Police name dead suspect in 3 Virginia cold cases, including 2 of the ‘Colonial Parkway Murders’

By BEN FINLEY
Associated Press

Authorities say they’ve linked a smalltime fisherman who died in 2017 to three cold-case homicides in Virginia. Two of the killings were among a series of unsolved slayings of couples in the late 1980s that are known as the “Colonial Parkway Murders.” Virginia State Police said Monday that the suspect is Alan W. Wilmer Sr. Investigators said they legally obtained Wilmer’s DNA after his death. Police said he’s suspected in the 1987 slayings of David Knobling and Robin Edwards near Colonial Parkway in Isle of Wight County. Wilmer was also identified as the suspect in the 1989 slaying of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell in the city of Hampton.