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 a special crossover episode of Cold Red and
Mindover Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly, co host of Mindover Murder
along with my co.
Speaker 4: Host Bill Thomas from Mindover Murder.
Speaker 5: Well, welcome back to another episode of Cold Redden. I'm
Ray karm with me always is Fits Fits. How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm great, especially with our good friends Bill and Kristen
doing this special crossover episode about a case it's very
important to them. We thought let's just do it together,
and we're doing it live when the cold red and so, folks,
thanks for being with us, and why don't you and
Bill walk us through some new developments in the very
well known case of Colonial park murders. And of course,
as a reminder to our listeners, Bill's sister was a
victim of this serial killer. But some new evidence has
come up, some new information. Why don't you kind of
give a quick summary of the case and we'll get
into you have some questions from me and Ray I know,
and we'll do our best to answer them for you.
Hik good away, Kristin.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: The Colonial Parkway murders are a series of what we
first thought were double homicides, but have expanded since then
to include ten victims that took place in Virginia from
nineteen eighty six to nineteen eighty nine and now possibly
beyond that. The original victims were Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski,
bill sister and her girlfriend, as well as David Noveling
and Robin Edwards, Keith coll and Cassandra Hailey, Daniel Phelps
I'm sorry, Daniel Lower and Anna Maria Phelps, and then
two recently discovered victims, Terry Lynn spa Hal and Laurie
Ann Powell. About ten days ago, Laurie Ann Powell was
revealed to be linked to serial killer Alan Wade Wilmer
via DNA, and our case has suddenly expanded much further
than we had originally thought. And so when that case
break happened, I wrote to Fits, our favorite profiling collaborator,
to ask if he and Ray would be willing to
answer some profiling questions for us on Alan Wade Wilmer Senior,
our suspect, and Fits very kindly said yes he would.
Speaker 6: Bill, did I.
Speaker 3: Leave anything out or was it a enough summary?
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's a great summary. One thing I would add,
you've mentioned ten ten victims, four of whom now have
been linked via DNA to our deceased suspect, Alan Wade Wilmer.
He's a waterman from Lancaster County, Virginia. So we're confirmed
now with four victims, and then the other six we're
still trying to see if we can connect Wilmer or
other suspects to their murders. So we've got six kind
of open cases and four. Law enforcement seems to be
avoiding the use of the term closed but at least
linked to Wilmer is probably a fair way to put that.
Maybe our two longtime FBI agents can clue us into
what the right lingo is.
Speaker 6: Well, I think, Kriston, you emailed me some interesting questions
and valid questions, and I think why walking through them,
we can you know, answer a lot of things that
there may be some listeners out there that's brand new
to this and obviously your veteran listeners will know a
lot more about this case. And we've had you on
pauled Red, both of you, and we've been on of
course Mind over Murder. So I guess just ask away
the questions right, anything before we kick in about the case.
Speaker 5: No, no, I've also had a chance to look at
those same questions, so whenever you're.
Speaker 3: Ready, Christen, Okay, So our first question, just in the
four victims that Wilmer has been linked to, we have
three different types of weapons, a gun, strangulation, and stabbing.
In your experience, do serial killers typically stick with one
method of killing like cent of Sam in the twenty
two or are they more likely to vary like Wilmer
seems too.
Speaker 6: I'll start with that there are times when serial killers
will vary. That's part of their modus barandai that can change.
What usually doesn't change is their signature behavior, and that
is their particular choice of victims, which can alter slightly
depending on what and who they come upon in terms
of opportunity and convenience. But someone like Wilmer, who may
have been traveling, he may have been in the hunting mode.
And I think I said when we were with you
before he was an apex predator. This guy was looking
and searching his waterway areas for his victims all the time.
He may have had his gun with him on some occasions,
other times he didn't, and he came upon someone and said, oh,
I have my knife in the back, I can use that.
Or sometimes if he sizes him up, sees maybe two
women that couldn't put up quite the fight that maybe
some mended. He just used his hands or other less
lethal type opportune weapons. So it is not unusual for
serial killers to in fact utilize different weapons. Certainly from
my experience right.
Speaker 5: Now, I kind of agree with Jim. There's really no
single rule here. Some serial fenders are extremely consistent with
their remo, for example, choice of weapon or how they
approach the individuals, but most methods serve a practical purpose
as part of their fantasy, and a lot of times
they vary because of situational situations or developmental reasons. For instance,
it could be victim of resistance, it could be opportunity,
it could be their access to weapons or even experimentation.
When you look at a lot of serial killers, okay,
there's a variation in their mo is not rare so
in actuality. When you look at Wilmer's use of a gunshot,
strangulation and stabbing, and it's linked to these victims, It's
not a typical if you expect something identical when you're
looking at the signature every time, but it's really within
the range of behavior that serial fenders actually act, especially
when you look at different victim contextas in this situation
couples versus long victims, location, and whether sexual assault even occurred.
Speaker 4: One thing that's worth noting with Wilmer as well is
that we know a fair amount is about his background.
He died in twenty seventeen. He's a waterman, he's expert
on the water, and this area of Virginia is just
surrounded by these beautiful rivers and inlets, and of course
the Chesapeake Bay. He's also a crack shot, and he's
actually a championship archer, so he has great skills, even
winning archery competitions. He's a hunter. He is known to
go out and live in the woods for days or
even weeks at a time when he has time off,
killing and eating his own food. So he really knows
his way around the woods, the water, and the use
of weapons.
