Chapter 3: Years-long pursuit of Rice yields no links

Date published: 11/20/2007 Frederick Free-Lance Star

BY PAMELA GOULD

On Jan. 1, 2000, when FBI Agent Jane Collins became lead agent in the Shenandoah National Park slayings, she inherited a case with no confession, no eyewitness and no murder weapon.

Plus, as a result of 21/2 years of FBI Laboratory exams, she was faced with the fact that no forensic analysis linked prime suspect Darrell Rice to the May 1996 slayings of 24-year-old Julie Williams and 26-year-old Lollie Winans.

Specifically, at that point she and the federal team investigating the slayings knew:

Latent prints at the scene weren’t Rice’s.

The victims’ hairs weren’t in Rice’s truck or his father’s car or his father’s Culpeper home.

Fibers from the victims weren’t in Rice’s belongings and fibers from Rice weren’t in their belongings.

Rice’s computer’s contents showed no link to the victims.

Oil residues found inside the victims weren’t from Rice.

And a head hair on the duct tape binding Winans’ wrists wasn’t Rice’s.

So, after 21/2 years spent pursuing Rice, federal authorities were faced with a choice.

Was the man who miserably botched an apparent abduction attempt in the park in July 1997 a sociopath of such extraordinary skill that, one year earlier, he had been able to control two women and a dog, viciously kill the women without anyone noticing, and then leave no evidence behind?

Or was he innocent?

The key players met on Feb. 29, 2000. They included Donald W. Thompson Jr., head of the FBI’s Richmond Division; Thomas L. Carter, Collins’ immediate supervisor; FBI Agents Collins and John J. Kuhn; U.S. Attorney Robert Crouch; Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant; and National Park Service officials Tim Alley and Clark Guy.

They chose the first option.

“It was decided that during the next four months the evidence against Rice would be reviewed and catalogued in an effort to build a circumstantial case against him,” Collins noted in a March 31, 2000, memo. “Attention will be focused on all comments made by Rice regarding the homicides, and review of the recorded conversations between Rice and [an undercover agent], as well as review of all written correspondence between the two.”

The only hint that federal officials even contemplated they might have the wrong man came in July 2000.

That month, Agent Kuhn sent a request to his supervisor asking to run an automated check of fingerprints in the federal system. He noted they had “not yet identified the person responsible” for the killings and he wanted to run the computerized fingerprint check “to make every effort possible to identify any possible suspects in this matter.”

One more try

Two years later, FBI Agent James Lamb visited Rice at the minimum-security federal prison in Petersburg with a message and a mission. 

Lamb told Rice capital murder charges were coming and then gave him another chance to confess.

Rice didn’t, so Lamb left.

Then, in walked Virginia State Police Agent Stan Gregg, lead investigator in the March 1996 abduction and slaying of Alicia Showalter Reynolds.

It wasn’t the first time law enforcement officials had thought about Rice in that case.

The federal agents who arrested Rice on July 9, 1997, for an attempted abduction alluded to it in their questioning that day.

And in the days that followed, state police checked Rice’s truck and showed his photo to one of the women who interacted with the 29 Stalker—the man blamed for Reynolds’ death.

But none of that bore fruit and state police moved on within weeks, an August 1997 memo by original case agent J.K. Rowland shows.

Yet here was Gregg, five years later, pursuing Rice on the eve of his federal indictment. 

He said he just wanted help establishing an alibi for him. Yet three months later, Gregg and Collins were traveling central Virginia showing a lineup featuring Rice’s well-publicized photo to women who reported contact with the 29 Stalker.

And suddenly Gregg was submitting all of the evidence from the Reynolds slaying and 29 Stalker incidents to the state crime lab for comparison with Rice.

Defense attorney Deirdre Enright said those efforts weren’t just administrative precautions, they were aimed at propping up a case with no legs. Federal authorities hoped that if they piled up enough suggestions of Rice’s guilt, a jury would overlook the absence of forensic evidence or any concrete link and simply conclude that “there can’t be that many coincidences,” she said.

But that effort failed, too.

First, only one of the dozens of other 29 Stalker women had actually been victimized and would even qualify as a witness.

And second, as was happening in the Shenandoah slayings case, none of the forensics linked Rice to Reynolds’ slaying or to the other 29 Stalker incidents.

