ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CULPEPER
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
A `KIND OF SERENE' community is struggling with the trauma of a woman's abduction and killing.
The discovery that Alicia Reynolds was slain has reawakened public interest in her presumably random highway abduction and heightened motorists' fears, police and mental health officials said.
``Many of the people that call are frightened and are concerned,'' state police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said Thursday.
Hundreds of people also have called the state police the past few days offering information they believe is pertinent to the investigation, she said.
Mental health workers in a five-county region centered in Culpeper will meet today to develop a strategy for helping people deal with the emotional trauma.
``We have a kind of serene community,'' said John Waldeck, director of the region's mental health clinics. ``Many people here have moved from cities to get away from crime. This has upset a balance people have about where they are living and the safety of their families.''
Reynolds, 25, disappeared March 2 during a drive from her Baltimore home to Charlottesville. Her partially decomposed body was found Tuesday on recently logged land in a remote section of Culpeper County, more than 15 miles from where she was last seen.
Witnesses said they saw Reynolds talking with a young man who appeared to be helping her look under her car's hood on U.S. 29 near Culpeper. Police believe she got into the man's pickup truck.
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.
Tina Collis, who lives near the site where the body was found, said she's not afraid. She's mad: ``It angers me that a man doesn't have to worry about this.''
Collis' best friend, Samantha Smith, said she was pulled over Feb. 18 by a man fitting the description of the suspect in Reynolds' abduction while driving on U.S. 29 near Culpeper.
Smith, 23, said the man walked up and told her something was wrong with her axle. The man was persistent, and ``unbelievably friendly,'' she said. ``He kept saying, `If I was you, I'd take a look at this.'''
Instead, the Culpeper County resident thanked him and drove away. Two weeks later when Reynolds disappeared, Collis urged her friend to call police, which she eventually did.
State police dispatchers have answered numerous calls since Tuesday from people reporting unusual behavior by other drivers, including flashing their lights and following too close.
``I think that goes on everywhere, but people here are especially sensitive to that because of the homicide,'' Caldwell said.
Other drivers asked advice on what to do if someone tries to get them to pull over, Caldwell said.
``We tell them, go to a well-lit public place where there are people around.''
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