Speaker 6: And quite frankly human beings, where the ultimate prey for him,
and whether he had the exact weapons he wanted. And
let's face it was a crowded envin I mean, I
won't say I know he didn't he didn't do these
things in the inner city or in crowded areas, but
maybe there was a car within twenty or you know,
two hundred feet or a half mile, and he just said, hey,
I like these victims here for my own purposes, but
a gun would attract attention to me, so tonight I'm
not going to use the gun. So it could be
a very utilitarian and his ray said sort of environmentally
oriented in terms of what's in his environment at the time.
He also may have a police interaction. I know we're
going to come to that a little bit later, where
that if they find him with a gun, you know,
it could be all kinds of problems for him. So
he sort of morphs after that interaction with the with
law enforcement and decides not to carry the gun anymore,
or he just has you know, rope or wire or
or certainly a knife sharp instrument of some point. And
and that is once again this apex predator. He knows
how to alter his hunting style to get across and
just on me if I didn't explain it early on
modus operon diets method of operations, the Latin term that
is how a crime is carried out successfully. Signature behavior
is usually a need driven behavior, usually sexually oriented. And
these are the fetishes the pyrophilias that someone has within them.
There it's okay to have a fetish or paraphilia if
you're on your own, do your own thing, or with
a consensual adult, But when you do it forcefully with
someone else, that's of course where you know the law
is broken and bad things happen, and that's the difference.
So if someone like Wilmer has these sort of fetishes paraphilias,
that's part of his signature. Behavior and the strangulation. And
I hate to get graphic like this, you know, with
Bill right on us, but actually watching someone's life fade
away from them, as bizarre as it sounds, that's part
of his sexual satisfaction and what frills him. And that's
part of the signature behavior that doesn't change as much
m o Ken for various reasons. And we see it
all the time in serial offenders.
Speaker 5: You know. And I'll just add this one last piece piece.
There's not a real big jump here from how he
hunted animals to how he hunted humans. Yes, there's exactly
a big jump here.
Speaker 4: So I just returned from Virginia and I was with
Kristin and we met with several new people who have
potentially some very interesting leads. But one of the things
that we talked about, Kristin and I was that this
almost begins to feel like hunting behavior, like we would
think of, like you're saying, Ray hunting animals, but this
might be people as prey. I know it's very disturbing
for me and probably for Kristen too, but it is
something that we've it sort of bubbled up in conversation
over the weekend meeting with these folks. Sure.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's been interesting is watching sort
of the evolution of this case as more victims have
come to light. So like Fits and Ray, when I
first met you, we only had the eight victims that
were part of the Colonial Parkway murders. But in the
last two years, Terry Lynn Howell has been another confirmed victim,
and now Laurie and Powell as well, And so with
the two of them, we now have confirmation that Wilmer
was sexually assaulting multiple victims. When it was just the eight,
it seemed like Robin Edwards was just the one off
because she was the only one of the victims that
we could tell had been sexually assaulted. But now it
becomes apparent that Wilmer assaulted all of the women that
he has been tied to. So my question for you
guys is does this mean that when he was out
hunting couples, his focus was likely on the women as
opposed to being on the men.
Speaker 7: Jim want me to go here, now you go first?
Speaker 6: This time? Go ahead.
Speaker 5: You know, when you look at if he's sexually assault
a woman, what does that mean? Was he hunting women
rather than men? Sexual assault of a female victims strongly indicates,
at least in my mind, that sexual motivation and control
of a woman was a key element and at least
some of these murders. When couples are targeted, the offender's
primary victim can be the women, whether that's a sexual
fantasy or a control aspect of it, but while the
male partner is killed to either eliminate a witness or
eliminate an obstacle. This pattern fits many cases that we've
seen in the past, Jim and I, where couples will
target it for sexual assault and assault is only present
on one of the partners. The presence of sexual assault
on multiple women regarding Wilmer has been leaked and supports
that women were his focal point of his predatory behavior
even when he attacked couples. The men just happen to
be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I would just add that this is not
all that unusual of a sexual predator. Is one of
the prow and he's good at what he does. And
I hate putting it in those terms, but he's experienced,
he gets better each time he undertakes one of these acts.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: You know, a couple, even with a man in there,
who of course could put up more of a fight.
Just adds to the challenge, just adds to the excitation.
And look, this Wilmer isn't isn't alone in this in
this area. You mentioned son of Sam earlier. He went
after couples. Israel Keys was known to go after couples.
I lived in Florence, Italy for about four months, and
I was very aware of the Monster of Florence through
the late the eighties, who killed all couples I think,
uh straight gay, I mean all combinations there. So and
that's just you know, three of them. Other you know,
Richard spec went after groups of people. You know, others
did in the Gainesville Killer, I forget his name in
the top of my head, but in Gainesville, Florida, the university.
So yeah, so this is not unusual and it just
adds to the overall thrill of the hunt. Quite frankly,
the sexual release at the end could almost be like
secondary or tertiary and importance to some of these guys.
It's about the control that takes place first and the
manifestation of the power that he has over not just
one but two people. And that's just all part of
the signature behavior of this guy, which I described earlier,
and he gets good at it. He knows how to
control the mails. You take them out first, or threaten
them first, if you tie them up. That's what I
always tell people. I've told them from my earliest days
in the FBI. If you're in a room somewhere in
your car and someone comes up to you with a
gun a weapon and he starts to bind your arms
and legs, fight, You're probably going to be dead afterwards.
