The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large (the mammoth book of ...)

by Nigel Cawthorne

  The police were not keen to ascribe the murders to one serial killer, with the attendant media hoo-ha. But if it is not the work of one serial killer then two or more are at large, or there are a number of men who have all killed just once. It is hard to say which is worse.

  Virginia’s Colonial Parkway Killer

  Between 1986 and 1989, a serial killer stalked the Colonial Parkway, a scenic route that runs from Jamestown, through Williamsburg to Yorktown. The perpetrator specialized in abducting couples.

  The first two victims were 27-year-old Cathleen Marian Thomas and 21-year-old Rebecca Ann Dowski, a lesbian couple who used to like to park at a secluded spot on the Parkway to make love in privacy. Cathleen Thomas was from Lowell, Massachusetts and was one of the 100 women of the class of 1981 at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis—the first co-educational graduating class at any federal military academy. She then became a stockbroker in Norfolk, Virginia. Her lover, Rebecca Ann Dowski, was from Poughkeepsie, New York. She worked as a senior business management major at the College of William and Mary.

  On 12 October 1986, a jogger found their car, a Honda Civic, beside the York River, seven miles east of Williamsburg. The vehicle had been pushed down an embankment near an area of the Parkway popular with gay couples. The women’s bodies were discovered in the back seat of the car. A post mortem found rope burns on their wrists and necks, signs of strangulation and their throats had been slashed. Their purses and money were found inside the car, and there was no sign of a struggle. Both women were found fully clothed and there was no indication of sexual assault. Their bodies had been doused with a flammable liquid, and several matches were found. Detectives believe that the killer had tried to set the vehicle on fire. Failing, the culprit then pushed the car over the embankment, hoping it would career off the bluff into the York River.

  Twenty-year-old David Lee Knobling of Hampton, Virginia and 14-year-old Robin M. Edwards of Newport News were last seen alive on Saturday, 19 September 1987. They had met at an arcade. The two of them left to cruise York County in Knobling’s black Ford pick-up truck with David’s brother and another friend. The three boys dropped Ms Edwards home before 11 p.m. and went back to the Knoblings’ home. But David Knobling left the house again soon afterward. It seems he must have gone back to pick up Ms Edwards.

  The two were not reported missing until Monday morning because it was not unusual for David Knobling to spend a night or two away from home. Robin Edwards’ parents thought she might have run away, so they were waiting for the social services office in Newport News to open on the morning of the 21st to report their daughter’s disappearance.

  David Knobling’s pickup was found on 21 September near the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge at the foot of the James River Bridge. There were no signs of a struggle. The keys were in the ignition, the radio was on and Knobling’s wallet was on the dashboard. The driver’s door was open and the driver’s side window was wound halfway down.

  “It was raining out that night,” said David’s mother Kathy Knobling. “So why would David have had the window down, unless someone with a badge approached him and asked for ID?”

  Two pairs of underwear and Robin Edwards’ shoes were found in the vehicle.

  A few days later, their two partially clothed bodies washed ashore almost two miles downriver on the south bank of the James River in Isle of Wight County, near Smithfield, Virginia. Robin Edwards’ bra was around her neck under her blouse and the belt on her jeans were undone. It is not known whether he had been molested by the killer or disturbed in her lovemaking with David Knobling. Knobling still had 13 quarters in the pockets of his jeans. The police believe that the two were marched more than 1½ miles through the woods and down a wooden pier, where they were killed and dumped in the river.

  Although Smithfield was on the other side of the James River from the Colonial Parkway, the murder of David Knobling and Robin Edwards was linked to that of Cathleen Thomas and Ann Dowski because the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge was a well known gay cruising area—it became so popular in the early 1990s that it was closed to the public.

  On 9 April 1988, Richard Keith Call (known as Keith) from Gloucester County, Virginia and 18-year-old Cassandra Lee Hailey were reported missing. They were students at Christopher Newport College in Newport News and had been out on their first date together.