Still no forensics

By the time they went before a federal grand jury to obtain capital murder indictments on April 9, 2002, federal officials had the results of additional forensic exams in the Shenandoah slayings case.

They again had come up empty.

Between Jan. 1, 2000, and April 9, 2002, they learned:


DNA on Rice’s belongings was his, not Williams’ or Winans’.

There was no blood on Rice’s Swiss army knife linking him to the victims.

DNA on Williams’ gag wasn’t Rice’s.

DNA on Winans’ gag wasn’t Rice’s.

DNA on the ligature around Winans’ ankles wasn’t Rice’s.

Cuts to the duct tape used to bind both victims’ wrists weren’t made by Rice’s knife.

No duct tape residue was found on Rice’s knife.

Hairs from Winans’ dog, Taj, weren’t in Rice’s belongings or his truck.

A selective strategy

Federal prosecutors not only chose to indict Rice without a single bit of forensic evidence linking him to the crime, they sought a death sentence while ignoring witnesses whose information conflicted with their theory of the crime.

For example, though it was impossible to say for certain when Williams and Winans were killed, federal authorities chose May 24.

But that didn’t square with their own facts.

First, the medical examiner couldn’t pin down a time of death.

Second, early reports suggested the time of death was probably closer to May 28. 

And third, park entrance videotapes showed Rice coming into the park on May 25 and 26—not May 24.

May 24 worked for the prosecution, however, because of Anthony Coyle.

Coyle was camping that weekend with a female friend. He told federal investigators he awoke the morning of May 25 and saw a man urinating not far from his campsite. He would later look at a photo lineup including Rice and say he was about 65 percent certain Rice was the man.

Even if he saw Rice, that would only put Rice in the 197,000-acre park—which entrance videos did already. It did not place him at or near the crime scene.

More intriguing than Coyle, however, was his camping companion. She told investigators she had a nightmare one night involving two women screaming and pleading.

After that, she reportedly told a female FBI agent about the concept of “dream recall” and claimed to re-enter the dream to gain more data. Eventually, she claimed to have entered the bodies of the victims through this process and knew what they experienced.

When another agent seemed less enthralled with her dream information, the woman suggested the FBI contact a dog whisperer to interview Taj. 

Though they kept Coyle and his information, prosecutors apparently discounted or discarded people whose recollections conflicted with their theory of the killings.

At least five people claimed to have seen Williams and Winans alive between May 25 and May 30.

Brandi Mumbauer, an employee at the park’s Panorama restaurant, said she saw both women on May 25 or May 26 about 1 p.m.

Mumbauer said she spoke to Winans about a friendship bracelet she wore, according to an FBI report of the July 30, 1996, interview.

Panorama waitress Sherry Young said she served the young women breakfast on May 26, according to an FBI report of her June 6, 1996, interview.

She was interviewed at least two more times that month and provided the FBI with the ticket from their order. Young also told the FBI her manager, Randolph Painter, spoke with Williams at the cash register that day.

Longtime park volunteers Emma Garthoff and Zella Dingus reported seeing Williams and Winans the morning of May 27, when they hiked the Stony Man trail. she traveled home later that day to Pennsylvania to be at work on Tuesday. Plus, she kept a journal of her volunteer work.

Garthoff told Park Service Investigator Joe Wieszczyk in July 1996 that she was certain of the date because it was Monday of Memorial Day weekend and she traveled home later that day to Pennsylvania to be at work on Tuesday. Plus, she kept a journal of her volunteer work.

Garthoff picked Williams from a set of 12 photos with 70 percent to 80 percent certainty, the report states. Dingus picked Winans’ photo from among 12 with 90 percent certainty, Wieszczyk reported.

Dingus recalled Winans’ saying she was with her friend “Julie” and that her dog was named “Taj,” according to another July 1996 report by Wieszczyk.

Both women clearly recalled the unusual “railroad-style” cap Winans wore.

Hiker Gus DeAngelo reported seeing two young women he felt 90 percent certain were Williams and Winans between noon and 1 p.m. on May 30, according to a June 14, 1996, report by Park Service Special Agent Clyde Yee.

Interestingly, Yee was the same man who re-interviewed Dingus and Garthoff in February 2002, shortly before Rice’s indictment. In his report, he dismissed their earlier recollections.