Don't let them tie you up. And it's worth at
least getting a punch to this guy's head or kicking
them or something. And I don't know exactly in all
the Colonial Parkway murder cases, but if there's ligatures involved
in terms of tying someone up, I know he's real
keys to that. In others, that's when you just say,
you know, dude, if I want to die, I'm going
to die. Punching you out or trying to get your
gun off you, something like that.
Speaker 4: There are ligatures used in some of the Colonial Parkway murders.
And I know in Kathy and Becky's incident, which is
the first and the only lesbian couple, Kathy really struggled
with this with this man and ended up with hair
in her hand which was shown to be in evidence
at autopsy. I still have never gotten a straight answer
as to what has happened with the testing of the hair,
but there was a struggle in that example. And it
does appear that ligatures were used several times in the
Colonial Parkway murders. Do you think the gun is which
shows up with one of the couples, Robin Edwards and
David Nobling weren't shot. Do you think I think the
gun may be used in the early stages to establish
control and then it's put aside. Or do you think
he's varying his techniques.
Speaker 5: I think in my estimation, he's absolutely It's very possible
he's absolutely varying his techniques. But his initial his initial
crime was a lot that he didn't have the confidence
to be able to do or what he needed to do,
and the gun gave him that confidence. And as he
gained confidence, he kind of pulled away from those things.
But when you look at at the at the ligatures,
I think most of the ligatures and I don't know,
but I would bet that most of the ligatures were
used as a control method, especially if you're dealing with
two people, rather than as part of the act of
what he was doing. But I think as he gained
in and Jim talked about this, the more of these
offenses he committed. As he went, he became better educated,
he became smarter, he became stronger in his ability to
do things, became wiser, and a lot of times he
didn't need things because he knew exactly what they do.
He knew exactly how people were going to react to him,
and that's how he was able to be successful throughout
that period of time that he actually committed these crimes.
Speaker 6: You know, I always offer investigators too about serial cases.
It could be serial bank robber, for cerial bomber, killer,
in this case, rapist. The first crime, and that's the
tricky part. We don't always know what is the first crime.
The first reported crime is the only one that we
can go on. That is where most of the evidence
and most of the behavior will be closest linked to
the offender geographically, behaviorally, forensically. That's where the person is.
If it is in fact the first offense, that'll tell
us most about that individual, the area of familiarity, their
comfort zone, not to mention how they go about approaching victims.
Are they, you know, smooth talkers like a bunch? Are
they blitzers like it sounds like Wilmer was, And that
tells us a lot. And I even helped solve a
few serial bank robbery cases by saying.
Speaker 8: Let's go back.
Speaker 6: All right, you have ten robberies. Okay, let's go back
to the first one. That's where most of your evidence
is going to be. It may or not be fingerprints
or DNA, but there'll be some other behavioral characteristics. And
in many cases it's the evidence of that scene, a
car stop afterwards, traffic ticket or parking ticket that was
issued that can help solve that particular case. So so yeah,
the first offense of any prime and rate kind of
summarize it nicely, Wash, that's you know, that's gonna that's
when they're kind of experimenting, trying, and they need to
build from there, and whatever works, they they only improve
upon that.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you, guys, And I got to tell you something.
What Jim said is so fricking truth. And I'll tell
you that I remember being on the job in the
bureau work in a bank robbery case and this guy
had hit fifteen times.
Speaker 4: We go back.
Speaker 5: I said, let's go back to the very first robbery.
We go back to the very first robbery. He lived
two blocks from the very first bank robbery, and then
as he became confident, he moved away from that initial
comfort area that he was in. But most of these guys,
when they do the commit the very first act, they
want to make sure that they have an egress and
they want to be able to get away with it,
otherwise why do it. So they're going to make sure
they're very comfortable and where they're doing it at. So
Jim is so so right in that to be able
to look at the very first area that you want
to look at. There great point.
Speaker 3: Hilly brings us to my next question. I'm so glad
you transitioned to it for me, Ray, thank you. So
with the confirmation of Lorian Powell as another victim connected
to Wilmer via DNA, this extends Wilmer's hunting grounds out.
We know he was hunting on the Colonial Parkway, we
know he was hunting Ragged Island, and now we know
he was hunting across the river in Gloucester. So would
we learn anything more about Wilmer by doing geobgraphic profiling.
Now that we have several areas where we know he
hunted and dumped bodies.
Speaker 6: The quick answer is yes, I know the Canadian law
enforcement officer who actually invented geographic profiling and he's taught
it over the years, and uh, it's you know, it's
an it's an arrow in the quiver of investigators. And
if you do have three or more incidents events that
you can pinpoint to certain geographic areas on a map
with GPS and getting you know, longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates
and all, it's it's much easier. They really can come
up with a very solid central zone that is considered
the comfort zone of the offender. It may not be
where they're living an exact time of the offenses, but
it certainly could tie into where they work, where they
used to live, or have a strong, you know, familial
connection to that area. Yeah. So geographic profiling has certainly
worked in the past for people I know. And the
simple version of it, you can take an old fashioned
compass that used to have in grade school with a
pencil on one end and you just do a circle,
maybe like the mages and every instant, you do a
circle around it. It's more scientific with the folks who
do this full time, but you really just put all
those circles together and then you shade in the spot
in that it is a conjunction for all of them.
