VA VA - Richard 'Keith' Call, 20, & Cassandra Hailey, 18, Newport News, 10 April 1988

Here is the latest story on the Colonial Parkway Murders, which includes the disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey.

http://www.13newsnow.com/news/crime...crack-colonial-parkway-murders-case/492039399

Bill Thomas Brother of Cathy Thomas Colonial Parkway Murders

billthom56 said:

Here is the latest story on the Colonial Parkway Murders, which includes the disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey.

http://www.13newsnow.com/news/crime...crack-colonial-parkway-murders-case/492039399

Bill Thomas Brother of Cathy Thomas Colonial Parkway Murders

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It is good to see the local ABC affiliate was trying to get answers. Now the FBI just needs to do the testing!

Thanks, JnRyan.

One of the most frustrating things about dealing with the investigation into the Colonial Parkway Murders has been the pace of the testing. We are constantly reminded that since 9/11, the FBI has largely been redeployed as an anti-terrorism agency, and violent crime has been moved to the bottom of the FBI's priority list.

Cold cases like ours are always at the bottom of the list, so despite the fact that the Colonial Parkway families have been waiting 28-31 years for answers, we are constantly told, "Get in the back of the line." Whenever we propose private testing, the FBI pushes back with chain of custody concerns. And so we wait.

Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathy Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

billthom56 said:

Thanks, JnRyan.

One of the most frustrating things about dealing with the investigation into the Colonial Parkway Murders has been the pace of the testing. We are constantly reminded that since 9/11, the FBI has largely been redeployed as an anti-terrorism agency, and violent crime has been moved to the bottom of the FBI's priority list.

Cold cases like ours are always at the bottom of the list, so despite the fact that the Colonial Parkway families have been waiting 28-31 years for answers, we are constantly told, "Get in the back of the line." Whenever we propose private testing, the FBI pushes back with chain of custody concerns. And so we wait.

Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathy Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

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Your frustration is palpable. I hope the killer is caught. I have a feeling that he has already been interviewed by LE. I think they interviewed him soon after the Phelps/Lauer murders and that the interview is the reason why the killings stopped at that time.

Excellent new interview on the Colonial Parkway Murders with the "Books, Bullets and Bad Omens" blog in Finland.

https://booksbulletsandbadomens.word...thleen-thomas/


Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathy Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

April 10, 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey at the York River Overlook along the Colonial Parkway, as part of the Colonial Parkway Murders. We will be discussing the case at the 'Colonial Parkway Murders' page on Facebook.






Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathleen Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

Looking forward to speaking at this conference on "Life Lessons from the Colonial Parkway Murders" on Sat. March 17.

Our case includes the disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey, who are missing but presumed dead after nearly 30 years.

#ColonialParkwayMurders #FBI #DNA #truecrime #unsolved #missingperson

http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20180226/cues-missing-persons-conference-set

We are really looking forward to CrimeCon, May 4-6, 2018 in Nashville. We will be hosting an expert panel on the unsolved Colonial Parkway Murders. So far, we have booked Cathy Thomas' brother Bill Thomas, true crime author Blaine Pardoe, and former FBI Special Agent Maureen O'Connell to discuss the Colonial Parkway Murders.

Here is the CrimeCon 2018 schedule:

https://www.crimecon.com/guests/

Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathleen Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

Families search for answers 30 years after disappearance

http://www.13newsnow.com/article/ne...rs-30-years-after-disappearance/291-536918050

Two families are still searching for answers, decades after their loved ones disappeared. Tuesday marks thirty years since police started looking for Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey. The couple went missing on the Colonial Parkway, but their bodies were never found.

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We are thrilled to announce that our Colonial Parkway Murders expert panel has been selected to be one of the CrimeCon 2018 panels to be streamed. This includes the disappearance of Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey, who have been missing for 30 years as of April 10, 2018 and are assumed to have been part of the Colonial Parkway Murders. We are live at 6:00 pm CDT (7:00 pm EDT) this Friday, May 4. Details below.

https://www.crimecon.com/livestream

Bill Thomas,
Brother of Cathy Thomas,
Colonial Parkway Murders

Law enforcement (FBI and Virginia State Police) have told the Colonial Parkway Murders that we have possible perpetrator DNA in 3 of the 4 crime scenes in the Colonial Parkway Murders. No word from FBI or Virginia State Police if they plan to run similar tests via the GEDMatch website as was done in the Golden State Killer case, but there may be hope:

DNA Data From 100 Crime Scenes Has Been Uploaded To A Genealogy Website — Just Like The Golden State Killer


Thanks.


Bill Thomas, Brother of Cathy Thomas, Colonial Parkway Murders

Here is another good article on next steps for DNA testing.

Bill Thomas, Brother of Cathy Thomas, Colonial Parkway Murders

WIRED: The Key to Cracking Cold Cases Might Be Genealogy Sites

https://t.co/DD2J6X8udQ via @wired

#FBI #VirginiaStatePolice #DNA #Parabon #ColonialParkwayMurders

I wrote the short piece below to give laypeople a simple non-technical explanation of how DNA might work in a case like the Colonial Parkway Murders. Do you think this does the job?

