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Families still want answers in deaths

Families considering options to get serial killer check in unsolved slayings

Date published: 12/23/2007

By PAMELA GOULD

The families of three young women whose slayings remain unsolved after 11 years can't understand why state and federal law enforcement failed to forensically evaluate a known serial killer as a suspect and now are assessing their options.

Harley and Sadie Showalter are considering how to press for answers and action on behalf of their daughter Alicia Showalter Reynolds, who was killed in March 1996.

John Winans is trying to contact federal authorities to see if he can get answers on behalf of his daughter, Laura "Lollie" Winans, who was killed two months later.

And Tom Williams is in disbelief that the people tasked with finding the killer of his daughter, Julianne Williams, wouldn't have automatically evaluated a killer who lived in the region at the time of the slayings.

"I can't believe authorities would be so blind," said Williams, who lives in Minnesota. "They would have to be so obviously inept not to have checked out [Richard Marc] Evonitz thoroughly."

In August 2002, the local, state and federal law enforcement task force that had been hunting for years for the killer of three Spotsylvania County girls announced Evonitz as their killer based primarily on forensic evidence examined by the FBI Laboratory.

At the same time, the task force announced it would try to determine every crime Evonitz committed in his 38-year life.

Specifically, FBI Richmond Division chief Donald W. Thompson Jr. said Evonitz would be checked forensically for any unsolved crime with evidence.

And then-Lt. Rick Jenkins of the Virginia State Police said evidence from Reynolds' slaying was being sent to the FBI Lab to be checked against Evonitz.

But those things didn't happen, The Free Lance-Star found in a more-than 18-month investigation of its own.

Neither the state police agent tasked with solving Reynolds' case nor the FBI agent in charge of the slayings of Williams and Winans asked for those comparisons to be conducted.

'Know for sure'

Mark Reynolds, widower of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, can't imagine why he should need to prompt investigators to conduct forensic comparisons between evidence in his wife's slaying and evidence from serial killer Evonitz.

He'd like to know why they weren't done.

"I would definitely like to know what the explanation is," Reynolds said. "It just seems like a no-brainer--such an easy step to take."

Virginia State Police and the FBI have failed to conduct the promised forensic comparisons between evidence in three local unsolved slayings and serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz. Alicia Showalter Reynolds, 25, was abducted in Culpeper County on March 2, 1996, while traveling on U.S. 29 en route from Baltimore to Charlottesville. Her remains were found in the nearby Lignum community on May 7, 1996. Julianne "Julie" Williams, 24, and Laura "Lollie" Winans, 26, were killed in May 1996 at their creek-side campsite in Shenandoah National Park. Their campsite was located along a bridle trail that begins across from the entrance to Skyland Lodge and a third of a mile from Skyline Drive.

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Date published: 12/23/2007