The Untold Truth Of The Colonial Parkway Murders

The murderer in the Colonial Parkway killings was never captured, and Steve Spingola, a private detective, believes he knows why.

According to the Daily Press, Spingola was hired by Annamaria Phelps' family to look into the girl's murder. Along the way, as he notes in his pamphlet Predators on the Parkway: A Former Homicide Detective Explores the Colonial Parkway Murders, he came to the conclusion that the murders weren't the work of a serial killer. Rather, they were the work of multiple killers who coincidentally picked couples in the same area. For instance, Thomas and Dowski's murder was a hate crime, while the murder of Knobling and Edwards was a robbery that took an unfortunate turn. Of course, these are Spingola's musings, and they have yet to be proven.

Spingola's investigation revitalized the cold case, causing a few suspects to surface. A former police officer was arrested after an FBI profiler noticed the victims' windows had been left partially open, suggesting a deadly traffic stop. The former officer in question, Fred Atwell, had also inserted himself into the investigation several times, according to HuffPost. But Atwell died behind bars before his involvement in the killings could be confirmed.

Another man, David Rice, was acquitted after circumstantial evidence, including a pair of restraints and location history, put him on trial for the Winans-Williams murder, according to Historic Mysteries. Not him either. As of now, the killer (or killers) remains at large.