The FBI has a created a new e-mail account for tips about a string of unsolved slayings in Virginia during the 1980s known as the Colonial Parkway Murders.
Between 1986 and ’89, at least eight people were killed or disappeared along the scenic 23-mile route between Jamestown and Yorktown. None of the cases has been solved, and the FBI is ratcheting up its probe, announcing that it will use DNA and other new techniques to take a fresh look at the murders. The FBI also is going back over more than 3,500 investigative reports taken during the height of the killings and prioritizing a list of about 130 suspects.
Recommended Stories
The first two victims were discovered on Oct. 12, 1986. A white 1980 Honda Civic was found in a wooded area off the parkway between the Ringfield Plantation overlook and the York River. The victims, Cathleen Marian Thomas, 27, and Rebecca Ann Dowski, 21, had been stabbed and strangled. They were last seen alive three nights earlier at a computer lab at the College of William & Mary.
On Saturday evening, April 9, 1988, Richard Keith Call and Cassandra Lee Hailey went on their first date at a party at the University Square Apartments in Newport News. This was the last time they were seen. Later that morning, Call’s father found his son’s vehicle abandoned at the York River overlook off Colonial Parkway near Yorktown. Though clothing belonging to the victims was recovered from inside the vehicle, neither victim was found.
On Sept. 20, 1987, David Lee Knobling and Robin Margaret Edwards were found slain at the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge in Isle of Wight County, and on Sept. 5, 1989, 21-year-old Daniel Lauer and 18-year-old Ann Marie Phelps were found dead in the vicinity of a rest area off Interstate 64 in New Kent County.
Authorities say they believe the incidents are linked and were the work of one person or two people who worked together.
The FBI is offering a $20,000 reward. Anyone with information can send an e-mail [email protected] or call the Norfolk FBI at 757-455-0100.
