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Jan 9, 2024 · Virginia State Police. CNN — When 63-year-old Alan W. Wilmer Sr. died in December 2017, Virginia authorities needed to identify him and took a DNA sample – six years later, that genetic...
- 4 min
- Overview
- The slayings
- A fresh look, then a hit
A dead fisherman has been identified as the suspect in three cold-case homicides in Virginia from the 1980s, including two of the notorious "Colonial Parkway Murders" that once stoked fears in the area.
Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. was identified by forensic evidence in the 1987 double murder of David L. Knobling, 20, and Robin M. Edwards, 14, in Isle of Wight County; and the 1989 murder of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell, 29, in the city of Hampton, Virginia State Police announced Monday.
Wilmer died in December 2017 at his Lancaster County, Virginia, home at the age of 63.
Prosecutors for Isle of Wight County and the city of Hampton said that if Wilmer were alive, charges would be filed against him in connection with the three deaths.
Knobling and Edwards were last seen alive on Sept. 19, 1987.
The following day, Knobling's pickup truck was found abandoned in the parking lot of the Ragged Island Wildlife Management Area, Virginia State Police spokesperson Corrine Geller said. The keys were in the ignition. The radio and windshield wipers were on.
On Sept. 23, 1987, their bodies were found along the shore line of Ragged Island, on the south shore of the James River in Isle of Wight County. They had been shot, and Edwards had been sexually assaulted, Geller said.
She shared a statement on behalf of the Knobling and Edwards families.
"For 36 years our families have lived in a vacuum of the unknown. We have lived in the fear of worrying that a person capable of deliberately killing Robin and David could attack and kill another victim. Now we have a sense of relief and justice knowing that he can no longer victimize another," the statement said. "His death will not allow us to seek out the answer to countless questions that have haunted us for so long."
Their deaths were one of four double slayings known as the Colonial Parkway Murders that occurred near or along the area from 1986 to 1989.
Authorities combed through decades of evidence and witness statements, Geller said.
Several suspects were developed. The Virginia Department of Forensic Science identified a common suspect a couple years ago based on DNA in the Isle of Wight and city of Hampton killings, but there was no match in the FBI's database of DNA profiles of convicted offenders.
Wilmer had no felonies on his criminal record so his DNA was never put into the system, she said.
However, in the fresh probe of the cold cases, authorities looked into Wilmer as a suspect. When they learned he was dead, they legally obtained his genetic material and submitted it to the forensic science department to compare it to the evidence collected in the slayings. Geller said authorities got a hit in June 2023.
Now, Virginia State Police and the FBI are now asking the public for information about Wilmer to see if he’s possibly linked to more cases.
Wilmer was a fisherman, known to own a small 1976 wooden commercial fishing boat called the "Denni Wade." He'd dock at marinas in Gloucester and Middlesex counties.
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Jan 8, 2024 · Updated 3:00 PM PDT, January 8, 2024. A smalltime fisherman who died in 2017 has been linked to three cold-case homicides in Virginia from the 1980s, including two that were among a series of unsolved slayings of couples known as the “Colonial Parkway Murders,” law enforcement officials announced Monday.
Jan 8, 2024 · SUFFOLK, Va. -- Police in Virginia named a deceased hunter and fisherman as a suspect in three unsolved murders that dated back to the 1980s. Police said investigators used DNA evidence to link...
Jan 9, 2024 · Virginia State Police identified the suspect as Alan W. Wilmer Sr., but offered few details about how he's tied to the killings, which occurred in 1987 and 1989, or when he became a suspect....
Jan 9, 2024 · Virginia. This article is more than 3 months old. Virginia police name fisher who died in 2017 as suspect in cold-case 80s murders. Alan Wilmer Sr, who died aged 63, would be charged if he were...
Jan 8, 2024 · Suspect named in Isle of Wight double homicide linked to 1980s Colonial Parkway murders. Authorities said Alan Wilmer Sr., who died in 2017, was responsible for the deaths of David Knobling and...