  At about 9 a.m. the next day, Call’s 1982 red Toyota Celica was found abandoned on the Colonial Parkway in Yorktown, Virginia by a ranger. The driver’s door was open. The keys were in the ignition and the front seat was folded forward. Keith’s watch was on the dashboard and Cassandra’s purse was on the passenger seat. All their clothes, including their underwear was on the back seat.

  Keith’s brother, Chris, had been driving along the Parkway at about 4.30 a.m. when he noticed a parked car with a door or trunk open. But he was not certain if the car he saw was his brother’s. An employee at the Eastern State Hospital also saw a car with an open driver’s door at about 5.30 a.m. Neither body has ever been found, but both are presumed dead as their disappearance fitted a chilling pattern.

  On the morning of 5 September 1989, 18-year-old Annamaria Phelps left her Virginia Beach home with 21-year-old Daniel Lauer, the brother of her fiancé Clinton, both residents of Amelia County. They were last seen alive between noon and 1 p.m. at the rest stop for westbound Interstate 64 traffic in New Kent County. At 5.30 p.m., Daniel Lauer’s gold 1973 Chevrolet Nova was found at the rest area between Williamsburg and Richmond. The keys were in the ignition and the gas tank was three-quarters full. Annamaria Phelps’ purse was in the car, along with clothes that belonged to Daniel Lauer. There were no obvious signs of a struggle inside the car.

  The following month, their remains were found by a hunter, covered with a blanket, in the woods less than a mile away. The state medical examiner determined that Annamaria Phelps had been stabbed to death. Phelps, too, had suffered stab wounds but, in his case, cause of death had not been officially determined. However, both were clearly the victims of homicide.

  The FBI said that the crimes were related, but no one has ever been identified as the Colonial Park Killer. Investigators have speculated that the killer might be a law enforcement officer, possibly a policeman or a security guard, who had caught the couples in a compromising position in their cars and used the authority of their uniform to get them to get out without putting up a fight. Another theory is that the suspect is a rogue CIA agent from their major training facility known as “the Farm” at Camp Peary in York County.

  Washington, D.C.’s Petworth Prostitute Killer

  In 1998, the police in Washington, D.C. arrested a suspect in the deaths of two of six women whose bodies were found in the city’s Petworth neighbourhood over a 13-month period. Darryl D. Turner, aged 34, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of 39-year-old Jacqueline Teresa Birch and 34-year-old Dana Hill. Both women were known to have worked as prostitutes.

  Jacqueline Birch’s body was found on 18 November 1997 inside a building about three miles north of the Capitol Building, next door to where Turner lived. Dana Hill lived in the same block as Turner. Her body was found on 1 December 1997 behind an abandoned fast food restaurant about 1½ miles from the Capitol. Both women died from manual strangulation.

  Five women who lived in the neighbourhood or visited frequently had turned up dead since November 1996. Three of them were found inside a pair of gutted buildings. The torso of a sixth woman who was thought to have frequented the neighbourhood was found in an alley nearby.

  The Princeton Place Task Force that arrested Turner was put together in November 1997, after the community began weekly meetings and The Washington Post speculated that a serial killer was at work. The task force included agents from the FBI and the DEA.

  On 5 January 2001, Turner was charged with a third murder—that of 32-year-old Toni Ann Burdine. A known drug-user and prostitute, she was found in an open field in the north-eastern section of the city wh
ere Turner lived, on 4 May 1995. After Turner’s arrest, the police had reopened the Burdine case and the authorities were able to match DNA in the semen taken from her body to Turner’s. Turner pleaded not guilty to all three murders.

  But killings of other women in the neighbourhood who worked as prostitutes remain unsolved. The cases still open are those of 28-year-old Lateashia Blocker, whose body was found in 1995 in the same empty house as Jacqueline Birch was later discovered; 42-year-old Emile Dennis, whose body was found in a crawl space beneath the townhouse where Turner lived with his wife in December 1997; 41-year-old Jessica Cole, whose mutilated remains were discovered in October 1996; and Priscilla Mosley, aged 49.

