and
the Hampton and surrounding towns area of the peninsula near
where the Colonial Park ray merge had happened. There's several
hours distance, and one of the family members said to me,
I almost feel like there's two Allen's. The Allen we
all knew up in Lancaster County and they always talked
about him as being down in Hampton in that area.
This don't talk to Bill Thomas thing. If the FBI
in particular wants to play these games and tell people
not to talk to me, all I could say is
it's not working. So they've come forward and they've been very,
very straightforward. They've tried to answer questions for me. They've
asked Kristen and me a ton of questions and We've
tried to answer their questions because they have a right
to know, just like anybody else, and they have to
live through the shock of being told that their relative
is here real killer.
Speaker 3: This idea of there being the you know, Wilmer up
in Lancaster County the Wilmer down in Hampton, it really
is sort of a doctor Jekyl mister Hyde mentality here,
and it's one that you also see with Demis Rader,
the BTK killer. I was listening to the really excellent
Monster BTK podcast that's put out by our friends at
Tenderfoot TV. They did a really excellent job, you know,
sort of illustrating this fact that serial killers really can
compartmentalize and they can be two separate people. It sounds like,
based on what these friends and acquaintances have told us,
that Wilmer really was a very separate person up there
from what he was down here. Apparently is just not
that unusual for there to be this kind of compartmentalization.
So a couple of other people have asked this question.
Chrissy as asked our family members talking about Wilmer Laura
and asked, have there been interviews with friends or acquaintances
since his name was released last year, and so the
answer to all of those is yes, and they have
been really very helpful and cooperative because this is, as
Bill said, it's a.
Speaker 4: Terrible shock to them.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't even imagine what it must be
like to wake up one day and realize that the
person that you thought you knew you had no idea
whatsoever what they were actually like. I can't even imagine.
I just mentioned Laura Ann, So let me ask one
more question from Laura Ann. Laura Ann asks it was
eluded in the documentary that Wilmer was part of a
local hunt club when they were talking about the New
Kent case. Do we know if he was a member
of the New Kent Hunt Club because Blaine Pardo indicated
that they couldn't actually.
Speaker 4: Be sure of that. Do we know, yes, Has it
been confirmed he was a member or no?
Speaker 2: I think Blaine is correct. I don't think that's ever
been confirmed. Alan Wade Wilmer, Senior was a crack shot
and an expert bowman, and he had actually won on
all sorts of competitions and was considered the sort of
guy that could go out into the woods and survive
hunting and fishing, so he definitely knew his way around.
He appears to have been a member of some other
hunt clubs up closer to Lancaster, where he's from. They've
not found any direct connection to the New Kent Hunt
Club where Anna, Maria Phelps and Daniel Lawer's bodies were found.
Speaker 3: Next question is from Joanne b. Joanne asks was Wilmer's
property ever searched by cadaver dogs. I think this is
an excellent question.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think it's a little unlikely
that Wilmer would have moved bodies. I assume we're talking
about Keith Colin Cassandra Haley, several hours up to Lancaster
County where he's from. I just think that seems extremely unlikely. Now,
could they have searched his property with cadaver dogs. I'm
not a where that they ever have. I think it's
a great idea, although I do think it's unlikely that
there are any bodies at that location. Although I guess
it depends on if Wilmer killed other individuals, maybe that
isn't so far fetched.
Speaker 3: I think that if you've got a great way to
dispose of bodies the river and then eventually the ocean,
you would not be moving bodies up to your own
location in Lancaster, it is.
Speaker 4: It's an excellent question.
Speaker 3: Debbie are one of our crack research assistants who is
amazing and wonderful and with whom we could not do
this job without. Along with her bestie Nancy Asks, who
cleaned out Wilmer's house and boat after he died.
Speaker 2: The family themselves, the Wilmers cleaned out the house after
he died.
Speaker 3: Chrissy followed up with did Wilmer actually burn his boat?
Speaker 2: For I did burn his boat. I find this very
very strange. The Denny Way. His boat was a.
Speaker 5: Wooden huled work boat.
Speaker 2: It was in his yard on a trailer for a
number of years after he got out of being a
waterman and had moved into mostly focusing on his tree business.
I find that idea that he burned his boat, which
the FBI did confirm to me. I find this very
very strange, and I can't help but think. You know,
we talked about this in the last episode about the
disappearance of Keith Coloncussander Haley and finding Keith's car along
the York River, and then the dogs tracking their scent
down to the edge of the water. I can't help
but think that perhaps later in life Wilmer thought to himself,
I'm going to destroy the Denny Wade and any evidence
that would have been contained on that boat, because I
could easily see if Wilmer is involved in the disappearance
of Keith Cloncussander Haley, he might have either placed them
on board the boat living or dead. And then later
realized as DNA became more advanced, perhaps he was more
cautious as a grow older that burning the Danny Wade
his boat was a smart move.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of my very good friends, who comes from a
whole family of waterman, when I spoke to him about
this case, he's very interested in it. He's followed it
for years as well. He wanted to see one of
the pictures of the Denny Wade and I showed it
to him, and he said, there is no way anybody
with any amount of common sense would burn a boat
like that. He said that it's too precious, you wouldn't
do that. He goes, so, if he burned it, there's
a reason why he burned it. He fully buys into
the idea that something was on that boat evidence of
some variety, and that was the reason that Wilmer would
have burned it because I trust my friend's judgment.
Speaker 4: I one hundred percent believed that.
Speaker 3: Another one from Debbie is where was Wilmer living and
working between nineteen eighty nine and twenty seventeen. She says
she doesn't think he's top killing for all of those years,
and I tend to agree with that. So what do
we know about Wilmer and he was living and working?
Speaker 2: I don't know if I know a great detailed timeline.
I know that when there were problems on the Chesapeake
Bay and the catch available to watermen was greatly declining
because of pollution and runoff, I know there was the
whole Save the Bay effort. The greatly diminished crab, oyster
and fishing catch that was available drove a lot of
people like Wilmer out of the business of being watermen,
and he transitioned over to his tree business. I think
for a good portion of that time he was back
living at his family home in Lancaster County. I don't
know if I can give you it, like exact dates
or anything like that, but this is something that the
FBI and the Virginia State Police did take a look.
Speaker 3: At see and I think that this is the sort
of thing that citizen sleuths and citizen detectives would be
quite good at trying to figure out. You know, I'd
love to be able to crowdsource some information on where
exactly was Wilmer from eighty nine to twenty seventeen. Where
was this guy, who was he talking to, where was
he working from, who was he socializing with? Again, we
do encourage anybody who can fill in those blanks. If
you were buddies with Wilmer between eighty nine and twenty seventeen,
if you were working with him, living near him, if
you were associating with him, if you were having drinks
with him at a bar or something like that, please
reach out either.
Speaker 4: To us, to the FBI, to the VSP.
Speaker 3: There is still so much about this guy that we
don't know, and we need to be able to put
those things together. So if you have information, please reach out.
We appreciate it. We still have a lot that we
need to cover on American detective and questions about Wilmer
and the rest of these cases in general. So we
will come back to all of these questions at a
later date. But thank you to everybody who has watched
so far, who was commented, who has listened, who has
asked questions. We really appreciate you, and we do encourage
you to get the word out to family, friends than
everybody who's interested in this case, Please do watch American Detective,
like or follow our Facebook pages, and of course listen
to the podcast that's going to do it. For this
episode of mind Over Murder. Thank you so much for listening.
We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 5: Our theme music is by Kevin McCloud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
Murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder about