Man Indicted in Abduction of Driver in Pr. William
QUOTE
Police Believe '96 Incident Was Act of 'Route 29 Stalker'
By Maria Glod and Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page B01
A Howard County [Maryland] man was indicted yesterday in the 1996 abduction of a Prince William County motorist, one of more than a dozen abductions or attempts believed to have been committed by the \"Route 29 stalker.\"
At a news conference yesterday, Prince William's top prosecutor and police chief said Darrell D. Rice, 36, was indicted in the attack on a 37-year-old motorist in 1996. Detectives began investigating Rice after he was charged in April 2002 in the slaying of two hikers in Shenandoah National Park, they said.
....
Then, on March 2, 1996, Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a 25-year-old Johns Hopkins pharmacology student, vanished while driving to Charlottesville on Route 29. Showalter's white Mercury Tracer was found along the side of the highway, just south of Culpeper. Her body was found two months later.
....
Rice had been charged in the deaths of Laura S. \"Lollie\" Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, and Julianne M. Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn. The women, whose throats were slashed, were last seen alive May 23, 1996, while on a camping trip in Shenandoah National Park.
Federal prosecutors had said strong circumstantial evidence linked Rice to the slayings of Winans and Williams, a lesbian couple. But prosecutors sought to drop the case before trial after new tests showed that hair found at the crime scene and DNA from cloth used to gag the women did not come from Rice and possibly were left by the killer.
The capital case achieved notoriety because it was the first time prosecutors tried to use a 1994 law that allows the government to seek tougher sentences for crimes triggered by anti-homosexual biases.
I recall the Showalter honmicide quite well, as my brother and SIL were living just a few miles from where her car was found. I've driven on Route 29 through there dozens of times.
By Maria Glod and Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 8, 2004; Page B01
A Howard County [Maryland] man was indicted yesterday in the 1996 abduction of a Prince William County motorist, one of more than a dozen abductions or attempts believed to have been committed by the \"Route 29 stalker.\"
At a news conference yesterday, Prince William's top prosecutor and police chief said Darrell D. Rice, 36, was indicted in the attack on a 37-year-old motorist in 1996. Detectives began investigating Rice after he was charged in April 2002 in the slaying of two hikers in Shenandoah National Park, they said.
....
Then, on March 2, 1996, Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a 25-year-old Johns Hopkins pharmacology student, vanished while driving to Charlottesville on Route 29. Showalter's white Mercury Tracer was found along the side of the highway, just south of Culpeper. Her body was found two months later.
....
Rice had been charged in the deaths of Laura S. \"Lollie\" Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, and Julianne M. Williams, 24, of St. Cloud, Minn. The women, whose throats were slashed, were last seen alive May 23, 1996, while on a camping trip in Shenandoah National Park.
Federal prosecutors had said strong circumstantial evidence linked Rice to the slayings of Winans and Williams, a lesbian couple. But prosecutors sought to drop the case before trial after new tests showed that hair found at the crime scene and DNA from cloth used to gag the women did not come from Rice and possibly were left by the killer.
The capital case achieved notoriety because it was the first time prosecutors tried to use a 1994 law that allows the government to seek tougher sentences for crimes triggered by anti-homosexual biases.