And that's a place where you want to spend some
time looking at suspects. And doesn't mean you can go
do or door, but you come up with ten suspects,
one of them lives or used to live in that
shaded area. That's who you prioritize at that point in time.
So I don't know how it would work out for Wilmer.
You know, I don't have all that information here, but
I and we feel, you know, at this time it
will be good experiment if you will, or research for
someone who does that kind of work to in fact
test it out with Wilmer and see if that central
area wherever it is, is some area that would be
his base of operations either present or past.
Speaker 4: One interesting development with Wilmer. Now he's a waterman and
he has a boat which he uses for crabbing, oystering, fishing, etc.
But it's the type of boat that actually has a
very shallow draft. In other words, it doesn't extend that
far down into the water. So from what we're hearing
from other watermen is that that boat could actually get
as close in as water that was only a foot
and a half or two feet deep, so he could
get quite close to the shore. We think sometimes he's
using is very distinctive truck, which was one of the
things that the FBI was looking for at the time
of the first incidents. But now we realize that he's
using we think both the truck and the boat. And
as I mentioned this area, which Kristin knows very well
because she grew up there, there's just a tremendous amount
of water there with all these rivers, creeks and inlets.
So do you think the profiling thing would still work?
Keeping in mind we might actually end up with a
central circle that could be in the middle of the water.
Speaker 5: Yes, I do. And you know, with a lot of
the same things that Jim talked about, you have to
remember when you have multiple confirmed crime locations like an
attack site, dump site, sightings of his vehicle, maybe where
he went hunting. When you have that giving you a
pattern of movements and that can point at can point
investigators to look for locations that have often been overlooked,
like where he fished storage sheds. I don't know roots
between sites maybe, but knowing that he had ties to
the wadaways and the marina and even his vehicle, I
think that that helps refine about his comfort zone and
his mobility. And that's going to the worst thing it's
going to do is going to generate investigative leads. It's
going to make you come up with witnesses, owners of
specific slips, fuel purchases, all these different things. And this
is a standard technique that investigators would love to be
able to have that information when they use that spatial
data point information because that I'll tell you, I've seen
it work in real life. I've seen it work when
you have an abduction of a child and we use
the same type of thing when we look at offenders.
It's a little bit different, but it's the same kind
of context and it really does bring it home and
it closes it very quickly for investigators. It really does.
Speaker 3: We're just curious, are there other serial offenders that you're
aware of who've used boats to dump bodies? Is this
unique to Wilmer?
Speaker 7: No, it's a mob.
Speaker 6: I mean the mob would put people in the water.
Who's the guy that killed his pregnant wife in California?
Speaker 3: Scott Peterson.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he used a beer sumter there and.
Speaker 5: Joe Rifkin, Joe Rifkin did it and he murdered seventeen women,
disposed of several of them in the Long Island waterways Okay,
Hudson River and the East River Jim Okay, Gary Ridgway,
the Green River killer. You look at him.
Speaker 6: Did he have a boat or just put him in
the water.
Speaker 7: He had boat.
Speaker 5: He used a boat from what I understand. Uh, come
victims in rivers and even water filled ravines.
Speaker 6: You know, if you're a if you drive a cement
truck for a living, and you're a serial killer, you're
going to put your bodies in a in a fresh
hall where the cement goes on top. If you're a
grave digger, and we've known cases, you sneak a body in,
you know, before the casket goes in the next day.
And that's one way if you're a serial killer of
getting rid of that body. If you're if you own
a wood chipping business, I'm not going to get grab
holding him out like he's ready to. I'm Fargo, the
movie Bargo. Yeah, So the bottom line is what is
convenient for you, uh, in terms of any sort of
method of disposing of a body, you will utilize. And
this guy had a boat and h and he took
it and that was an easy way for him to
do that. And you know, it always helps in committing
a crime. It's one thing killing someone. Leaving the body there,
everyone then knows it's a murder. If you can somehow
dispose of a body and dispose of it, well, right,
then could it just be a missing person? And of
course that's always a possibility, and then you have no
and you have no forensic evidence at the scene of
the body. So that's that's always the ideal way to
do it. And I think everyone has that on their mind.
And there's been studies. Is it a shallow grave, is
it a deep grave? From the shower of the grave
or the farther way it is from from where the
person was abducted or where they live, could be a
clue whether the offender knew the victim. And there's all
kinds of research going on there. But before we go
away from this, I just want to give a shout
out to Kim Rossmo. He's one of our fellow profiles,
profilers in the international the profiling group to which we belong,
and he's the one that came up with the gig
graphic profiling uh many years ago, and there's now software
you can purchase whatich utilizes his formula, and I'm not
sure it's it's authorized and the courts or not, just
like profiling isn't like a polygraph isn't, but it's a
great investigative tool to narrow that suspect pool to uh
uh to uh, you know, try to notify when names
do come up. Hey, this guy matches the profile, the
geographic profile, and he flunked a polygraph. Let's focus on
him and you can't use that evidence in court. But
then you do the evidence after that fact, and you
can get it from there right uh.
Speaker 4: In the Small World department, we've worked with another Canadian,
Doug McGregor, who studied with Kim Rossmo and went to school,
you know, and and trained with him. And he has
talked quite a bit about Kim Rossmo and all the
things he's learned from him. And even as we were
talking a few minutes ago, I thought to myself, with
all this new information that Kristin and I are developing,
I think another conference call with our friend Doug has
probably called for. I know he listens to Mind over Murder,
so he may hear it talking about him, but in
a nice way, you know.
