DNA Links Colonial Parkway Suspect Alan Wilmer Sr. to the 1988 Murder of Laurie Ann Powell
Virginia State Police said DNA identified Wilmer, who died in 2017, as the killer of the 18-year-old Gloucester County woman, the fourth death tied to him.
Published
On March 8, 1988, Laurie Ann Powell, 18, was dropped off by her boyfriend in rural Gloucester County, Virginia, and started walking along Route 614 toward Route 17. She was never seen alive again. Nearly a month later, on April 2, her body was found in the Elizabeth River, near Craney Island. She had been stabbed multiple times. For 37 years no one was charged.
On Friday, November 14, 2025, at a news conference, Virginia State Police said DNA had identified the man responsible: Alan Wade Wilmer Sr., a commercial waterman who died in 2017 at the age of 63 in Lancaster County. Investigators said that if he were alive he would be facing homicide charges. Powell was the fourth killing linked to him.
Wilmer was already known. In 2024 the state police had named him as the DNA-linked killer of David Knobling, 20, and Robin Edwards, 14, in Isle of Wight County in 1987, one of the double homicides known as the Colonial Parkway murders, and of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell in Hampton in 1989. Powell was not one of the Colonial Parkway victims.
Biological evidence from Powell's case included DNA tied to a sexual assault. Wilmer had no felony record in his lifetime, so his profile never entered CODIS, the national DNA index, and investigators obtained his DNA only after his death. Forensic work funded through Virginia's Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, in a joint effort by the state police, the FBI and the Hampton Police Department, produced the match.
Investigators described a man who lived on the water. Known as "Pokey," Wilmer lived much of the time on a custom-built wooden boat, the Denny Wade, docking at marinas in Gloucester and Middlesex, the Northern Neck and Hampton Roads. He drove a blue 1966 Dodge Fargo pickup with Virginia plates EM-RAW and a large metal toolbox in the bed, usually loaded with clamming gear, and ran a business called Better Tree Services. Police asked anyone who remembered him, his truck or his boat from the 1980s and early 1990s to come forward. "We are not ruling anything out when we examine other cases," said Capt. Timothy Reibel, who commands the Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Chesapeake field office.
Powell's sister, Cindy Kirchner, spoke for the family. "Being her sister for 18 years was a privilege," she said. "She filled her life and ours with more joy and love than some people find in a lifetime." She remembered a "true firecracker" who "spoke her mind, followed her heart and never apologized for being herself." Reibel put the day plainly: "It's not justice. But it is resolution."
Wilmer's family said in a statement that learning of another crime connected to him was devastating, and that their first thoughts were with Powell's family and friends.
Wilmer was never charged in any of these deaths; the attribution is the Virginia State Police's, based on DNA. No state police release on the Powell case could be opened; this account rests on reports by WTOP and WTVR CBS 6 of the November 14 news conference.
Sources
- DNA evidence links Colonial Parkway serial killer to fourth Virginia murder, investigators say, WTVR CBS 6 (Scripps)
- After 37 years, Virginia identifies suspect in 1988 killing of Laurie Ann Powell, WTOP (Will Vitka)
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- September 18, 2026: FBI Names Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. in the 1988 Disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey