Virginia is known as the state for lovers, but it is also ground zero for one of the most mysterious murder sprees in our nation's history. A serial killer attacked several couples at potential lovers' lane areas down Route 64. Could they all be connected? Join Dr. Oz as important details about these 8 gruesome colonial parkway murders are revealed.
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00:00 Everyone knows Virginia is for lovers,
00:02 but few realize the Commonwealth State is also ground zero
00:05 for one of the most mysterious murder sprees
00:08 in our nation's history.
00:09 A quiet 23-mile stretch of highway
00:12 has long been thought to be the hunting ground
00:14 for a suspected serial killer
00:16 who may have violently attacked several couples
00:18 at potential lovers' lane areas.
00:21 These tragic killings are known
00:22 as the Colonial Parkway Murders.
00:25 Our former prosecutor, who was featured
00:28 in Oxygen's new series, "Lovers Lane Murders,"
00:30 Lani Coombs joins us now.
00:32 Lani, why do many believe these deaths
00:35 may be the work of a serial killer?
00:36 - Well, we're talking about double homicides.
00:40 Double homicides in and of themselves are fairly rare.
00:43 To kill two people at one time is a difficult thing to do.
00:47 Here, you're talking about four double homicides,
00:50 one happening each year for four years in a row.
00:53 And in each of these cases,
00:55 you have the couples sitting in a car
00:59 in a situation that's like a lover's lane.
01:01 These locations were isolated.
01:04 They were at night.
01:04 It was dark.
01:05 There was not a lot of light around.
01:07 They were in areas where if they were confronted,
01:09 it would be hard to escape.
01:11 And it was also, all of the areas were surrounded by trees,
01:14 so if they tried to scream for help, they wouldn't be heard.
01:17 - Now, despite these similarities that you outlined,
01:19 some investigators do not think that these murders
01:21 are the work of a serial killer.
01:23 What's their argument?
01:25 - Well, digging deeper into each of these cases individually,
01:28 looking at the victims specifically,
01:30 and also the motives behind the killing
01:32 and the manner of death,
01:34 you see some differences coming up.
01:36 In the first case, this couple,
01:37 Kathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski,
01:40 appeared to be targeted because they were a lesbian couple.
01:42 It looks like it could have been a hate crime.
01:45 Contrast that to the second case
01:46 of David Nobling and Robin Edwards.
01:50 This couple had just met that day,
01:52 and they decided to hook up again later that night
01:55 very surreptitiously,
01:56 no one knew where they were going
01:57 or what their plans were.
01:59 They went to an area that was a lover's lane,
02:01 but it was also known to be sort of a dangerous area
02:03 where other criminal activity was going on.
02:05 And it appears to be more of a random killing in this case.
02:08 In the third case, we have Keith Coll and Cassandra Haley,
02:11 who were college students
02:13 and were on their first date together.
02:14 Their bodies have not been found for 30 years.
02:18 The car was found that early morning the next day
02:21 on the Colonial Parkway,
02:23 about a mile away from where Kathy's car had been found.
02:26 And in the very last case,
02:27 we have Anna Maria Phelps and Daniel Lauer,
02:30 and they weren't a couple at all.
02:32 Anna Maria and Daniel's brother
02:34 actually lived together in Virginia Beach,
02:36 and Daniel decided he wanted to go live with them.
02:39 So he had packed up his car,
02:40 and Anna Maria was in the car for the ride
02:43 down the interstate to Virginia Beach.
02:45 They were supposed to get there around midnight,
02:47 and they never showed up.
02:48 It took six weeks for them to find their two bodies,
02:51 and they were treated in a very different way again.
02:54 They were lying next to each other,
02:55 and they were covered with a blanket.
02:57 Usually when we see something like this from the killer,
03:00 it's the killer knows the victims,
03:02 has a connection with them or a relationship with them.
03:04 There's some type of remorse or shame or guilt going on.
03:08 And so we see, when you look at all of these cases,
03:11 specifically, the profile of the killer
03:14 appears to be different on each one.
03:16 - So let's go back and look at that first case
03:17 you brought up, the first crime scene.
03:19 And we've recreated it.
03:20 And again, these are all designed to help you
03:23 as an audience understand the mindset
03:25 of the person who committed these Colonial Parkway murders.
03:27 Okay, this is the killing of a 27-year-old Kathy
03:30 and 21-year-old Rebecca.
03:32 Remember, it was the first group we mentioned.
03:33 And this is a lesbian couple that may have been a hate crime.
03:37 This is the main road.
03:38 This is the Colonial Parkway here.
03:39 And the car, in this case, unlike the others,
03:41 was actually pushed off the highway.
03:44 You see it here, pushed off the highway.
03:45 It is on this embankment, and that's where it was found.
03:48 Loni, what happened here?
03:50 - So there at the bottom of that embankment
03:52 is the York River.
03:53 And it appears that the killer
03:54 was trying to hide the car in the river.
03:58 They ran into the shrubs,
04:00 and so it stopped the car from going into the water.
04:03 Inside the car, this was Kathy's white Honda Civic,
04:07 were the two bodies of the victims.
04:09 In the hatchback part, the rear of it was Kathy Thomas.
04:12 Her body was placed there after she was killed,
04:15 and wedged in the passenger seat in the back of the car
04:19 was Rebecca Dowski's body.
04:21 Another interesting thing, in the car
04:23 were both of the victims' purses.
04:26 They were still in the car.
04:27 They both still had money in them.
04:29 So robbery was not the motive in this case.
04:33 And then we have inside the car,
04:35 diesel fuel had been poured around on the bodies
04:38 and on the inside of the car.
04:40 And up at the embankment, there were burned matches.