Speaker 5: I just want to add one thing to what Jim
said before you go on, Christen, that Wilmer's use of
his commercial fishing boat and access to multi marinas, you know,
kind of ties into the disposal areas that he had
in these waterways. I mean, look, he's using it for
a number of different reasons. Many offenders have. Water is
use of destroy trace evidence. A lot of times, the
moving currents have a tendency to disperse or even relocate remains.
And Bill, when you said that he was able to
get into sponse at one or two feet of water,
it leaves me say, well, yes, he has access to
isolated areas that are that are inaccessible by anybody else,
which make perfect dump sites. You know, right, he's familiar,
he's familiar with this, and he's familiar with those areas,
which reduces his risk.
Speaker 4: And interestingly, Alan Wade Wilmer Senior is one of three brothers.
His older brother William Keith Wilmer, who goes by Keith
his middle name. He died at the end of April.
The older brother and Allan, the middle brother, are also
suspected in another homicide of a woman from Lancaster County, Virginia,
where they grew up. A body was found. The victim's
name is Mary Keyser Harding, and she was found in
the Rappahannock River and the two Wilmer brothers are longtime
suspects in that murder, and they believe that she was
raped and her body was placed in the water and
weighted down with chains and weights of a type that
a fisherman or oysterman waterman would use. Now that case
remains unsolved to this day, but the Wilmer's names had
been mentioned repeatedly as potential suspects in that case as well. Yeah, right, so.
Speaker 3: They they they do have they do have kids, and
actually their family has been nothing but helpful. Two investigators
into us, they say, all in the family that was
naming a show, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to be fair to the kids, they were quite
young when all of this horrible stuff was going on.
Alan Wade Wilmer Senior had a daughter and a son,
and I think they were eight and ten at the
time of the Colonial Parkway murders, and as Kristen says,
they are shocked by this, and they the families told
me directly that they almost feel like there were two
Alan Wilmers. There was the man that they knew mostly
up in Lancaster, Virginia, where he's from, and then as
they put it down in Hampton, which is the area
where the Colonial Parkway murders took place, it's almost like
following a divorce from his wife, he moved down to
the Peninsula area of Virginia and had much less contact
with his family. But they've said it almost feels like
there's two Allans. Yeah, very much.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I mean they've they've been wonderful about helping
and collaborating with law enforcement, in with us, and they're
horrified because they had no idea. So, you know, we
we've been I think, really fortunate that they have been
so cooperative, you know, DNA and everything else. But it's
it's so it's so hard to think that. I think
in a lot of ways they're victims too in this.
Speaker 5: You're right that they are their secondary victims. Absolutely.
Speaker 4: One thing we're wondering about this movement back and forth
where Wilmer is killing couples clearly, but he's also attacking individuals.
Is there anything to that? Is that more opportunistic?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, and he's in other words, we think
he's always looking for victims and made me he enjoys
the challenge of attacking a couple, but then he'll shift
over if there's an opportunity to attack a single woman.
Speaker 4: Does that any of that make sense?
Speaker 6: You know, you have to ask with a guy like this,
And I'm not sure how much you know about his
drug or alcoholic intake. You know, was he a drug
abuser or alcoholic? And would depending on his level of
intoxication or or being high, would that somehow lower his
inhibitions even more than they normally are? Would he take
more chances and going after you know, two people or
as opposed to one? And then you know maybe a
man in there too, uh? You know, is he a
situational offender, a preferential offender, an opportunistic offender? And that's
the three you know, basic kind of categories we see
over the years, and non preferential offenders in there too,
where they just you know, it's an old lady one day,
a young kid the next, someone in the middle other times.
But so I think with Wilmer, from what I'm hearing,
it seems like if the opportunity present itself and he
had a little mental checklist, probably wasn't in writing or
a tap of paper. But if you know dark enough,
quiet enough, you know remote enough, no other you know,
witnesses around or potential witnesses, and the victims seemed to
match up, you know, his kind of victim. Whatever that means,
he was going to go for it. He'll take his chances.
I'll tell you what any offender and any person should
know this. If you have the element of surprise as
an offender on your side, that's a big, big advantage.
Plus brings some kind of weapon with you, or at
least have you know, the hand and arm strength that
you can choke someone if you have to. You know
that that does a lot, and that element of surprise
really opens the door. And you know he may have
known how to I remember, as a plane closed police officer,
we're going to make an arrest on someone sitting in
their car, and you know how to look out your rear.
You know, when you're a driver, you look straight back,
and you're outside mirror, and you can look in your
interior mirror. And we knew certain angles to approach the car,
so this guy couldn't see us walking up. I guarantee you.
As Wilmer progressed as he evolved, he knew and I
know it was dark and they may be doing something
else in the car at the time, but he still
would know how to approach that car, most likely from behind.
It's just the right angle. And whether he would open
the door, smash it in, however he would get in,
pretend he's someone else. He's lost. I don't know exactly
what means. You know, he would use to get into
these cars and access these victims. But it could just depend.
And he was you know, no one's saying he's a
dumb guy. And I don't know what his educational level was,
but he certainly had hunting smarts and street smarts, if
you will, even if applied into way you know, more
rural or wooded or even aquatic area, and he just
knew how to succeed. He was he was one of
the best at what he did. And I hate paying
anyone a compliment like this, but we we have to
you know, say what it was.