The same thing apparently happened with restaurant employees Young and Painter.

Federal prosecutors also chose from among the 29 Stalker women those who could help their case and ignored the others.

Between July 2002 and January 2003, Gregg and Collins showed 15 women a six-photo lineup that included the picture of Rice widely circulated by the media after he was charged with the park slayings.

Federal prosecutors sought to call as witnesses:

three women who identified Rice after admitting seeing his photo in media reports calling him an accused killer

three women who said Rice “resembled” the 29 Stalker—including the one who didn’t identify Rice in July 1997

one woman who said both Rice and a second man had features “similar” to those of the man she saw.

Federal prosecutors ignored:

a woman who said another man had the Stalker’s “disturbed look” and noted differences between Rice and the Stalker

seven women who didn’t identify Rice—including the two who rode with the 29 Stalker.

A forensics strikeout

When federal authorities decided in February 2000 to build a circumstantial case against Rice in Williams’ and Winans’ slayings, they had 21/2 years worth of forensic test results. None linked Rice to the crime.

When they sought an indictment against him on capital murder charges in April 2002, they had another two years worth of forensic test results. None linked Rice to the crime.

And as his trial date approached one year later, the outcome was the same. None linked Rice to the crime.

Still, they pressed forward.

Between Rice’s indictment and the court date, federal officials learned:

Hairs in the knots in the gag on Williams weren’t Rice’s.

Hairs in the knots in the gag on Winans weren’t Rice’s.

Hairs in the ligature around Winans’ ankles weren’t Rice’s.

Blue cotton fibers found at the scene weren’t from Rice.

A hair on a glove at the scene wasn’t Rice’s.

Nuclear DNA on Rice’s pants was his, not the victims’.

Knuckle hairs inside gloves at the scene weren’t Rice’s.

Hair on one of the young women’s hats wasn’t Rice’s.

A chance to retreat

A few months before Rice’s trial was to begin, federal officials approached the FBI Lab with concerns about the forensics in the case.

Those concerns could have been prompted by the fact that every test for six years had failed to link Rice to the crime.

They could have been prompted by the defense’s suggestion that Richard Marc Evonitz, a serial killer known to have operated in the region at the time, might make a good suspect.

They could have been because the defense showed Evonitz’s picture to 29 Stalker victim and prosecution witness Carmelita Shomo and she reportedly said he was the man who abducted her.


Whatever the reason, FBI Lab supervisor Douglas Deedrick said that Agent Collins, Investigator Alley and a federal prosecutor spoke to him about the forensic evidence in May 2003.

Deedrick, who by then had spent three decades in the lab, said he suggested an overall review of the evidence was the best step since forensic exams thus far had failed to link Rice to the crime.

They agreed to it, and days later Collins delivered nine boxes of evidence to the lab.

The previous summer—after the 38-year-old Evonitz’s suicide—Deedrick had examined much of the evidence that linked Evonitz to the slayings of three Spotsylvania County girls who were abducted and murdered in 1996 and 1997.

After confirming that none of the hairs or fibers from the Shenandoah slayings matched Rice, Deedrick checked the hairs against Evonitz.

He was surprised by what he found.

Evonitz’s hairs showed microscopic similarities to two crime-scene hairs—one on a glove near Winans’ body and the other within layers of duct tape wrapped around her wrists. As a result, Deedrick sent all of the hairs to the mitochondrial DNA unit for further analysis.

Scientist Constance Fisher produced mitochondrial DNA profiles on the two crime-scene hairs and reported in October 2003 that they likely came from the same head—but not Rice’s or the victims’.

Evonitz, however, couldn’t be ruled out.

“When you take this hair from underneath the tape, it probably was not an external contaminant,” Deedrick said. “The other hair supposedly was unrelated, yet hands and gloves and tape all go together.

“I’ve never been a big fan of coincidence,” he added.

Refusing to quit

Four months after DNA results failed to exclude Evonitz from consideration in the Shenandoah slayings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bondurant notified the court and Rice’s attorneys that he planned to drop the capital murder charges.

He claimed the move was prompted by the final forensic exam—a new DNA test known as Y-STR that was not yet done by the FBI Lab.

