The disappearance of a Johns Hopkins University graduate student once gripped the region and became known as the “Route 29 Stalker” investigation, but 14 years later her case remains unsolved.
On March 2, 1996, Alicia Showalter Reynolds was driving home from school along Route 29 to Charlottesville to shop with her mother. She never made it. Several witnesses recalled seeing the 25-year-old and her car parked along Route 29, the hood of her car up and a blue truck parked behind it.
Two months later, Reynolds’ skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave in a logging camp near Lignum, a small town in Culpeper County. The spot was about 15 miles from where her vehicle was left on the side of 29.
Police came to believe her killer was the “Route 29 Stalker,” a man who flagged down two dozen female drivers between February and March of that year. The man would attempt to get the woman to pull over by indicating they were having car trouble. All of the incidents were between Manassas and Charlottesville.
One of those women was a Quantico woman who stopped for a man in a small blue truck along Virginia 234 near Dumfries. After getting in the man’s truck and driving a short distance, he attacked and threatened her with a screwdriver. She jumped out the passenger’s door, breaking her leg in the escape.
Police say the attacker at the time was a white male, age 35 to 45 with a medium build. The attacker was about 5-feet-10-inches to 6-feet tall with light to medium brown hair.
The attacker might have been wearing a flannel or striped shirt and bluejeans at the time of Reynolds’ abduction, and may have had access to a small, dark-colored pickup truck, police say.
Police believe that man killed Reynolds. Several people were investigated as possible suspects, but no one has been charged with her slaying.
Anyone with information pertaining to the abduction and murder of Reynolds is encouraged to contact Virginia State Police toll-free in Virginia at 800-572-2260 or 888-300-0156 or by e-mail at [email protected].
