Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``We are definitely interested in him to see if he was in the area during that period of time,'' Assistant State Police Special Agent Bill Littreal said of the accused truck driver, Sean P. Goble.
However, Littreal said, ``At this time, we have nothing to tie him to the serial killings on the Colonial Parkway and the rest stop along I-64 in New Kent.''
Goble, 28, of Asheboro, N.C., was arrested last week. Authorities say he has confessed to killing three women, one in North Carolina and two in Tennessee.
In the so-called parkway murders in Virginia, eight young men and women were murdered or disappeared during 1986-89. The bodies of two suspected victims never were found.
Littreal acknowledged that there are significant differences between the Virginia murders, which occurred in pairs, and the interstate slayings.
But investigators often compare notes to determine whether any pattern in one series of homicides fits another set.
The Virginia crimes began in October 1986 with the slayings of Cathleen Thomas, 28, of Norfolk and Rebecca Dowski, 21, a student at the College of William and Mary, on the Colonial Parkway near Williamsburg.
In September 1987, the bodies of David Knobling, 20, and Robin Edwards, 14, both of Newport News, were found at the Ragged Island Game Refuge on the James River.
In April 1988, not far from the site of the Thomas and Dowski killings, Richard Call, 20, of Gloucester County and Cassandra Hailey, a 19-year-old Christopher Newport College student, disappeared. Call's abandoned car was found on the parkway, but a search for the pair turned up nothing.
In September 1989, Daniel Lauer, 21, of Amelia County and Annamaria Phelps, 19, of Virginia Beach disappeared in New Kent County. Their bodies were found about a month later. Lauer's car had been left at an Interstate 64 rest stop.
by CNB