“The evidence does not exonerate him,” Bondurant said at the court hearing to drop the charges. “It just casts doubt to a point it would be unethical to proceed with a trial at this time.”

Bondurant had hired a private lab, ReliaGene Technologies Inc. in New Orleans, to apply the test to some of the DNA evidence from the case.

He paid $11,000 of taxpayer money for the test and said in court that it prompted him to end the prosecution—but he refused to disclose the results.

The fact is that those results, like all the others, failed to link Rice to the crime, The Free Lance–Star learned independently.

But Bondurant didn’t say that on Feb. 25, 2004, when he appeared in open court for the dismissal of the charges.

“This motion to dismiss has nothing to do with any great revelation of innocence of this defendant,” he told U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon.

“We just believe that the new testing, a lot of it based upon the testing that wasn’t available before this Y-STR type of procedure, has led us to believe that, ethically, there’s doubt cast on the case and we cannot proceed with the case.”

Despite seven years of forensic results that failed to implicate Rice as the killer, Bondurant not only downplayed their significance, but also continued to raise accusations of guilt.

Offering nothing concrete, he suggested the July 1997 confrontation of bicyclist Yvonne Malbasha in Shenandoah National Park as proof.

“I believe all the evidence is clear that if he would have abducted her, she probably wouldn’t be here today,” Bondurant said.

Finally, he asked the court to dismiss the charges but give him the option of bringing them against Rice in the future.

And, indeed, federal efforts didn’t stop there.

Two days later, an FBI agent carried a photo lineup to the workplace of a Washington state woman who had reported contact with the 29 Stalker in 1996 when she lived in Charlottesville.

She looked at the lineup containing Rice’s picture but didn’t identify him.

Nevertheless, four months later—after being approached by Agents Collins and Alley—Prince William Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert held a news conference to announce charges against Rice in one of the 29 Stalker cases.

Ebert claimed Rice was the 29 Stalker and a prime suspect for Reynolds’ killing.

But like federal authorities, he had nothing solid to back it up. Ebert had a victim whose credibility suffered from what he later termed “a propensity to want to please police officers,” and state crime lab results that had already come up empty on every forensic test.

Mystery unresolved

By the time Rice’s trial date arrived in August 2005, Ebert had handed the case over to two of his assistants and they had abandoned plans to portray Rice as the 29 Stalker.

They were challenged enough by the one case Rice had been charged in—a Feb. 24, 1996, incident involving 37-year-old Carmelita Shomo. She reportedly identified three different men as her attacker, including a state trooper and serial killer Evonitz.

Before making opening statements, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorneys James Willett and Will Jarvis dropped one of three charges against Rice—malicious wounding.

Before the defense started presenting its case, they agreed to reduce the charge of abduction with intent to defile to simple abduction.

And, with Rice’s defense team poised to summon witnesses who would say Rice couldn’t be the 29 Stalker, prosecutors began offering plea deals, sweetening the offers until one was too good to refuse.

Rice’s attorneys had planned to call women who say Rice wasn’t the man who stopped them or gave them a ride.

They had planned to present phone records that show Rice in Maryland at the time of several of the incidents.

And they were prepared to call a counselor from his substance-abuse treatment program to testify that Rice was in a session and then meeting with her in Annapolis the evening of the Shomo incident, meaning he would have had to race to Manassas to have even had an opportunity to abduct Shomo.

The defense team also had planned to show jurors Rice’s truck to let them see it was the wrong color, wrong make and had the wrong kind of transmission to be the Stalker’s pickup. And they had planned to demonstrate that the passenger door was so hard to open that a petite woman like Shomo would have struggled to get into the truck and suddenly flee it as she claimed to have done.

Rice told the judge he was innocent, but accepted the plea deal—to unlawful wounding with no additional prison time—strictly for “strategic reasons.” He and his attorneys maintain his innocence in all of the 29 Stalker incidents, Reynolds’ death and the Shenandoah slayings.

Prince William prosecutors got a conviction, Ebert is quick to say, but it was hardly what he had promised.

Despite Ebert’s bold pronouncements when Rice was indicted, the case ended with the 29 Stalker and Reynolds’ killer still unidentified.



