It was sunset along Virginia’s Blue Ridge Parkway in early April as two co-workers employed at a Charlottesville radio station sat chatting and overlooking the Shenandoah Valley. Suddenly shotgun blasts broke the quiet of the evening as a stranger unexpectedly opened fire on 18-year-old Christina Floyd and 27-year-old Tim Davis, striking both with shotgun pellets, and then escaping into the night.

Ms. Floyd, stunned and bleeding from her injuries, eventually flagged down a passerby and escaped to call for help. Rescuers from nearby Wintergreen Ski Resort responded and scaled a 100-foot cliff at the overlook to retrieve a critically injured Tim Davis who was found lying unconscious at the bottom.