Thanks.


Bill Thomas


So how does this DNA thing work anyway?

The Colonial Parkway Murders families have been told by law enforcement (FBI and Virginia State Police) that they may have perpetrator DNA in 3 of the 4 crime scenes in the unsolved Colonial Parkway Murders. If the DNA samples are clean enough, they can be run in the national CODIS database, which contains DNA profiles from persons convicted of certain crimes. The challenge is when a potential perpetrator has never been arrested, charged and convicted of the type of crime, which would require his or her DNA profile to be put into the CODIS database. There is no national database of citizen DNA profiles.

Recently, law enforcement investigators, forensic experts and genealogists worked together to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case, which stretches back more than 40 years. Investigators took a DNA sample from the unknown suspect in the Golden State Killer case and loaded the profile into GEDmatch, an open source website which allows DNA profiles to be used for research and law enforcement purposes. The experts found a match to a distant relative of the suspect on GEDmatch. Then a team law enforcement and genealogists spent many hours building an extended family tree for the matching DNA profile in order to identify possible suspects.

After extensive research, the team was able to identify a potential perpetrator. Law enforcement then put the suspect under surveillance, looking for an opportunity to capture his DNA to confirm they had the right man. After the suspect went into a Hobby Lobby store near his home in California, agents took a DNA sample from his car door handle. Forensics experts confirmed that the touch DNA matched DNA evidence left at one of the crime scenes in the Golden State Killer case. In an abundance of caution, law enforcement continued to watch the man's home until they were able to collect a second sample from his trash, a discarded tissue. Tests confirmed a second DNA match, and law enforcement moved in to make an arrest.

These techniques have now been used to make several other arrests in cold cases around the country, and there is great hope that they might be helpful in cases like the Colonial Parkway Murders and other unsolved cases where there is DNA evidence.


Bill Thomas
Brother of Cathy Thomas
Colonial Parkway Murders

There have been 3 new podcasts on the Colonial Parkway Murders:

“True Crime Garage” podcast

True Crime Garage

2 part podcast, no participation by Colonial Parkway Murders families.


“The Murder In My Family” podcast

Cathy Thomas - Colonial Parkway Murders | The Murder In My Family

Bill Thomas with host Mike Morford.


“Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” podcast/SiriusXM radio show

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

Bill Thomas with Nancy Grace, Leigh Egan, Sheryl McCollum, Bethany Marshall, producer Alan Duke.


New hope for families of 8 murdered along Virginia's Colonial Parkway


Thanks.



Bill Thomas

wvugirl2007 said:

Here's a link to a Facebook page trying to solve their disappearances and even the murders of other Colonial Parkway killer victims.
What happened to Richard "Keith" Call & Cassandra Hailey?
These crimes still haunt many people with who lived in the area during the late 1980's. I was a young child during these crimes, but my parents and many others with teenagers after these crimes happened were very cautious when we traveled in the area. I believe parents today have forgotten the cases, but if you were around then you still remember the fear.

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I was just out of college when the murders happened. The night the last couple was taken (the car found at a rest area off 64), I had stopped at that very rest area about 10
Pm on the way back to my parents’ house from my grandmother’s.
Freaked me out when I read about it.

New episode of "Crime and Scandal" is out now! Bill Thomas the brother of Cathleen Thomas, one of 8 people killed along Virginia's Colonial Parkway join host Levi Page to discuss his quest for justice. Did a serial killer haunt the Colonial Parkway after sundown and prey on couples? #TrueCrime

Listen on Apple Podcasts https://itunes.apple.com/…/51-the-colonial-pa…/id1200565928…

Or listen on audioBoom https://audioboom.com/…/7025205-the-colonial-parkway-murders

I remember years ago conflating Ralph Leon Jackson with this serial killer, because Jackson had attacked a couple on the Blue Ridge Parkway. What strikes me about this killer is that although part of the MO throughout the cases is the same, attacking couples on a scenic parkway, the method use to kill differs extremely wildly between the cases.

Very excited to have #ColonialParkwayMurders picked up to series @Oxygen, produced by XG Productions in Los Angeles and Texas Crew Productions in Austin. Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey's disappearance is part of the Colonial Parkway Murders.

I serve as Consulting Producer on the TV project. No, Kim Kardashian does not appear in our series.

Bill Thomas, Brother of Cathy Thomas, Colonial Parkway Murders

Oxygen Media Announces New Projects With Kim Kardashian, Mark Wahlberg And Others

#FBI #VirginiaStatePolice #truecrime

billthom56 said:

Very excited to have #ColonialParkwayMurders picked up to series @Oxygen, produced by XG Productions in Los Angeles and Texas Crew Productions in Austin. Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey's disappearance is part of the Colonial Parkway Murders.

I serve as Consulting Producer on the TV project. No, Kim Kardashian does not appear in our series.

Bill Thomas, Brother of Cathy Thomas, Colonial Parkway Murders

Oxygen Media Announces New Projects With Kim Kardashian, Mark Wahlberg And Others

#FBI #VirginiaStatePolice #truecrime

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CONGRATS!!! I am so ready for these murders to be solved, as I'm sure you are.

Refreshing the thread...