ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 5, 1996 TAG: 9607050015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PEARISBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
Giles County sheriff's investigators consider the abduction and slaying of Andrea Walnes five years ago an unprosecuted case, not an unsolved one.
But to the special prosecutor from Roanoke who reviewed the case, the July 4, 1991, disappearance and slaying of the Virginia Tech student cannot be pursued in court because of a lack of evidence.
Yet the newly elected Giles commonwealth's attorney says the case may yet be prosecuted if a new look at old leads bears fruit.
Her father still calls investigators each month asking about the case's progress.
The friend who last saw her alive on the New River on that hot July day said the wait for a trial is frustrating.
Andrea Walnes - known to her family and friends as Andy - was 18 when she disappeared from the banks of the New River. The Virginia Tech sophomore got separated from three friends while tubing through the rapids at McCoy Falls. More than 1,000 other people visited the river that day and most were oblivious to the young woman's disappearance. It was first investigated as a possible drowning, and, later, as a missing-person case.
Nearly four months after she vanished, a bow hunter discovered Walnes' scattered remains in the wooded mountains of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Giles County, just three-tenths of a mile from the West Virginia state line. How Walnes was killed was never determined.
No one has been charged with the killing, and some say no one ever will be.
Friends, relatives and investigators said recently they hope the latter is not true.
Jack Walnes of Livonia, N.Y., apologized for his emotions as he choked on tears in a recent telephone interview.
"This [case] not being solved is a personal hurt; it does not bring closure," he said.
Walnes' father said he hopes that someone will come forward with information.
"I pray there is someone out there ... if someone could help solve this case, it would be tremendous. I'm just as worried about this happening to someone else," he said.
Jamie Cooper of Sterling was 19 when Walnes was killed. The two became friends through a shared interest in an equestrian event called vaulting. Cooper was one of the last people to see Walnes alive as she climbed out of the New River with her inner tube. When he went to where he last saw her, she was nowhere to be found.
Although Cooper said he appreciates the effort of local authorities to solve the case, he said the wait for information has been frustrating. He described Walnes as "unbelievable" in her potential and still conveys anger in his voice over her death.
"It never should have happened," he said.
Giles sheriff's Investigator Willie Lucas sat in an office he shares with fellow investigator Lt. Gary Price and said there are no new leads in the case. A school photograph of Walnes remains tacked to a bulletin board where it has been for five years - a daily reminder of why they continue their search for clues in the case, the investigators said.
"It's disheartening," Lucas said.
But Lucas said he and his colleagues will continue to investigate until they can present their evidence in court. "Our intention is to see that the case is prosecuted," he said.
The evidence Lucas is referring to, he said, consists of more than 500 photographs, hours of video, four three-inch-thick notebooks and several boxes of assorted material including the inner tube Walnes was riding. Police said they found the inner tube with the "NRJ 369" marking still on it nearly a year after Walnes disappeared, but they would not say where it was found. Officials from the FBI, state police, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, Blacksburg police and West Virginia state police all have worked on some aspect of the case, he said.
Despite all the work, no one has been charged.
Lucas would not comment about who his office suspects killed Walnes, but maintains he and others who have worked on the case consider it solved. He and Price agree, however, that the case would be difficult for any lawyer to prosecute.
Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell agreed with the investigators and went one step further. He said the evidence that he reviewed with investigators was simply not enough.
"We have informally reviewed the facts, to render what assistance we could," Caldwell said, "and, at this time, in my opinion, there is insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute any individual for the Walnes homicide."
Caldwell reviewed the case after he was appointed as special prosecutor for another Giles County murder case, in which he won the conviction of John David Lafon of Pembroke in the 1987 slaying of another Virginia Tech coed, Meredith Mergler.
Special prosecutors from Roanoke were appointed because of a conflict of interest with the Giles County commonwealth's attorney at the time, James Hartley, whose law firm once represented Lafon in a divorce.
Lafon was convicted of the murder and abduction of Mergler, who was 19. Her body was found in a Giles County cistern 14 months after she disappeared. She had been shot in the face and chest. Lafon was arrested four years after Mergler was killed.
No one contacted for this story would comment on whether Lafon is still a suspect in the Walnes slaying. Soon after Lafon's conviction in Mergler's slaying, defense attorney Max Jenkins had confirmed that Lafon was a suspect.
Jenkins said recently he knew investigators searched Lafon's van for evidence for the Walnes case, but he never heard that anything was found and the van was returned.
When asked specifically about Lafon's possible involvement, Price said, "At this time, there is nothing to eliminate him."
Lafon is serving his life-plus-12-year sentence in the Keen Mountain Correctional Center, in Buchanan County. His next possible parole date is April 29, 2004.
His parents, who still live in Pembroke, said they did not want to comment for this story, but maintain their son is innocent. Their son repeatedly has denied he had anything to do with Mergler's death.
Now, with a newly elected commonwealth's attorney in Giles County, many people are wondering if it will affect the progress of the Walnes case.
Garland Spangler took office Jan. 1 and said the Walnes investigation is active even now.
But time is any prosecutor's enemy. He said everyone involved wants to prosecute the case as soon as possible, but he would not want to do anything before every lead was checked out.
"If they develop what they have," Spangler said in reference to recent work by the investigators, "there will be sufficient evidence to prosecute."
"There may be some closure soon; but I won't know until they [the investigators] finish developing their leads," he said.
Closure is something Jack Walnes may never feel when he thinks about his daughter and how 18 years were so many fewer than he had expected to share with her. Walnes said this year, as his 18-year-old son completed his first year at college, was difficult.
"It brings back memories," he said.
When asked if a court trial - even if the outcome were a not-guilty verdict - would bring closure for him, Walnes said he believed it would.
"I would be there. I would listen to the evidence. I would be able to make my own decision," Walnes said.
Anyone with information about the Walnes killing may call the Giles County Sheriff's Office at (540) 921-3842.
LENGTH: Long : 135 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: File. Andrea Walnes.by CNB