One such investigator was Detective Sgt. Fortunately, Kadner had something to work with. At the time of her death, Cathy was dating Dowski, a student at the College of William and Mary. But now, a team of former FBI agents aim to bring the monster to justice. Was she alive, or had she been murdered along with her boyfriend? Theirs is believed to be the oldest case ever solved with forensic genealogy. It s a place where instead of love, the couple met a terrible fate. They drove west of Great Falls to an area now known as Wadsworth Park, along the Sun River: a notorious lovers lane. The couple travelled in Call's red 1982 Toyota Celica. We're starting with a distant relative and trying to work back toward our unknown sample.". "It's really fantastic technology and it's going to solve a lot of cold cases," Singer said. Premiering on February 11,Oxygen's two-night true-crime special Lovers' Lane Murdersfocuses on the slaying of eight men and women at the Colonial Parkway, a 23-mile stretch that linksthe historic towns of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. This was the last time they were seen alive. Lovers' Lane Murders: With Maureen O'Connell, Jim Clemente, Loni Coombs, Dan Matteucci. 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, police connected the cases due to the fact that 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. On Tuesday, the Cascade County Sheriffs Office announced that it had cracked the case. Dowski, 21, was found in the backseat of the car while Cathy, 27, was stuffed into the hatchback. Sign up for Scary Mommy's daily newsletter for more stories from the trenches. It was the first of several gruesome murders. Moderated by former FBI Special Agent Maureen O'Connell, the panel featured family members and advocates Joyce Call and Bill Thomas along with Blaine Pardoe, coauthor of a book on the case, A Special Kind of Evil: The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings. 'Urban legends usually come out of some seed of truth,' former prosecutor and Lovers Lane Murders co-host Loni Coombs explains in a preview clip. An autopsy found rope burns on their necks and wrists, signs of strangulation, their throats had been slashed so deeply that they were nearly decapitated, and the killer had covered the bodies and vehicle with gasoline, but not actually lit them on fire. "It was such a big case. at 2:00 a.m. on August 18, only hours after they were last seen. They constructed a reverse family tree from a cousins profile. Playing tourist! Compton worked for the same security company where Pettinger and Edwards' mother worked at the time of her murder. Kate nails sporty chic in 600 Mountain Equipment jacket, 110 jeans and 175 walking Time flies! Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson: Lover's Lane murders still unsolved Call's unoccupied vehicle was discovered abandoned at the York River Overlook on Colonial Parkway in Yorktown, Virginia at 7:00 a.m. on April 10, but it was not reported to authorities until 9:00 a.m. She had everything going for her. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. With the killer finally identified, Kadner was able to reach out to the victims' surviving relatives and deliver the closure that had taken more than 60 years to procure. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. The Colonial Parkway is a 22-mile long thoroughfare that cuts through the Colonial National Historical Park and connects Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. ET. And Becky was also extremely athletic. But I knew the key was going to be DNA.. The cause of death remains unknown, though forensics suggested that Phelps may have been stabbed. It was a bittersweet revelation: They were grateful for answers, but for many of the older people in the family, it was a struggle to have those wounds reopened. There was only one problem: Gould had died on May 31, 2007. They had been strangled and their throats were slashed, though there was no evidence of sexual assault. Sergeant Kadner said he believed it was the oldest homicide case in the United States to be solved with genetic genealogy, which uses DNA from crime scenes to identify the relatives of potential suspects and eventually the suspects themselves. The jogger assumed that a drunk driver might have accidentally swerved there so they alerted a highway patrolman who arrived on scene and discovered Thomas and Dowski's bodies inside Thomas's white 1980 Honda Civic.
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