Earlier this week, the Virginia State Police announced that they identified the person responsible for the murders of two of the 1987 Colonial Parkway Murders: David Knobling and Robin Edwards.
The killer was Alan Wade Wilmer, Sr. He was also responsible for the 1989 murder of Teresa Lynn Howell. Wilmer was linked to these crimes by DNA evidence. Wilmer died in 2017, evading justice for his actions.
The Colonial Parkway Murders were in the Tidewater region of Virginia starting in 1986 and ending in 1989. The victims were murdered in pairs. Two the crimes were linked to the Colonial Parkway, a National Park in the area, while two others took place a short distance away from there. The police have not ruled out Wilmer being responsible for the other murders, but they do not have forensic evidence tying him to the other crimes at this time.
We didn’t know Wilmer by name, but we certainly did know of him. He was the FBI’s prime suspect in two of the Colonial Parkway Murders, those of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey. He had been an aggressive stalker on the Colonial Parkway in the 1980s. His distinctive truck had a vanity plate, EM-RAW.
In our interview with Irv Wells, FBI SAIC, we learned that Wilmer was the prime suspect in the Call/Hailey case. In fact, four days after Keith and Cassandra went missing, the FBI saw him painting and cleaning his truck. Fearful he was destroying evidence, they obtained a warrant and searched his trailer but did not find anything that tied him to the missing pair. They polygraphed him, and he was cleared on the basis of that polygraph.
In other words, he was on the FBI’s radar for another pair of the Colonial Parkway Murders!
It was chilling for us to see his truck, with that license plate, as part of the news conference. If you pick up the book, you’ll get the full interview with Irv Wells on this suspect.
The bottom line is that with Wilmer linked to two of these murders and implicated in another pair, there is a distinct chance that he is responsible for all of them. While forensic evidence may not tie him to these crimes, there is a chance that with his face and name now out there, new witnesses that link him to these crimes may emerge.
Should you have any information on Wilmer or these crimes, please contact the FBI.
