Investigators say a 28-year search for the killer of two female campers in Virginia is over, after pinning their murders on a now-dead serial rapist.
Julianne Williams, 24, and Laira Winans, 26, went camping in the Shenandoah National Park in May 1996. They never returned home as planned and their families called the National Parks Service.
On June 1, 1996, their bodies were found bound and gagged at their campsite, but no suspect was positively identified.
On Thursday, the FBI announced that a renewed investigation had led them to Walter Leo Jackson Sr., a convicted serial rapist from Ohio.
“After 28 years, we are now able to say who committed the brutal murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams in Shenandoah National Park,” United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said Thursday.
“I want to again extend my condolences to the Winans and Williams families and hope today’s announcement provides some small measure of solace.”
Winans had grown up in Grosse Point, Michigan, was an experienced hiker and was involved in environmental issues, while Williams was from St. Cloud Minnesota and also shared in similar interests to Winans.
The pair had met through an organization offering outdoor adventures and educational programs for women. They headed to the National Park together on May 19, 1996 and were last seen five days later.
The renewed search for the women’s killer began in 2021, when a new FBI Richmond investigative team was assigned to their case.
Hundreds of leads and interviews from 1996 were reexamined, with evidence from the crime scene prioritized for retesting at a private lab. That lab then pulled DNA from several items of evidence, the FBI said, and a match was found: Jackson.
“Even though we had this DNA match, we took additional steps and compared evidence from Lollie and Julie’s murders directly to a buccal swab containing Jackson’s DNA,” Stanley M. Meador, the FBI Richmond special agent in charge, said.
“Those results confirmed we had the right man and finally could tell the victim’s families we know who is responsible for this heinous crime.”
Meador said the match came with a certainty rarely seen – 1 in 2.6 trillion – and that allowed them to pinpoint the pair’s deaths on him.
They also found evidence that the victims were sexually assaulted.
Jackson died in prison in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in March 2018, having built up an extensive criminal history including kidnapping, rapes and assaults.
Officers believe that Jackson was an avid hiker and often visited the national park where the young women were killed.
Kavanaugh added that if Jackson had been alive today, he would have authorized a federal indictment charging him with two counts of first-degree murder, as well as charges of sexual assault.
Days after killing Williams and Winans, in June 1996, Jackson kidnapped and raped a woman as he held a knife to her throat, the attorney said. He did this again, to a different woman, in July 1996 and he remained at-large for that crime.
Fifteen years later, Jackson violently abducted and raped another woman. This time, he was arrested and convicted for that attack, while also being linked to the incidents in June and July 1996.
Despite the suspect’s death in 2018, investigators are now working to see if he was responsible for other unsolved cases.
“We don’t give up,” Kavanaugh added.
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If already a serial rapist his DNA should have been on file. Why wasn’t he caught sooner. Was the FBI too busy raiding Trumps house or organizing Jan 6? Maybe just pick a dead man that was already a convict. You know make it look good