I haven't read the Colonial Parkway history yet, I've been focused on the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak and the history of Cheatham Annex/Penniman General Ordnance Depot's death toll (surprising, especially how Dupont responded), but I will look for more on the parkway.
I don't recall radar being on the parkway while I was growing up. There weren't any traffic lines on that particular roadway and the lanes were extra wide which actually made it easy to avoid deer or pass other drivers while speeding down it at night. I know my friends and I would drive 60-80 mph routinely (probably faster on a few occasions) at night from where I lived out near Jamestown to get to Yorktown and the bridge to Gloucester Point where some of my friends lived - never had so much as a ticket or a warning. During the day, Yorktown beach and the picnic area doesn't seem isolated, but at night, you can scream bloody murder and no one will come - I know this first hand as the victim of a violent crime there in the 1990's which had nothing to do with the parkway murders (I saw my perpetrators), but nobody's going to hear screams and if they do, they're not going to be able to see where they're coming from anyway due to the lack of lights (back then, not sure about lighting now).
I've always thought that the Colonial Parkway killer was somehow connected to the military (currently serving at that time, retired/unenlisted or discharged) and that was before I knew about one of the victims being from the Navy. Now I'm even more convinced. For those not familiar with the area, here's a list of military bases between Norfolk and Wmsbg in order of proximity to the crime scenes starting with the most Northward location: (
note it is only 95 miles between the most distal bases listed below)
1. Fort Lee Army Base (in Prince George, VA which is not far from New Kent and
closest to Lauer/Phelps location)
2. Camp Peary (Williamsburg, VA and
centrally located between crime scenes of Lauer/Phelps and both Thomas/Dowski and Hailey/Call)
3. Cheatham Annex Naval Weapons Station Yorktown (Yorktown, VA and
closest to Thomas/Dowski location)
4. Coast Guard Training Center, Coast Guard Base at Yorktown (
closest to Hailey/Call location)
5. Fort Eustis Army Base (Newport News, VA)
6. Langley Air Force Base (in Hampton, VA not the same as Langley, VA with CIA Headquarters that is in Fairfax County, VA outside of Washington, DC it's different than AFB)
7. Fort Monroe Army Base (Hampton, VA
closest to Knobling/Edwards location)
8. Naval Station Norfolk Naval Base (Norfolk, VA)
9. Naval Support Activity (physically located within NS Norfolk #8 Southside of base)
10. Navy Medical Center Portsmouth (Portsmouth, VA)
11. Sector Hampton Roads Coast Guard Base (Portsmouth, VA)
12. Norfolk Naval Shipyard (Portsmouth, VA and different than the Naval Base and in a different geographic location)
13. Coast Guard Finance Center (commissioned in 1989, but prior to that there was 1 of this type of office for every few bases, so there was a military office in the area, but I don't know if it was at this same location)
14. Little Creek Naval Air Base (Norfolk, VA East of #8)
15. Fort Story Army Base (Virginia Beach, VA and in 2009 formed Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story)
16. Naval Air Station Oceana (again separate base, in Virginia Beach, VA)
17. Naval Support Activity Northwest Annex Navy Base (again separate base, in Chesapeake, VA)
An excellent resource for a map of VA bases (I did NOT include all the bases in VA which include some located closer to the Shanendoah Mountains) is here:
Virginia Military Bases | MilitaryBases.com
I encourage you to use the 'Learn more..." link for each base to see how diverse, specialized, and relationships between bases. I lived on a few VA bases and have visited 4-5 of them listed above either while my dad was still in the military or after he retired. Back at the time of the murders, it wasn't unusual to have access to multiple bases and it is surprising how much resources were shared or utilized by amongst the bases. It was extremely common to run into people that you knew from other bases all over the world, regardless of the branch of service, especially in an area with such a high concentration of bases. So just because one of the victims was from the Navy in Norfolk, don't assume that someone that knew her from Norfolk didn't run across her by chance in the Wmsbg area and maybe had some animosity towards her specifically or homosexuals in general that triggered upon seeing her out with her girlfriend. The killer would feel safer in attacking because there wouldn't be a close tie, assuming the first victims weren't completely random.
I firmly believe the killer was most likely connected to the military in some way. The partial list above doesn't even include the numerous government contractors that work on any of those bases and it was common for people to go to work for contractors after their term was up or they retired. Several contractors would do work on multiple bases for each of the branches (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, or National Guard). Any of those branches may have gone to Ft. Story, for example, to train because of the diverse terrain, especially amphibious training.
I think military/CIA training rather than LE training would be more conducive for a killer. We don't train LE to specifically kill even though use of lethal force is included; however, a major function within the military is to attack and kill as part of the defense of our country. It's critical to our freedom that the military be trained to do so.
I think entirely too much time and too many resources have been spent focused on LE! And I think one of the reasons why is because the suspect pool for a military suspect is dauntingly massive - they're so mobile, but that would also explain why the murders in VA stopped.
I would love to see a database of similar crimes and their proximity to military bases starting after the VA murders stopped, covering the next decade. Anything after a decade wouldn't be as applicable based on my assumption of the killer getting out of the military before or at retirement which starts at 20 yrs of service. There are misfits and criminals within the ranks of the military just like civilian society.
The method of murder for Thomas/Dowski did seem like it was an early or possibly the first time the killer escalated to homicide (which happened to also be homocide in this case); however, I think it's highly unlikely that it was the first criminal act committed by the killer. If the person was military, earlier crimes or infractions would have been reported to and discipline proceedings would have been handled by the military and those records would be on file within the military and the military isn't known for their willingness to share data with civilian or outside agencies. In an area like Hampton Roads, I could easily understand if less serious (let's face it, everything is less serious than murder) crimes would likely just be called over to the base for the commanding officer to handle instead of taking the time to fill out civilian paperwork by the local police dept.
Does anyone in LE in the Hampton Roads area (or other area with a high concentration of military bases) disagree with that? The
policy was probably to fill out a report first, but the
actual practice may have been different.
What does everyone think is a high probably precursory crime prior to these murders? I think stalking and some kind of abuse/anger/aggression towards a former girlfriend and new boyfriend or former girlfriend that found herself a girlfriend (someone that was exploring homosexuality). This killer hated couples and newfound love.
