Virginia Police Name Dead Fisherman Alan Wilmer Sr. in 1987 Ragged Island Killings and a 1989 Hampton Murder
DNA tied Alan Wade Wilmer Sr., who died in 2017, to David Knobling, Robin Edwards and Teresa Howell. Police said no evidence yet linked other Colonial Parkway cases.
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On September 20, 1987, a pickup truck was found abandoned in the parking lot of the Ragged Island Wildlife Management Area in Isle of Wight County, Virginia. The keys were in the ignition, and the radio and windshield wipers were still on. It belonged to David Knobling, 20, who had last been seen the day before with Robin Edwards, 14. Three days later their bodies were found along the shoreline on the south bank of the James River. Both had been shot, and Edwards had been sexually assaulted. For more than 36 years nobody was publicly named in their deaths.
On Monday, January 8, 2024, at a news conference in Suffolk, Virginia State Police named a man. Investigators said DNA evidence linked Alan Wade Wilmer Sr., a fisherman who died at his Lancaster County home in December 2017 at 63, to the killings of Knobling and Edwards and to the 1989 murder of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell in Hampton. "The Virginia Department of Forensic Science in 2023 issued a 'Certificate of Analysis' confirming a genetic match to Wilmer based on evidence collected from the Isle of Wight County and City of Hampton homicide victims," the State Police said in a release. Wilmer was never charged. The Commonwealth's Attorneys for Isle of Wight County and the City of Hampton said that if he were alive, he would be.
Howell, 29, was last seen around 2:30 a.m. on July 1, 1989, outside the Zodiac Club in Hampton, a nightspot that no longer exists. At 10:10 that morning, a construction crew working in the 500 block of Butler Farm Road found women's clothing, and a short time later the body of an unidentified woman was found in a wood line nearby. A missing person report filed in York County on July 4 led to her identification. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled, Hampton Police Capt. Rebecca Warren said.
State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller explained how the cases came together. In a fresh review, investigators combed through decades of evidence and witness statements and developed several suspects. A couple of years before the announcement, the Department of Forensic Science found that the same unknown man's DNA was present in the Isle of Wight and Hampton killings, but there was no match in the FBI's database of convicted offenders. Wilmer had no felonies on his record, so his DNA had never been entered. When investigators looked at him and learned he was dead, they legally obtained his genetic material, which had been taken to identify him after his death, and got a hit in June 2023. Police would not say what tip or tips led them to him.
Knobling's and Edwards's deaths had long been grouped with the Colonial Parkway Murders, a series of killings of couples in eastern Virginia between 1986 and 1989. Geller said the similarities "cannot be ignored," but that at this time there was no forensic or physical evidence linking the Isle of Wight killings to the other double murders, which remained under active investigation. Howell's death had never been counted among those cases.
Investigators described Wilmer as a clam and oyster fisherman who worked from a custom-built wooden boat named Denni Wade, ran a business called Better Tree Service, hunted with at least one club in the Middle Peninsula region and drove a blue 1966 Dodge Fargo pickup. Brian Dugan, special agent in charge of the FBI's Norfolk office, said investigators would look at whether Wilmer was connected to other Colonial Parkway cases, among them the killings of Cathleen Thomas and Rebecca Ann Dowski and the disappearance of Richard Keith Call and Cassandra Lee Hailey. "Even though Mr. Wilmer is deceased, we want you to know, it's not too late to come forward," he said.
In a statement read by Geller, the Knobling and Edwards families said they had lived in fear for 36 years that the person who killed Robin and David could kill again. "His death will not allow us to seek out the answer to countless questions that have haunted us for so long," they said. Howell's family thanked the investigators and asked for privacy. "While we are grateful for the closure that has been provided, nothing will bring Terri back," they said.
Sources
- Police link Virginia man to three unsolved murders, address Colonial Parkway Murders connection, WTVR CBS 6
- Dead fisherman is named the suspect in 3 cold cases, including 2 of Va.'s 'Colonial Parkway Murders', NBC News
Related News
- November 14, 2025: DNA Links Colonial Parkway Suspect Alan Wilmer Sr. to the 1988 Murder of Laurie Ann Powell
- September 18, 2026: FBI Names Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. in the 1988 Disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey