CHCO to unveil monument related to Colonial Parkway Murders

Jun. 15—CUMBERLAND — It's been 35 years since Keith Call went missing in connection to a case known as the Colonial Parkway Murders in Virginia.

Without his remains, there's been no grave or dedicated place for his family to reflect on his memory.

That's about to change, however.

Call's sister, Joyce Call-Canada, recently talked of an offer from the Cumberland Historic Cemetery Organization to place a monument for her brother at a cemetery in Virginia.

The marker will be placed between her parents' graves.

"It felt like it was right," she said of receiving the proposal from CHCO President Ed Taylor Jr. about a year ago.

Call-Canada, of Gloucester, Virginia, said she discussed the idea with her brothers.

"We decided to take (Taylor) up on the offer," she said.

"We really appreciate it," Call-Canada said. "It will help with healing."

Bodies never found

Call-Canada had recently celebrated her 26th birthday when she learned her younger brother Richard "Keith" Call was missing.

Call, 20, and his friend Cassandra Hailey, 18 — both were Christopher Newport University students — reportedly left a party in Newport News, Virginia, at about 1:30 a.m. on April 10, 1988.

A short time later, Call's red 1982 Toyota Celica was found abandoned at the York River Overlook along the Colonial Parkway in Yorktown, Virginia.

Because their bodies were never found, the situation surrounding Call and Hailey is technically categorized as a missing persons case.

"We want to know what happened," Call-Canada said. "Who did this and why?"

Six more victims

The disappearance of Call and Hailey happened along the same road — a 22-mile thoroughfare that cuts through the Colonial National Historical Park and connects Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, Virginia — where three couples were found slain between 1986 and 1989.

The victims included Rebecca Dowski, 21, and Cathy Thomas, 27, in 1986; David Knobling, 20, and Robin Edwards, 14, in 1987; and Annamaria Phelps, 18, and Daniel Lauer, 21, in 1989.

Although there are suspects, the killings have never been solved.

Bill Thomas, of Norfolk, Connecticut, is the brother of Cathy Thomas.

She was 27 years old and a United States Naval Academy graduate.

Cathy Thomas and her girlfriend, Dowski, a senior at William and Mary, were last seen alive on the college campus.

Three days later, they were found slain.

'Dragging their feet'

Bill Thomas — cohost of the podcast "Mind Over Murder" with fellow victim's advocate Kristin Dilley — has extensively studied the Colonial Parkway situations.

Without more information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Virginia State Police, he is skeptical the cases are connected.

"The more I learn, the less I think they're all related," Thomas said. "There's nothing in the forensics that indicates that they are related."

The FBI has been "dragging their feet" for years and said case backlogs and an inadequate budget at its laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, have slowed efforts in the investigation, he said.

"A number of cases like ours around the country, and I've spoken with these other families, have been broken by using outside labs, which have much better technology than the FBI, and much faster turnaround than the FBI," he said.

"We have offered to raise the funds to cover the cost of the outside labs," Thomas said and added that the bureau's response was that it could not accept "gifts" of that type, and said the Colonial Parkway Murders are cold cases, meaning the lowest priority.

"If we had control of the evidence, these tests would have been done years ago," he said.

Families of the Colonial Parkway victims have in some cases waited more than a year for the FBI to produce DNA analysis results, Thomas said.

"And that's just on one or two pieces of evidence," he said. "We're incredibly frustrated."

'Could be solved'

Despite the setbacks, the families are optimistic that one day they'll get answers, Thomas said.

In the past several years, he has spoken to hundreds of people about the cases.

"Many experts tell me that with time, attention and resources they believe the Colonial Parkway Murders can be solved," Thomas said.

He hopes people will not forget the victims.

"This case could be solved," Thomas said.

'It's incredibly generous'

Unlike relatives of the other Colonial Parkway victims, the Call and Hailey families couldn't acknowledge the passing of their loved ones in a traditional way such as with a grave marker or cremation, Thomas said.

"They never had that opportunity," he said. "So, when Mr. Taylor came along with this offer, it seemed like such a natural thing, but it's incredibly generous."

Taylor learned of the Colonial Parkway Murders when he worked in Virginia for his father's business — a film delivery service for movie theaters — in the late 1990s.

"I knew the area very well," he said.

More recently, he watched a video about the murders.

"It really got my attention," Taylor said.

He talked to the CHCO board members, and they agreed to fund the monument, which will feature a ceramic tile with Keith Call's photo, and was made by Frostburg Memorials.

Taylor said the monument will be unveiled at a ceremony "for all the families" of the Colonial Parkway victims Oct. 14 at Rosewell Memorial Garden Cemetery in Hayes, Virginia.

More details are on CHCO's website under "latest news" at chco.info.

The organization has also discussed the creation of a monument for Hailey in the future, Taylor said, and talked of peace for her family and the Calls.

"I hope someday their remains can be recovered," he said.

Teresa McMinn is a reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. She can be reached at 304-639-2371 or tmcminn@times-news.com.