Speaker 9: And one of the reasons why Wilmer moved on to
the FBI's radar in nineteen eighty eight was when they
were investigating the disappearance of one of these couples.
Speaker 4: In reaching out to couples that were parking along the
Colonial Parkway, which is very beautiful but lonely, no lights,
no no businesses. It's designed to be, to be this
riven of perfect beautiful parkland along these rivers. A number
of couples said that a man matching Wilmer's description and
driving Wilmer's extremely distinctive truck was kind of when you
said blitz attack a minute ago. It sounded like that.
He would suddenly appear at the window, and he was
very aggressive, and he would demand driver's licenses, and he
would tell them you don't belong here, it's dangerous here,
let me see your driver's license. He wasn't dressed as
a cop, but he behaved like a police officer or
law enforcement officer would, and many of these couples said
they complied, they gave him their driver's licenses. Interestingly, he
did not ask for registrations. He only asked for driver's licenses.
And they often gave them gave their driver's licenses up
to Wilmer, and then he would come back later. Now,
obviously these couples survived, otherwise we wouldn't have heard their stories.
But this happened multiple times. Do you think he was
kind of escalating, taking steps closer to the point where
he would actually be willing to engage and hurt these people,
or why would there be so many reports of a
similar man driving a similar vehicle aggressively approaching couples but
then not harming them.
Speaker 5: You know, I think Wilmer and you look at this
type of offender, he had both a sexual and a
control based motive. I maybe not. I don't believe every
single person he came in contact with he killed. I
think there's probably some people early on that were test
stummies and that he did some of those things where
you were able to get this information. But you have
to understand when his gear is towards women, and he's
principally seeking opportunities to assess women, and that could be
either women that are alone or women that are with
a partner. You know, when you target couples, it can
also be a pragmatic choice on the part of the
offender on Wimer's part, like you'll go to places like
lovers lanes, which would be something very similar to what
you just described. And some like offenders like Jim was
talking about, are very selective. They have a preference that's driven,
and others are opportunity opportunistic, but they all act when
the situation matches their needs. And those names can be
the time, the location, the victim, and the vulnerability of
that victim.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: The pattern that you kind of talked about the couples
and individuals with the sexual assaults concentrated on women suggest
a core sexual slash control motivation, uh, combined with opportunity
opportunistic uh selections.
Speaker 3: Uh in this Yeah, I'm taking notes frantically here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And and I do remember I do I have read,
of course enough about this case in our earlier conversations.
Thanks for reminding me though, of of him being you know,
uh uh you know, foe police officer here or some
kind of you know, ranger or whatever he was pretending
to be. But yeah, he's sizing these people up. That's
the whole control thing right there too, even if he's
not uh uh you know, falling through and you know,
actually abducting these people or or you know, holding them,
you know, in his in his possession and then killing them.
So but that was a and who knows what he
did afterwards in the privacy of his truck. If he's
driving that truck up as close as he did, that was,
I know, is very distinctive. And it's coloring and and
uh and words and numbers on the side or the back.
And he said, well, I'm not gonna uh, I'm not
gonna do anything bad to these people, just gonna go
up and kind of play with him. I remember the teenager.
Speaker 7: I don't think I.
Speaker 6: Put this in my first book, but I do remember going.
I do remember going to a lover's lane in Philadelphia
with a young lady and and nothing heavy duty, but
I'll never forget a guy's head up and he's looking
right in the window at us. Yeah, and and this
is it was, you know, spring or summer. What was
the girl's lovers lane? There were cars not too far away.
Speaker 10: Listen, Well, I agree, And the guy who stuck his
head in my window and I said, get the f
out of here.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 6: But and if he uh, if he remembers that part,
so if he's listening. But I was a cop later on,
and there were guys who would we would catch peeping
tom's going into and looking for young equipmen. They wouldn't
always be there to hurt them kill them, but they
got their jolly's just looking in car windows. And that
could be like an early sort of a gateway activity.
But it sounds like Wilma was already killing at that point,
but just kind of regressing at some point and then
and and trying to follow through just this, you know,
kind of the fun thing. So even if the police
officer pulled him over something, well, it wouldn't be that
big of a deal. He's just talking to people, making
sure to tell them, you know, to stay safe whatever.
But it's certainly high risk behavior on his part, and
he certainly made sure that there wouldn't be too many
other people around to see him even doing these things,
which are I'm not sure illegal. If he doesn't identify
themself as a law enforcement alter that's illegal. Whether he
had a fake badge or some kind of id. He
was dressed like a regular guy, you said, maybe like
even a waterman, and and that wouldn't have been very
much uh uh, you know, impressive upon a person seeing him.
So he just had an authority battle. Like I said,
he was really good at what he did and he
knew how to you know, bring in his personality and
his demeanor to to to act of the role.
Speaker 5: And Jim and Jim I had as before you go, Bill,
I have to ask a book one of your four
book episode, you talked about a guy in the park.
Is there any connection between the guy in the park
with you and this guy that came up ah to
the windows.
Speaker 7: I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I didn't know his name, Jim. I wasn't going to
mention his name.
Speaker 6: Harry.
