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A failure to crosscheck forensic evidence leaves four local murders unresolved; could Evonitz have killed more than the three we know

Date published: 11/18/2007

Behind every case is a victim--man, woman, or child--and the people who care for them. We dedicate our efforts, and the new FBI Laboratory building, to those victims.

--Inscription in stone outside

the FBI Laboratory building

THEY HAVE NAMES, all of them: Alicia Showalter Reynolds; Julianne "Julie" Williams; Laura "Lollie" Winans; Anne Carolyn McDaniel; and, of course, Sofia Silva and Kristin and Kati Lisk. They were all young women or girls killed in our area between March 1996 and May 1997. They have left behind grieving family members, distraught friends, and a community scarred by violent loss. Four of their murders remain unsolved, justice in those cases muted by the very officials charged with prosecuting it.

The abductions and murders of Sofia Silva in September 1996 and Kristin and Kati Lisk in May 1997 left Fredericksburg-area residents dry-mouthed with fear. Parents held their children closer, and neighbors went on high alert. Then, in 2002, Richard Marc Evonitz, who had lived in our area, shot himself to death in South Carolina while being pursued by police for abducting and raping a young girl there. Two months later, forensic evidence positively linked him to the deaths of the three Spotsylvania County girls. Those girls, sadly, would never return, but at least a measure of justice prevailed.

The scales in the other cases remain unbalanced. Despite promises from then-Spotsylvania County Sheriff Ron Knight, the Virginia State Police, and the FBI, forensic evidence from Evonitz was not checked against other murders, including four in our immediate area. A serial killer, Evonitz, who claimed he'd committed "more crimes than he could remember," was ignored as a suspect in the murders of Ms. Reynolds, Ms. Williams, Ms. Winans, and possibly Ms. McDaniel. Why?

In a special report in today's paper--"Who killed my daughter?"-- reporter Pamela Gould details an 18-month-long investigation into the failure of the state police, the FBI, and prosecutors to cross-check key forensic evidence in at least three of those four murders with the Evonitz evidence. Instead, all three agencies single-mindedly pursued Darrell Rice as the perpetrator of the murders of Ms. Reynolds, Ms. Williams, and Ms. Winans, despite a complete failure to link him forensically to any of them.

Date published: 11/18/2007