ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HARRISONBURG
SOURCE: Associated Press
ALICIA REYNOLDS' family still hopes that, with the help of the public, the person who killed her will be found.
On the anniversary of her disappearance, the mystery surrounding the abduction and slaying of Alicia Showalter Reynolds still haunts her family and the investigators working the case.
Reynolds, 25, a native of Harrisonburg, disappeared March 2, 1996, near Culpeper. Her car was found abandoned on U.S. 29. A resident of Baltimore, she had been traveling to Charlottesville to spend the day shopping with her mother.
Last May 7, Reynolds' body was found in the remote logging area of Lignum in Culpeper County. Her killer has not been caught.
``We're coping,'' Reynolds' father, Harrisonburg resident Harley Showalter, said last week. ``We're hoping that the perpetrator will be apprehended. And we're hopeful that state police still can be helped by public support with any information or leads.''
Mark Reynolds, Alicia Reynolds' husband, is continuing his studies in dentistry at the University of Maryland-Baltimore.
``We just kind of decided to do this and quietly let the anniversary come and go,'' Showalter said. ``It's still a tragedy; the community still has the memories of what happened.''
Reynolds was last seen getting into a black or dark-colored pickup truck. After her abduction, it was learned several women had been approached on U.S. 29 by a man in a vehicle fitting that description. This man apparently stopped or attempted to stop some two dozen women along U.S. 29 in the two months before Reynolds disappeared.
The suspect told the women their cars were malfunctioning and offered them rides. Some women accepted rides and were not harmed in any way, but a woman in Prince William County was assaulted by a man wielding a screwdriver.
Police have been looking for a white male, 35 to 45 years old, with a medium build and light-to medium-brown hair. He used the name Larry Breeden on at least two occasions, but authorities have cleared every known Larry Breeden in Virginia.
Reynolds' slaying is one of several unsolved homicides in the Harrisonburg area: the killings of hikers Julie Williams and Lollie Winans - whose throats were slashed - in Shenandoah National Park last summer; the fatal shootings of James Madison University students Ann Margret Olson and Keith J. O'Connell last October; and the strangulation of Robin Sue Roadcap in January.
Statistically, most crimes are solved in the first few days after they occur, with fewer crimes being solved after a year. Lucy Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, said investigators remain optimistic that the killer will be caught.
``Investigators still have a high level of confidence that this case is solvable. They still believe that there are people out there who have information that could be helpful who have not called,'' she said.
Caldwell said the attention given to Reynolds' case has called attention to the plight of female motorists.
``One of the things that's happened is that the Reynolds case raised the public's awareness of how common it actually is for women to be - if not abducted - hassled or assaulted on the roadside,'' she said.
The latest incident that sparked memories of Reynolds' slaying was the killing of Stuarts Draft resident Dawn M. Snyder. Showalter said he knew an arrest had been made in that case, in which Bobby Swisher has been charged with capital murder.
``It's very easy for us to identify with the families of victims of crime,'' he said.
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