SIDE BAR

'Unbelievable,' Rice attorneys say of failure to check Evonitz 

By PAMELA GOULD

Darrell Rice's attorneys waited more than three years to get details about the Y-STR testing conducted in the Shenandoah National Park slayings case.

When they finally learned what was done, they were surprised not by the results but by what was missing.

In January 2004, after seven years of forensic tests that ruled out Rice as the source of crime-scene evidence, and three months after the only tests on serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz couldn't exclude him as the killer, federal prosecutors hired a private lab to conduct one more cutting-edge exam.

But they didn't ask to have the evidence in the May 1996 slayings of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans tested against Evonitz, only Rice.

“The only reason you don't test it is you're afraid he could be the perpetrator and if he can't be excluded, it will be yet another nail [in your case],� said Gerald T. Zerkin, an assistant federal public defender based in Richmond who represented Rice. “You're afraid it will be more evidence that Darrell Rice didn't do it.�

Co-counsel Claire Cardwell of Richmond agreed.

“It is unbelievable that they would not do that under the circumstances, and it tells me that they don't want to know the answer,â€� she said. 

The FBI and federal prosecutors sent seven items to ReliaGene Technologies Inc. in New Orleans for Y-STR testing, a forensic tool specifically for analyzing male DNA.

Only two items produced profiles, and those were only partial profiles. One excluded Rice; the other didn't exclude him or roughly half—48.8 percent—of the white males in the nation. 

But when Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant appeared in federal court on Feb. 25, 2004, to drop charges against Rice, he continued suggesting that Rice was a killer and waved the report as if it held some magical power that could one day solve the crime.

He told U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon that releasing the results would “destroy the investigation.�

Now knowing the results, Rice's attorneys say the only risk was for federal officials who were then preparing to ask Prince William County to pursue Rice in an abduction case.

“The only thing it would have done is give Darrell Rice permission to say I've been exonerated—and possibly it would have forced Bondurant to continue the investigation [in search of other suspects],� said Rice co-counsel Deirdre Enright of Charlottesville.

“It's unconscionable that you would look at those DNA results in light of everything else you know and still refer to Darrell as a prime suspect,� she added.

“I have no idea what interest was served by not conducting further testing in this case other than protecting themselves for prosecuting an innocent man,� Cardwell said.

Zerkin said federal officials' handling of the investigation has not only been patently unfair to Rice, but also is an insult to the families of the victims.

If federal authorities truly want to know who killed Williams and Winans, they would check all of the forensic evidence against Evonitz, said James G. Connell III, a Fairfax attorney who helped represent Rice.

“Either it will come back positive against Mr. Evonitz and the victims' families and law enforcement will have some closure, or it will come back negative and law enforcement will need to continue looking,� he said.

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Rice finds goal of quiet life elusive 


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By PAMELA GOULD


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Darrell Rice has spent the past decade in the spotlight, pursued by federal authorities who were convinced he killed two, and possibly three, young women in Virginia.

Now, he says he just wants to live a quiet life with family and friends. 

In an interview shortly after his release from federal prison, Rice said he had never killed anything except perhaps a mouse.

He admitted he harassed and may have scratched bicyclist Yvonne Malbasha in Shenandoah National Park in July 1997, the crime for which he was imprisoned. But he said, “I didn't intend to kill her or rape her or take her away in the truck.â€� 

He called it a “crazy thing� to do, but said it was prompted by a series of frustrations.

He reluctantly admitted he might be schizophrenic, but didn't use that to excuse or explain his actions.

Allegations stir fear

Rice also expressed anxiety about how he would be perceived by the public.

“I've got concerns about trying to find a job and people in public recognizing me,� he said in late July.

Six weeks later, those worries were validated. After an anonymous tip that a “serial murderer� had moved into the small community of Kent Island, Md., hysteria ensued. The reaction raised such concern that Queen Anne's County Sheriff R. Gery Hofman III responded publicly, distributing an e–mail to squelch the wild stories.

The Sept. 14 e–mail addressed five rumors about Rice from that day alone:

He was “attempting to stop a school bus and attack children.�

Police were chasing him down a local highway.

The local high school was in lock-down because of him.

He was at a local Exxon hiding from police.

He had removed his GPS monitor and was “stalking people.�

Hofman refuted each rumor. He said Rice had been home all day, was wearing his fully functioning GPS monitor and had been visited by both his probation officer and a sheriff's deputy.

