The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings
Tonight, we unravel one of Virginia’s most haunting cold cases—The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings—where multiple young couples vanished or were discovered dead in isolated lovers’ lanes along the scenic Colonial Parkway during the late 1980s.
Between 1986 and 1989, eight young adults—traveling in four couples—were brutally slain or disappeared along Virginia’s Colonial Parkway and surrounding areas. Known as the Colonial Parkway Murders, these chilling crimes involved strangulation, gunshots, and staging under gasoline, and remain among the most eerie serial homicides in modern American history
Wikipedia
colonialghosts.com.
Despite decades of exhaustive investigation, the case remained unsolved—until 2024, when investigators used posthumous DNA evidence to identify Alan Wade Wilmer Sr., a local fisherman, as the key suspect in at least two of the killings—and potentially more
AP News. This renewed breakthrough brings closure to some families, though many questions and theories about multiple killers, law enforcement missteps, and forensic gaps still linger
