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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/ElegantLandscape on 2024-01-08 21:48:02+00:00.
Update, sorry if you see this twice, I had to take out the news article text and resubmit.
This is one close to home for me. Here is a quick breakdown of the Murders from 1986-1989 in South East Virginia. A now-deceased man has been linked by DNA to 2 of the murders along with other cold cases they did not think were connected before.
The Colonial Parkway murders were the murders of at least eight people along the Colonial Parkway in South-East Virginia between 1986 and 1989. The Colonial Parkway is a 22-mile long thoroughfare that cuts through the Colonial National Historical Park and connects Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. Long stretches of the road are devoid of streetlamps or road lights and are extremely isolated, making it a popular lovers' lane location frequented by many young adults. When I say that it is dark and deserted, I mean it. It is meant to fade into the background as a road so you can feel the Colonial vibes basically.
In each incident, a young couple sitting in a vehicle was targeted and both were killed. Three pairs of victims were recovered, and another couple remains missing and presumed murdered. Several other additional homicides have also been tentatively linked to the four confirmed cases. The causes of death included strangulation, gunshot, and stabbings. There was no evidence of burglary but sexual assault has not been ruled out. The killer drove his victims’ vehicles away from the murder sites. The linking of the four crimes is circumstantial, and no suspects have ever been publicly identified.
Here is the set of two people, who we now know were shot by Wilmer Sr. Using the words 'couple' for these two people is pretty gross since David was 20 and Robin 14, but here is the gist, below. The erasure of Davids's pedophilia might have been a factor in this case remaining unsolved for so long.
David Knobling and Robin Edwards
On September 23, 1987, Virginia salesman David Lee Knobling, 20, and eighth-grade Huntington Middle School student Robin Margaret Edwards, 14, were found shot to death around 100 feet away after being washed ashore with the tide in the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge, on the south shore of the James River in Isle of Wight County, near Smithfield, Virginia. The two victims were last seen on September 19, 1987, after tthey had met at an arcade and Robin had snuck out later that night to meet up with David. Both victims had been shot; Robin in the back of the head execution-style, and David twice, once in the head and once in the shoulder like he had been running from the killer. Both victims were partially clothed. Edwards was found with her jeans unfastened and her bra around her neck, but investigators were unsure if there had been sexual assault since despite Robin being underage and David having a pregnant girlfriend, it was presumed that Robin and David had a sexual relationship. It now seems like the killer assaulted Robin, but David was also disgusting for meeting up with a literal eighth grader.
Knobling's black Ford Ranger pickup truck was discovered on Monday, September 21, 1987, by a patrolling police officer at the refuge parking area next to the James River Bridge with the wipers, engine, and radio still running and some articles of clothing inside near the Ragged Island Wildlife Management Area about two miles upriver from where their bodies would eventually be discovered. The officer found the black Ford Ranger with both doors open and the driver’s window partially rolled down which caused police to believe that the perpetrator had possibly been posing as or was some sort of uniformed officer. There were two pairs of underwear, shoes, and Knobling's wallet were found in the car, which ruled robbery out as a probable motive. Three days later, the two bodies were discovered by Knobling's father and a search party along the water's edge of the James River.
Authorities immediately linked the double-murder of Knobling and Edwards to the murders of Dowski and Thomas eleven months previously because although their deaths did not occur on the Colonial Parkway, both sets of victims were couples who had been killed at or around lovers' lane areas, and the two locations were only about a thirty-minute drive apart.
There are tons of theories on the Colonial Parkways Murders and it was trending towards them not being related but with this discovery and the addition of more murders, the possibility that these were all connected with real. There is also a theory involving the murder of two women who were members of the LGBTQ+ community in Shenandoah National Park that might be tied to two of the Colonial Parkways murders as hate crimes.
The person who committed these two murders plus more had no felony charges and died in 2017, his DNA was submitted after his death..
Colonial Parkways Murder Wikipedia Page with links to multiple news articles and media