Speaker 5: I thought, you want to mention names. If you didn't
his name, you got to give us a girlfriend's name.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm not going to give them to tell or
park and tell. But uh no, hack off. Harry used
to walk through these woods. I was grew up in
Philly in the Islany neighborhood. Took any Creek Parks park
and it was urban area, but you know, a couple
of acres of woods and we heard this rumor about
this guy walked around naked. I was there with my
three buddies, two buddies and we're like eleven and twelve,
and it was like the last day of school, you know, afterwards,
and here comes this naked guy. Hey, what are you
guys doing? And we kind of looked at each other
huh and and he didn't try anything with us. But
years later I just wondered, you know, what was this
guy up to? Where were his play He wasn't carrying
his clothes. He must have taken them off and hid
them somewhere. He must have driven there, so anyway, it
probably would have been eight years later ray that I
was in another park, more of a lover's lane, and
I was hack off. I didn't recognize him, so hack off,
if you're out of there, hack off.
Speaker 4: I love. I loved the ed guy challenging the three kids.
What are you doing here? And he's standing there nude.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. Well then at one point he said, I
bet you I'm bigger than you guys, And he was
like a thirty to thirty five year old guy, and
he probably was. Back then we didn't really care and
we weren't about to show him or test him. But
finally he just walked away. But I know, I know,
I had a stick in my hand if he was
gonna come at me and my buddies. They had like
a rock they picked up, but he stayed like at away,
walked around naked, and then just took off. So that
was a weirder, weirder element of my life. And Ray
thanks for bringing that up. It was in my book
and what the hell is it mean? Didn't want and
now I got involved in investigating these guys later on,
and whoever knows that that was a gateway offence for
who he was affectionately known hack Off Harry.
Speaker 7: But that's where you guys, if you guys remembered, it
was an episode on Seinfeld but when he was arrested
as a serial killer and the cop said something about
the guy in the park.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have to see it. If you know, if
the listeners are listening, there is an episode. Jim might think,
you know what episode. I'm a Seinfeld fan. If you
listen to the episode, Seinfeld's being questioned by the detective
about being a serial killer. He talks about the guy
in the park having something in his pants for him
and Seinfeld is the same thing. And when he finally
lets him go, Seinfeld said, how'd you know about the
guy in the park? And that's they got that from
me in Jim's book.
Speaker 6: I'll take credit and I'll come.
Speaker 3: So do we have time for one more question?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 3: Okay, So we know that Wilmer killed and dumped bodies
in or near water until nineteen eighty eight, but he
was questioned by the FBI and the disappearance of Keith
Colin Cassandra Haley in April of that year, and after
that his next set of victims were killed and dumped
away from the water. Might he have changed his dumb
sites in response.
Speaker 5: To being looked at by the FBI?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: Might he have changed these disposal sites in response to
being looked at by the FBI?
Speaker 6: Yes, And we're not going to edit it out, but
years ago, try to get away from the word, right
dump because as it's like trash or something you're talking about.
So you you had no bad intentions there, and Bill,
you certainly didn't. But I understand the gist of your question.
And and certainly he altered his Moh, no surprise there
at all for a guy who still had this need
driven behavior. And that's what we're remembering here. You know,
most of us, the four of us on this crossover podcast,
and certainly the audience. We all have need driven behaviors.
We have to breathe and neat, and of course there's
other bodily functions we take care of. But none of us,
none of us necessarily are can trolled by these uh
in some cases sexually sadistic activities that obviously someone like
Wilmer had, so he was he was the FBI talked
to him, He obviously didn't feel all that concerned, all
that scared. They didn't think or he didn't think they
had enough on him, and he said, all right, well
they think i'm this guy, they think the body's here.
Well I'm going to alter my m O. His signature
didn't change all that much. I'm sure he still had
that behavioral activity with these women and what he did
with them and to them, but it wasn't all that
hard for him to say, you know what, I'm I'm
smarter than these FBI guys. I'm just going to move
from you know, Zone A to over here to you
know Zone B or C or D whatever he calls it,
and I'm still going to do my thing and they're
not going to put two and two together. So that
doesn't surprise me at all. A guy who has this
many kills and rapes under his belt. He couldn't just
stop with a warning. Ted Kaczynski his composite was a sketch,
went out after his I think tenth bombing and and
and he went dark for seven years. I mean, we
didn't know his name back then. It was the bomber.
And then all of a sudden he come back with
a vengeance in ninety three. So his signature behavior didn't change.
He's still wanted to send these bombs to these representative targets,
but his mo altered where he took seven years off
and the bombs actually had seven years of rest. They
were even stronger and more lethal after the fact. So
BTK took time off. It looks like he was going
to come back and maybe do some more killings, but
he made a mistake with a computer disc whatever that
the police could read some information on it. So yeah,
these guys take time off, but they can and or
they can alter their behavior.
Speaker 5: And case even closer to both Jim and I than
any other ones he talked about was about a bank
robber Carl gu Gaigean and I wrote a book on it.
Jim and I worked the case together and Ggaigion we
believe was involved in shooting a police officer in nineteen
eighty two, and Bank Groby stopped for six years, and
then they began back up in eighty eight. And when
we asked Gagaigon why he did it, he says, I
just needed a break. I got tired. But it just
so happened. They stopped right when the police officer was killed.
Police officer shot, he wasn't killed.
Speaker 4: H oh.
