ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The father of a missing 25-year-old woman describes her apparent abduction and pleads for the public's help in finding her in radio announcements airing statewide.
Alicia Showalter Reynolds disappeared more than two weeks ago as she drove alone along U.S. 29 in Culpeper County. State police and the FBI believe she was abducted, perhaps by the same man in a dark pickup truck who has convinced other women drivers their cars were malfunctioning.
``I would like your help to locate my daughter,'' Harley Showalter says in a even voice during the 60-second public service announcement that began airing this week.
Meanwhile, investigators are wading through more than 900 telephone leads on the case, state police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said Wednesday.
``They are narrowing down the list of possible suspects, and still following leads both locally and out of state,'' she said.
Investigators aren't ready to say how many suspects they have identified, she said.
A lot of the work is eliminating men reported by others as possible suspects, she said. ``We had so many calls about people who drive a truck like that.''
State police hope Showalter's recording may jog someone's memory, Caldwell said.
Reynolds grew up in Harrisonburg and her parents live there. She is a pharmacology student in Baltimore, and was driving from her home there to meet her mother in Charlottesville when she disappeared March 2. Police have found her car, a credit card and a black parka.
Since her disappearance, more than 20 women have told police that a man in a small, dark pickup got them to pull over or tried to stop them on the same stretch of highway between Manassas and Charlottesville. Some accepted rides, but in all such incidents on U.S. 29 no other women were harmed.
Police believe a similar incident in Prince William County a week before Reynolds disappeared may be related. In that case, the driver attacked a woman who got into his pickup truck but she escaped.
Family and friends have offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to Reynolds' return or the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible. The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors posted an additional $10,000 reward.
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