Hofman recently told The Free Lance–Star that Rice has created no problems but that the stir created by some residents strained his resources and required his deputies to monitor the area where Rice and his family live for their protection.

Rice's attorneys were so concerned for his safety that they posted a statement on the community's online forum. They said he had been “maliciously and falsely prosecuted,� and listed the evidence for his innocence of all three slayings.

“You have nothing to fear from Darrell Rice, and we hope that he has nothing to fear from you,� wrote attorneys Deirdre Enright, Gerald Zerkin, James G. Connell III and Claire Cardwell.

Afterward, people posted messages attacking the attorneys and continued the vitriol directed at Rice. One wrote that he would be “elated� if someone “took him out.�

Release restrictions

Darrell Rice is to be supervised by federal probation officials for three years.

As a condition of living in Maryland with his mother and near his sister's family, he was also ordered to wear a GPS monitor for six months and undergo sex-offender treatment.

His attorneys initially balked at both additional requirements because they weren't ordered as part of his sentence, but relented so he could live with his family.

Rice's attempted-kidnapping conviction is not a sex crime, and thus he is not required to register as a sex offender.

Though they didn't like the idea of the ankle monitor, it worked to his benefit, providing an alibi for every accusation spread since his release, his attorneys noted in their second posting to the Kent Island community.

But in that note, they also expressed frustration with the unsubstantiated allegations that have haunted Rice for years.

“When you identify someone publicly as a serial killer, even falsely, you will invariably generate additional false accusations,� they wrote.

Finding a family

Years ago, Darrell Rice bought infant-size, tie-dyed outfits for the children he planned to have one day.

Now, at age 40, Rice's hopes for a family of his own have dimmed.

In an interview, Rice was calm, patient and occasionally displayed a dry wit.

He wasn't interested in laying out the evidence of his innocence or bemoaning the extra prison time he served because of federal authorities' view of him as a killer. 

The one distress he shared was that his father died during his 10 years in prison. 

Now, Rice just wants to pursue his simple pleasures: playing guitar, catching up on movies, watching the Redskins and enjoying time with his family and friends.

He doesn't have ambitions for a career. He doesn't view himself as beginning life anew. And he doesn't want to dwell on the accusations—and possible death sentence—that dogged him for years.

Once he had good attorneys, he was confident they would prove his innocence, he said.

He grew especially close to Enright, who made him feel like part of her family. It was her home he chose as his first stop after leaving prison on July 17.

He wanted to meet in person her husband and their four children, whose milestones he had heard about and with whom he had chatted over the years.

And he wanted to sit down to a meal in the house he had pictured during countless conversations with Enright. 

“When I was at the jail, it helped a lot being a member of her family,� Rice said. “It helped a lot.�



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FBI: Charges right move, despite flaws


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The FBI supervisor responsible for the Shenandoah National Park slayings investigation admitted the case against Darrell Rice was never strong.

He acknowledged that the case lacked forensic evidence, a confession, a murder weapon, a motive or anything directly linking Rice to the crime. But he said he felt it was sufficient to seek an indictment and he supported taking that step.

�I think all of us were aware that this wasn�t the strongest case in the world�the lack of an eyewitness and compelling forensic evidence,� said Donald W. Thompson Jr., who supervised the FBI�s Richmond Division from February 1998 until his July 2006 retirement.

�I think we all felt we weren�t going to be comfortable unless we strengthened it before we went to trial,� he said. �We did everything we could to shore it up and bring in other information.

�Clearly, [Rice] was not the best of subjects, but the only game in town at that point.�

Thompson said Rice was investigated in Alicia Showalter Reynolds� slaying and other 29 Stalker cases as part of a thorough investigation.

�I think he was pursued along those lines not to bolster or strengthen the Shenandoah case, but it was the right thing to do if he was responsible for a broader array of crimes,� he said.

�If you really think a guy is a bad guy and he needs to be off the street, your thought process could be, maybe we should look at this and give it a whirl�and maybe we get lucky. There�s nothing to lose.�

Lawrence J. Barry, chief counsel and former spokesman for the FBI�s Richmond Division, said he never released a statement saying the Shenandoah slayings and Reynolds� killing were committed by the same person.