  As well as the DNA match to the semen found on Toni Burdine’s body, Turner’s former girlfriend provided damning testimony. In 1997, Turner was charged with choking and raping her. She testified that Turner told her that he preferred violent sex, including strangulation, because he had “trouble achieving sexual enjoyment any other way”. And, during the attack, Turner said he was “tired of paying you [women] for sex”.

  Darryl D. Turner was convicted for first-degree murder. He is now on death row and is soliciting for pen pals via the internet. But as the other murders remain unsolved, there is always the possibility that there is another killer or killers out there.

  Washington, D.C.’s Suitland Slayings

  In 1986 and 1987, a serial killer was stalking the black community of Washington, D.C. He had murdered eight young black females, before disappearing. He has never been identified or caught.

  On 13 December 1986, the body of 20-year-old Dorothy Miller was found in the woods near the Bradbury Recreation Center in Suitland, a suburb just outside the district of Columbia in Maryland. Although she had seemingly died of a drug overdose she was thought to be the killer’s first victim because four more bodies were found in the same woods the following month. And, like the others, Dorothy Miller had been violently sodomized.

  On 11 January 1987, the kids using the recreation centre noticed a woman’s clothes hanging on nearby trees. When they went to investigate, they found the body of 25-year-old Pamela Malcolm, who had been missing from her home in Suitland since 22 October. There was no doubt that she was a murder victim because she had been stabbed to death.

  The day after Malcolm’s corpse had been recovered, a team of 50 police were combing through the wood for clues when they found two more bodies to the north of the headquarters of the US Census Bureau. They belonged to 22-year-old Cynthia Westbury, who had been missing since mid-November, and 26-year-old Juanita Walls. Both been sodomized and stabbed to death, and both had gone missing from D.C.

  The very next day the body of 22-year-old Angela Wilkerson, another D.C. resident, was found near Suitland. Four of the victims had lived within a mile of each other in Southeast Washington. The D.C. residents were all unemployed and at least two of them frequented the same restaurant on Good Hope Road.

  There followed three more murders that did not conform to exactly the same pattern, but were thought to have been perpetrated by the same killer.

  On 15 January, the naked body of 20-year-old Janice Morton was found in an alley in Northeast Washington. She had been beaten and strangled. On 5 April, the naked body of an unidentified woman was found in a secluded driveway near Euclid and 13th Street, in Northwest Washington.

  A 31-year-old suspect, Alton Alonzo Best, was indicted for Morton’s murder on 7 April. He confessed to the crime on 9 June. The police maintained that Best knew two of the victims found in Suitland, making him a prime suspect in their killings. However, his arrest did not stop the attacks. On 10 April, with Best behind bars, an unidentified van driver attempted to abduct a 25-year-old woman, just one block from the home of Suitland victim Pamela Malcolm. Five days later, Donna Nichols was beaten to death in a Washington alleyway. On 24 June, Cheryl Henderson, aged 21, was found in a wooded area of Southeast Washington, not more than two miles from Suitland. Her throat was slashed from ear to ear. Then on 21 September another unidentified African-American female was found dead at a Southeast Washington apartment complex. The cause of death was not released and the police refuse to discuss any connection her death might have to the other unsolved cases.

  Best has never been charged with any of the other killings and the killer or killers are still at large. The culprit’s preference for killing African-American women has led to speculation that the “Freeway Phantom” may have resurfaced, after 15 years of inactivity, but homicide detectives have revealed no evidence of a connection to the earlier unsolved crimes.

  Washington, D.C.’s Freeway Phantom

  The Freeway Phantom’s first victim was 13-year-old Carole Denise Spinks, who was abducted on 25 April 1971. She lived in a quiet block of Wahler Place in Southeast Washington. That Sunday evening it was warm and her older sister sent her to the 7-Eleven half-a-mile away on Wheeler Road, just across the Maryland line in Prince George’s County, to buy bread, TV dinners and sodas. She paid for the items, left the store and disappeared. Her body was recovered six days later, a mile and a half from home, lying on the grass embankment of the northbound Interstate 295, one of several freeways passing through Washington east of the Anacostia River, 500 yards south of Suitland Parkway. She had been strangled and, probably, raped.

