ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605090069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS NOTE: Above
THE MOTHER OF Alicia Showalter Reynolds said now that her daughter's fate is known, the family can begin to heal.
For two months, Harley and Sadie Showalter kept a candle burning at home in Harrisonburg, a symbol of their faith that somehow their daughter survived an apparent random highway abduction.
Their hope spread like wildfire. Communities where Alicia Showalter Reynolds was raised and where she was lost joined the effort to find her by posting rewards, appealing for clues and urging residents to search rural land they owned.
Early Wednesday, the flame went out.
Showalter said a Virginia State Police agent told him that the boots, a dress and rings on a body were those his daughter wore when she disappeared March 2 during a drive from Baltimore to Charlottesville.
An autopsy later in the day confirmed that the decomposed body found at a remote logging site in Culpeper County were hers, according to the state police.
Authorities refused to say how, when or where she was killed.
``The candle of hope is out, but it's burning symbolically,'' Showalter said during a news conference at the Mennonite church in Harrisonburg where Reynolds was baptized and married.
Her husband, Mark Reynolds, kept the faith right up to the end. He showered and shaved every day so he would be ready in case his wife showed up. He drove countless miles along country roads around Culpeper looking for any sign of her.
``I still haven't unpacked the bag waiting by the door for her in case I got a call that she was in a hospital or found wandering in the woods somewhere,'' Reynolds said as he gripped a church lectern, his eyes glistening with tears. ``Right now I'm still numb. I can't feel my hands right now.''
Sadie Showalter said not knowing her daughter's fate - whether she was suffering, dead or being cared for somewhere - was torture.
Now - finally - the family can begin to heal, she said.
Sadie Showalter said she asked God on Monday to let them know before the weekend, when her other two children are graduating from college.
``God answered my prayer,'' she said. ``Not the way we wanted, but he did answer.''
The family was notified around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday that a body was found. A worker had spotted it near the crossroads community of Lignum. Alicia Reynolds' uncle, Carl Harman, said Harley Showalter spent Tuesday night in Culpeper, but the state police would not allow him to visit the site.
More than 50 state police officers, sheriff's deputies and FBI agents combed the scene for evidence of how the body got to the desolate area, where it had been covered with tree branches, police officials said.
The body was found about 15 miles east of the spot Reynolds, 25, was last seen.
Reynolds, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was working on a vaccine for a parasitic infection of the blood that strikes millions, especially in Third World countries. She was on her way to meet her mother for a shopping trip the day she vanished. They planned to buy a dress for the June wedding of her twin brother, Patrick.
Witnesses said they saw her talking with a clean-cut young man who appeared to be helping her look under the car's hood on U.S. 29 near Culpeper. Police believe she got into the man's pickup truck.
Her credit card was found on a Culpeper street a few hours after she disappeared, and a parka she wore that day turned up later, 15 miles south of where she was apparently abducted. Her car had no mechanical problems when it was found.
Police believe the same man stalked other women driving alone on the same stretch of highway for months, convincing them that something was wrong with their cars by flashing his headlights at them. Some women said they pulled over and accepted rides with the man without incident.
An intensive police search and heavy news coverage of the disappearance yielded more than 2,500 leads.-not mfk-
Several billboards featured her photograph. Her father taped appeals for help that were played on several radio stations, and the family posted a $25,000 reward for information on her whereabouts.
The Culpeper County Board of Supervisors offered an additional $10,000 reward, and a group in Culpeper asked area residents to search their land for anything that could aid the investigation.
Harman Showalter said Gov. George Allen called him and his wife to offer his condolences and prayers.
On Wednesday, Harman Showalter urged the public to maintain its interest until the killer ``is apprehended and safely off the streets.''
Reynolds added, ``He's still out there.''
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. (headshot) Reynolds. color. 2. AP. The family ofby CNBAlicia Showalter Reynolds - father Harley Showalter (from left),
husband Mark Reynolds and mother Sadie Showalter - waits for the
start of a news conference in Harrisonburg on Wednesday. KEYWORDS: FATALITY