This month marks the 20th anniversary of a shocking double murder in Shenandoah National Park, and the FBI is taking the occasion to ask for public help in finally solving the case.
Julie Williams was 24. Her partner Lollie Winans was 26. The two had come to Virginia to hike the Appalachian Trail. When, after nine days, they failed to return to their home in Vermont, a search team found their bodies at a campsite just off Skyline Drive. The women had been bound, their throats slashed.
“This case was a very personal case, both for our community here in Virginia and frankly for my agents,” says Adam Lee, special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond office.
“What I want folks to understand is that Julie and Lollie are not forgotten.”
And Lee insists this is not a cold case.
“We have persons of interest. We have DNA evidence. We have things that even with the passage of 20 years we think can take us into new areas and give us new discoveries.”
And today – 20 years after the murders – they have the Internet, so the FBI is releasing a new poster about the case and asking for any information members of the public might have.
Over the years, prosecutors charged one suspect -- Darrell Rice, but he was released when hairs found at the scene did not match his. A second suspect committed suicide as police prepared to arrest him for the murder of three women in Spotsylvania.