ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 14, 1996 TAG: 9603150006
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOTE: Above
SHE WAS LAST SEEN on a lonely stretch of road, peering under the hood of her car. The case has mesmerized D.C.
A helicopter with a reporter and cameraman aboard circled over a Madison County farm pond the size of a hockey rink Wednesday. From the shore, more than two dozen journalists scrutinized Virginia State Police divers as they searched unsuccessfully for a trace of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a 25-year-old doctoral student from Baltimore.
Since Reynolds disappeared on March 2, public fear has mounted about a remorseless predator who some women say had stalked them, stopped their cars and tricked them into his pickup truck along a deserted stretch of U.S. 29 between Manassas and Charlottesville.
Reynolds was last seen on U.S. 29 near Culpeper, peering beneath the hood of her car. She was accompanied by a man who appeared to be assisting her. Her car was found on the shoulder of the highway.
The man is described as being 35-45 years old, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, with a medium build and light to medium brown hair. He may be growing a beard, mustache or both, police said.
He was last seen driving a dark-colored, late-model Nissan pickup with stripes, and chrome bumpers and wheels.
``It is understandable,'' said Peter Smerick, a former FBI expert on criminal behavior, said of the case's growing notoriety. ``What you have is a series of events that is every woman's nightmare.''
More than a dozen women have contacted police since Reynolds vanished, all telling a similar story of a man who fit the same description. The man flashes his lights at women and tells them their cars are malfunctioning, police said. Several women accepted rides with the man.
The search for Reynolds has led radio and television newscasts in the newsy city of Washington, even when there was little new to report. Both of D.C.'s daily papers have played the story prominently.
A crew from television's ``America's Most Wanted'' was on hand this week, and plans to feature the case on Saturday. It has also been a major story for Baltimore's television stations and the city's newspaper, and broadcasters and newspapers across Virginia have given the case extensive coverage.
``There are some big fears associated with this case,'' said Trudy Gregorie, director of victim services at the National Victim Center in Arlington. ``Everybody drives on the highway. Women travel by themselves quite often. ... This case shows you are never safe from violent crime.''
State police have been inundated with hundreds of phone calls about the case. Some callers offer - but many more simply want - information, spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said.
Reynolds' disappearance officially remains a missing-person case, and police say they have no direct evidence that she met foul play. State police pursue scores of missing person cases annually; few attract much notice.
But this case plays directly into a variety of public fears and misperceptions about crime, a number of experts said.
If Reynolds was abducted or harmed by a stranger, she is in the minority of women crime victims, said Eric E. Sterling, president of the nonpartisan Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington.
Statistics compiled by the Justice Department show about 80 percent of women who meet violence do so at the hands of husbands or lovers. And most crime in general happens among people who know one another.
Reynolds, as an educated, middle-class white woman, is among those statistically least likely to fall victim to crime.
``This is a lightning-strikes-out-of-the-sky kind of crime. It's one that people fear the most, even though it's a tremendously imbalanced fear,'' Sterling said.
In addition to the random nature of Reynolds' disappearance, anotherAnother factor driving public and media interest is the sympathetic portrait that has emerged of the victim, Sterling and others said.
``It has all the elements,'' of a perfect media crime, Sterling said: An attractive, blameless victim, a predatory suspect, the specter of violence and suspense.
Reynolds is a third-year doctoral student in the pharmacology program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She is the daughter of a Harrisonburg insurance executive.
There would be far less interest in the case if Reynolds were black or poor, Sterling said. He contrasted the case with the killings of three young black women whose bodies were found on a highway in Prince George's County, Md.,Maryland earlier this year.
``After a couple days, that case just faded right out of the headlines,'' Sterling said. ``I think people's reaction was, `Well, those were black girls. They were from a bad neighborhood ... and they were going out to a nightclub. They were looking for trouble.'''
Anyone with information should contact the state police at (540) 829-7400 or (800) 572-2260.
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. State troopers and divers search a pond off Virginiaby CNB231 for the body of Alicia Showalter Reynolds, last seen March 2.
color. Graphic. Sketch of a possible suspect. Map by staff. color.