  Ten weeks later 16-year-old Darlenia Denise Johnson disappeared. At 10.30 a.m., on 8 July, she left her apartment to go to her summer job at a recreation centre. Eleven days later her body was found on the side of the I–295, within 15 feet of the spot where Carol Spinks was had been found on 1 May. Her remains were so badly decomposed that the coroner could not determine the cause of death, though it was thought that she had been strangled. Both bodies had been tossed down the hill from above.

  Meanwhile, a third victim, 14-year-old Angela Denise Barnes, had been abducted from Southeast Washington on 13 July, shot dead and dumped the same day just over the state line near Waldorf, Maryland. As the method of murder was different, one cannot be sure that Angela Barnes was the victim of the Freeway Phantom, though much of the rest of the MO is the same.

  On 27 July, ten-year-old Brenda Crockett was sent to the store by her mother. There was no reason to fear for her safety. The Crocketts lived in a quiet neighbourhood of terraced houses at 12th and W streets in Northwest Washington, about a block from Cardozo High School.

  Her sister Bertha, then seven, recalled that Brenda was very responsible for her age, but when she did not return within an hour, the family grew anxious. While Bertha waited at home, other family members searched the neighbourhood.

  “Even at that young age,” said Bertha, “I knew something was wrong.”

  Three hours after Brenda had left, the phone rang in the living room. Bertha answered. It was Brenda on the line. She was crying.

  “Momma is going looking for you,” Bertha told her sister.

  “A white man picked me up,” said Brenda, “and I’m heading home in a cab.”

  She added that she thought she was in Virginia.

  Then Brenda quickly said, “Bye” before hanging up. The police believe that Brenda had been forced to make the call and provide a misleading description of her abductor and the location.

  Minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, Bertha’s mother’s boyfriend answered. Brenda told him what she had told her sister, and said that she was alone in a house with a man.

  “Tell him to come to the phone and tell me where you’re at,” said the boyfriend, “and I’ll come and get you.”

  “Did my mother see me?” Brenda asked.

  “How could she see you when you’re in Virginia?” the boyfriend replied. “Tell the man to come to the phone.”

  The boyfriend then heard heavy footsteps in the background.

  “I’ll see you,” said Brenda, and the line went dead.

  A few hours later, Brenda’s body was found by a hitchhiker on US Highway 50 near I–295 in Prince George’s Country, in a place where she could not be missed. A k
notted scarf was tied around her neck. She had been raped and strangled.

  The killer took a two-month summer break in August and September. Then on 1 October, 12-year-old Nenomoshia “Neno” Yates was snatched off Benning Road in Northeast Washington while walking home from a Safeway store at about 7 p.m. Her body was discovered within a few hours, on the shoulder of Pennsylvania Avenue, just over the state line in Prince George’s County, Maryland. She, too, had been raped and strangled.

  It was then that the moniker “Freeway Phantom” appeared in a headline on the story describing Nenomoshia’s death in the now-defunct Washington tabloid, the Daily News.

  At 18, Brenda Denise Woodward was the Freeway Phantom’s oldest victim. On the night of Monday 15 November, she left night school at Cardozo High with a male friend and went to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street in Northwest D.C. By 10.25 p.m., they were on a bus heading to Northeast Washington. At Eighth and H Streets NE, she got off the bus to catch another to her home on Maryland Avenue NE. She seems to have been abducted from the bus stop.

  About six hours later, a police officer spotted Brenda Woodward’s body on the grass by an access ramp to Route 202 from the Baltimore-Washington Parkway near Prince George’s County Hospital. Her coat had been draped over her chest. She had been stabbed and strangled.

  The police found a mocking note in her coat pocket. Its contents are still unpublished, but it was signed: “The Freeway Phantom.” Plainly the perpetrator enjoyed reading about his activities in the press. However FBI experts concluded that Woodward had written the note herself, possibly under the coercion of the killer. Nevertheless it was in a steady hand and betrayed no hint of fear or tension.