archived article from Jan 9 2024 The Washington Post
<<State and federal investigators said this week that Alan W. Wilmer Sr., a waterman with no felony record who died in 2017 at his home in Lancaster County, Va., was linked to evidence left at the scene of the shooting deaths of David L. Knobling, 20, and Robin M. Edwards, 14, whose bodies were found at the Ragged Island wildlife refuge in Isle of Wight County in 1987.
Similar evidence also tied Wilmer to the killing of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell, 29, in Hampton in 1989, authorities said. Howell’s death was not thought to be part of the parkway string of murders, which involved couples killed or missing from remote parking areas between 1986 and 1989.>>
<<A state police spokeswoman said this week that DNA evidence had suggested a link between the Ragged Island and Hampton cases several years ago but that it wasn’t until more recently that the link pointed to Wilmer.
He has so far not been connected to the other cases involved in the parkway series, which the FBI has long investigated as potentially the work of a serial killer.>>
<<“If you had any encounters with him or his vehicle or watercraft, hunted with him, farmed oysters or clams, docked next to him in marinas, spent time with him on a personal basis or at work, or even romantically at some point, we want to hear from you,” Dugan said.
Police said Wilmer was 5-5 with a muscular build, weighing about 165 pounds. He had sandy hair, sometimes wore a closely trimmed beard, and had blue eyes. He drove what authorities called a “distinctive” blue 1966 Dodge Fargo pickup truck with a personalized Virginia license plate, “EM-RAW” — though he was known to drive other vehicles, too.
Wilmer, whose nickname was Pokey, also owned a commercial fishing boat, a custom-built 1976 wooden craft named Denni Wade, and frequented the waterways and marinas around the Northern Neck, Gloucester and Middlesex counties, and Hampton Roads. Officials said he liked to hunt — belonging to a hunt club in the Middle Peninsula area — and sometimes operated a business called Better Tree Service.>>