04:43 So it appears the killer also tried to burn the evidence,
04:47 burn the car, but it didn't work
04:48 because diesel fuel doesn't light that easily.
04:51 On the victims' bodies,
04:54 there were ligature marks around their necks,
04:57 showing that they had been strangled.
04:59 And then their throats were both slashed.
05:01 Kathy's was slashed so deeply, she was almost decapitated.
05:04 The cause of death was found to be
05:06 from strangulation from the ligature.
05:08 So the slashes to the body were actually unnecessary.
05:12 They were already dead.
05:13 So that's overkill by the killer.
05:16 - I mean, it's a comprehensive analysis of what happened.
05:18 And you can see this is very different.
05:20 At least the mindset of the murderer was very different
05:22 'cause all these elements were very focused
05:25 on hurting these folks in a very bizarre way.
05:27 Kathy and Rebecca were only one of up to four couples
05:31 who may have been violently killed
05:32 along this 23-mile-long parkway.
05:34 So Lonnie, you're a prosecutor.
05:35 You've done a beautiful job,
05:37 encyclopedic job outlining the subtleties of this case.
05:40 You, Percy, how do you feel about the likelihood
05:43 of these murders being connected to each other?
05:46 - You know, we did a real deep dive
05:48 into all of these cases specifically,
05:50 and I wanted to give each individual case
05:52 its own personal attention.
05:54 And doing that, I personally feel that the profile
05:58 of the killer in each case was very different
06:01 based on the method of killing, the motive behind it,
06:04 the situation that these victims were in.
06:06 So I believe that they were separate killers.
06:09 The interesting thing is the third killing
06:11 of Keith Call and Cassandra Haley.
06:13 Their bodies were never found,
06:14 but the car was left parked on the Colonial Parkway.
06:18 There was an intensive investigation of the parkway
06:21 during their double homicide,
06:22 looking for the bodies in the water
06:24 with dive teams and helicopters and dogs.
06:27 Not one shred of evidence was ever found
06:30 other than the car that I believe was staged there
06:32 at the Colonial Parkway.
06:34 - Lonnie, thank you very much for joining us.
06:36 Up next, Kathy's brother is here.
06:39 Why he believes we can still find answers
06:41 to these horrific crimes.
06:42 We've been talking about the chilling
06:44 Colonial Parkway murders where multiple couples
06:47 brutally lost their lives.
06:48 This tragic series of killings all remain unsolved.
06:51 Joining us now is Bill,
06:53 whose sister was one of the first victims.
06:55 So your sister Kathy was a real pioneer.
06:57 Who was she?
06:58 - Well, she was.
06:59 At the risk of sounding like every proud big brother
07:03 on the planet, Kathy was really an amazing,
07:06 she was an amazing person, a pioneer.
07:10 My father, Joseph Thomas, my older brother,
07:14 Richard Thomas, and our younger sister, Kathy Thomas,
07:17 are the first father, son, daughter graduates
07:21 of the United States Naval Academy.
07:23 - Oh my goodness.
07:24 - So Kathy graduated from Annapolis
07:26 in the second class with women
07:29 at a time when women were not made to feel welcome
07:33 in the United States Navy or at the service academies.
07:36 - I'm very sorry for your loss.
07:38 - Well, thank you.
07:39 - Where were you when you heard the bad news?
07:42 - Well, it was a Sunday afternoon.
07:44 I was living in Philadelphia.
07:47 I was at my apartment.
07:48 My phone rang.
07:49 It was my mom and dad.
07:51 After he said hello, he asked me if I was sitting down.
07:54 And I remember thinking,
07:56 why do I need to sit down to talk to my mom and dad?
07:59 So they began telling me that Kathy
08:02 and her new girlfriend, Becky,
08:05 had been murdered in a place I'd never even heard of
08:07 called the Colonial Parkway.
08:09 - So over the years, Bill has become a vocal advocate
08:11 for the families of victims thought to have been killed
08:14 along the Colonial Parkway.
08:15 What has been the biggest challenge
08:17 in trying to solve these crimes?
08:18 Here you are 30-some years later, struggling.
08:21 - Well, there were a lot of missed opportunities
08:24 in the early going of the case.
08:27 Two of the Colonial Parkway murders,
08:30 two of the double homicides are FBI cases.
08:32 Two of the other double homicides
08:35 are Virginia State Police cases.
08:37 So in the beginning, it was a lack of coordination
08:40 and a lack of information sharing.
08:42 Now our challenge is it's 30-some years later
08:46 and we're dealing with advanced forensics,
08:49 which are available to us now,
08:51 but we're talking about evidence that's 30 to 34 years old.
08:55 - So what are the chances?
08:56 Do you have hope?
08:57 After all these years,
08:58 do you believe your sister's murder
08:59 and the other poor people who are lost
09:01 on the Colonial Parkway,
09:02 their losses will also be discovered?
09:05 - Without getting into too much detail,
09:06 I know there is evidence and there are suspects.
09:10 And if we can finally put this thing together,
09:13 I believe that some or all
09:15 of the Colonial Parkway murders can be solved.
09:17 And the reason I believe that is because experts tell me
09:20 the case can be solved.
09:22 - And there are suspects.
09:24 Oh my goodness.
09:25 Well, this is an opportunity for the audience
09:26 because there's many ways to figure out these cases.
09:28 Sexual assault kits are not the only way to test for DNA.
09:31 Bill, thank you very much.
09:33 I'm sorry for your loss.
09:34 I appreciate you coming to alert everybody
09:35 because I do think there'll be folks calling in
09:38 who've got clues.
09:39 - Thank you.
09:40 - Thank you for watching.
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