Nearly three decades after two women were found dead in a national park in Virginia, their killer — a “serial rapist” who died in prison in 2018 — was identified through forensic tests, the FBI said Thursday.
DNA tests determined that Walter “Leo” Jackson Sr. killed Laura “Lollie” Winans, 26, and Julianne “Julie” Williams, 24, at Shenandoah National Park on May 24, 1996, according to a Thursday joint statement from the the FBI’s Richmond Field Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia.
“After 28 years, we are now able to say who committed the brutal murders,” U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said in the statement. “I want to again extend my condolences to the Winans and Williams families and hope today’s announcement provides some small measure of solace.”
Their family members called the National Park Service when the women didn’t return home as planned. Their bodies were found June 1, 1996, following an extensive search.
They had been killed at their campsite near the Skyland Resort, the FBI said.
The case was unsolved for years, and in 2021, a new FBI team was assigned to review the murders. Special agents, intelligence analysts and other FBI personnel re-evaluated hundreds of leads and interviews, the agency said.
The team prioritized evidence from the crime scene and had it retested by an accredited private lab, the FBI said.
The private lab collected DNA from “several items of evidence,” and with the help of Virginia State Police, the DNA profile was sent to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, the FBI said. That led to a positive match to Jackson, a convicted serial rapist from Cleveland.
The FBI also compared evidence from the slayings of Winan and Williams to a buccal swab containing Jackson’s DNA, the FBI said.
“Those results confirmed we had the right man and finally could tell the victims’ families we know who is responsible for this heinous crime,” said Stanley M. Meador, the FBI Richmond special agent in charge.
Jackson, who was a painter, was an avid hiker who was known to visit Shenandoah National Park, the FBI said
He died in prison in March 2018 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, according to the FBI.
Jackson’s criminal rap sheet included kidnapping, rapes, and assaults, the FBI said, noting it also worked with the Cleveland Police Department and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office in the case.