�If the prosecutor did, you�d have to talk to him about that,� he said.

Neither John Brownlee, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, nor Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant, lead prosecutor in the Rice case, would agree to be interviewed.

Charles J. Cunningham, the current special agent in charge of the FBI�s Richmond Division, said Brownlee�s office and the Department of Justice instructed him not to discuss the investigation because it�s an open case.


Thompson said he wasn�t aware of the forensic results showing serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz couldn�t be ruled out as the source of two head hairs found at the Shenandoah slayings scene�one on a glove and the other within layers of duct tape wrapped around Lollie Winans� wrists.

�That�s news to me,� he said. 

But, in contradiction to FBI Lab hairs-and-fibers expert Douglas Deedrick, Thompson downplayed its significance. He said the hair could have been on the tape for months and come from countless sources.

�That in and of itself doesn�t mean your subject or suspect isn�t the person responsible,� he said.

Thompson said he saw no reason to eliminate Rice from consideration in the Shenandoah slayings.

�I by no means think we should walk away from him, and I would tell the office pursuing the investigation to either strengthen or appropriately rebut it,� he said. �If he didn�t do it, I would want to know and I think we should want to know. I don�t think we should close our minds to it.�

Cunningham said the case remains active and unsolved.

Last year, the U.S. Attorney�s Office for the District of Columbia reviewed the case, but spokesman Channing Phillips would not comment on the outcome.

Regardless of how the situation might look, Cunningham said, federal officials weren�t more interested in pinning a crime on Rice than in seeking the truth.

�We never try to do that,� he said. �That�s not something I would condone. We are out for truth and justice for the guilty party, not to fit a round peg in a square hole.�

�Pamela Gould



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Culpeper prosecutor: Rice not a suspect
Neither Culpeper County Commonwealth�s Attorney Gary Close nor Virginia State Police ever named Darrell Rice as a suspect in Alicia Showalter Reynolds� slaying.
�I�ve never had any plans or discussions to indict him and I don�t plan on doing so,� Close told The Free Lance�Star in an interview for this project. �Just to even discuss him really gives his name a lot more weight and merit than it really deserves.�

State police first checked out Rice immediately after his July 1997 arrest, using screening tactics employed with more than 1,000 other suspects in the case.

Within weeks, they showed his photo to one of two women used repeatedly to weed out suspects, and she didn�t identify him. During the same period, they examined his truck but found it wasn�t a black Nissan with teal-colored accents and an automatic transmission, the type of vehicle state police zeroed in on based on witness descriptions.

Rice was 28 at the time, whereas police sought a 35- to 45-year-old man, state police reports show.

Additionally, by early 1996, Rice had just a tuft of hair atop his head, his 1995 driver�s license photo shows. By contrast, several women described the Route 29 Stalker�the man suspected of killing Reynolds�as having stringy hair he habitually brushed out of his face.

In 1997, state police didn�t even bother with a step taken with other 29 Stalker suspects�checking Rice�s fingerprints against prints found in Reynolds� slaying and the stops of other women drivers.

Rick Jenkins, now a state police captain and head of criminal investigations for the Culpeper area, refused to discuss his department�s process in evaluating Rice.

He wouldn�t discuss why the department returned to Rice just as he was to be indicted on federal charges in April 2002, nor why state police suddenly requested forensic checks of him immediately after that indictment.

But when asked about the state police�s involvement in both the federal murder and state abduction prosecutions, Jenkins said the department �supports� other departments if it can.

Prince William County Commonwealth�s Attorney Paul Ebert said he continues to see Rice as a �prime suspect� in Reynolds� slaying�though it�s not his case to prosecute�and as the 29 Stalker.

He was unaware, however, that two women who rode with the Stalker said Rice wasn�t the man, and said that would probably be significant to him if the women were certain.

State police have checked out thousands of men�hundreds since learning about Rice�and said they are currently hoping for a confession or a tip from the public to help them resolve the case.

�I don�t know who killed Alicia Showalter Reynolds and I�m not sure anybody else knows, either,� Close said.

But he said criminal investigations should be approached with an open mind. 

�The evidence will lead to the suspect,� Close said. �You don�t put a bull�s-eye on somebody and work toward it. In my opinion, that�s not how you come up with a suspect.�

�Pamela Gould