Speaker 5: So he survived for about thirty eight years and he
died and then they claimed his death to be a
homicide thirty eight years later as a result of the
buld that was lodged into the carotid artery. I was
up in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and you know, they believed that
he was tied into it, but they were never able
to tie him in with any forensic evidence, and he's
denied it the whole time. But Jim and I both
feel pretty confident about that. But you know, it's well documented,
Like we were telling you about these type of vendors
that switched tactics. You know, they moved their sites further
from their prior sites, they changed vehicles, they changed disposal methods.
They take greater precautions, you know, and Bill will help
me with this. Was Wilmor surveilled and searched in nineteen
eighty eight.
Speaker 4: Yes, he was extensively. They searched his home, his truck.
They found a lot of evidence that they thought they
were going to be able to tie him into the murders.
But for whatever reason, after receiving two polygraphs, he passed
one and one was inconclusive. But I even tracked down
the retired polygraph examiner. He told me flat out we
should have never let that guy go. So they were really,
really close, and the two agents whom my father knew
that were working the case, they were convinced they had
the right die ultimately slipped through their hands.
Speaker 5: Well, it's it's not unusual for uh, someone that has
been searched, interviewed, as you just said to, you know,
change the sequence along what they're doing. But I think
it's it's important for us also to be cautious when
we talk about the sequence because there could be other
factors too, and I don't want to don't want to
exclude those factors. Sometimes opportunity, sometimes the fantasy of the
offender could be evolving, uh, And sometimes it's just logistics,
but a lot of times when you are contacted by
law enforcement, it's a plausible trigger for a tactical shift
in what you're doing. Absolutely mm hmm.
Speaker 6: Right, And and you know psychologically how these people think,
what better way to prove you're not the killer than,
after being confronted by police, FBI law enforcement to go
out and commit yet another crime because you were going
to be thinking, they get to, hey, you guys just
talked to me, you know, last week, last month, a
year ago, I would how why would you think I
would go out do that? That was like almost like
a plausible deniability they could add in there, and even
the FBI themselves. I can almost see another murder ray.
But we talked to that guy just you know, six
months ago. Do you really think and I don't know
if you would do that or not. You'd still have
to keep them in the suspect pool naturally, but apparently
at least at least he wasn't in in this particular case,
and so missed opportunities here for including Bill, what you
said about the polygraph examiner and how they could have
pushed that a little bit more. Uh with this guy.
But you know, again. We said this last, you know,
a year or two ago, when we were on with
you about Wilmer. Whatever you want to say about his
education and his cultural upbringing, all that stuff maybe made lacking,
but boy, he had a sense of survival. He had
a sense of street smarts would smarts if you want
to call them, or you know, waterline, waterfront smart.
Speaker 5: I think he knew how to succeed in that environment,
in that environment where he was, I don't know how
he would have fared outside of that environment. And in
that environment he was second to none.
Speaker 4: I agree with Jimmy, Yeah right, he was.
Speaker 6: And you put him in the middle of a you know,
you know Brooklyn or or you know, south side of Chicago,
he wouldn't do very well. I'm just saying. As a
serial killer, but in this particular, this was his on
the ground, and he knew left from right and up
from down, and he knew his victims and in terms
of you know, who were the likely ones that he
could with whom he could succeed in killing and assaulting otherwise,
And and that's his legacy. And he was a tough
guy to catch in during his lifetime. And thank goodness
for the advent of DNA analysis over the last you know,
twenty twenty five years, that we could start really closing
these cases and giving some sort of closure to family
members such as Bill and I know he was on
the radar even before that, but now we have some
conclusive information here, So Bill ahead.
Speaker 5: But yeah, one question for you.
Speaker 6: Guys, knew what he was doing and how to do it?
Speaker 5: I know you said that. You know, Wilmer's been dead
for the last eight years twenty seventeen. What about his brothers?
Are either of them alive?
Speaker 4: They're both dead. One brother, the older brother, Keith that
we mentioned earlier, he died at the end of April
twenty twenty five. Oddly, they had a younger brother, Timothy,
who died and we've had a real hard time pinning
this down. He died under kind of mysterious circumstances. It
may have been a suicide. Almost a year to the
day after the middle brother, Alan, our suspect died. Allan
Wade Wilmer Senior died of natural causes at his home
up in Lancaster County. He was kind of estranged from
his family. His body wasn't found for about a month. Interestingly,
his younger brother died we think of a suicide almost
exactly a year to the day. So all three brothers, Keith,
the oldest, Alan, and then Timothy Timoth are all gone.
Speaker 11: Now, okay with them, they took.
Speaker 4: A lot of information without question.
Speaker 6: Agreed with them no doubt.
Speaker 3: Thank you both so much.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Chris. Thank you guys so.
Speaker 3: Much for helping us out with this. We we love
being able to put these questions to people that we
know will help us get answers, especially because our current
case agents are being a little less than forthcoming with information.
So we're glad to have two former FBI guys who
are willing to talk to us and help us kind
of sort these things out for ourselves.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate the both of you.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Well, you're welcome, and I will say thank you for
appearing on this live episode of Cold Red and uh
it'll be recorded versions will be out there too, So
I'll sign us out and just say everyone thanks for listening.
Like and subscribe to both Mind Over Murder and Cold
Red and Sena's comments if you'd like, And thanks to
our producers. Matt McLachlan, Matt Robinson. Our music producer Rick Shilling.
I'll be having Thanksgiving dinner with tomorrow and tune in
next time for mind Over Murder, but also Cold Red.
Take care everyone, see you next time.
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