by Lisa Hinton-Valdrighi
NORFOLK—The FBI announced Tuesday it has closed another double homicide connected to the Colonial Parkway Murders of the 1980s.
According to FBI public affairs officer Cassandra Temple, deceased Lancaster County man Alan W. Wilmer Sr. has been named as the person responsible for the deaths of Cathleen Thomas, 27, and Rebecca Dowski, 21, in October 1986. Wilmer, who died in 2017 at his residence in Mollusk, has now been connected to at least six murders in eastern Virginia and four in the group of murders collectively known as the Colonial Parkway Murders from 1986-1989.
Thomas and Dowski were the first in the series of murders that terrorized Virginians at the time. Their bodies were found inside their vehicles on the historic parkway in 1986.
According to Temple, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed that, had Wilmer been alive today, the evidence developed through this investigation would have supported federal prosecution.
This was the sixth death connected to Wilmer. The FBI and Virginia State Police announced in November 2025, he had been linked to the sexual assault and murder of Laurie Ann Powell, who disappeared from Gloucester County in 1988. Prior to that, in January 2024, the state police announced that Wilmer’s DNA definitely linked him to the death of Teresa Howell in Hampton in 1989 and Robin Edwards and David Knobling in 1987. Edwards’ and Knobling’s deaths were among the Colonial Parkway Murders.
The Wilmer Family did not have an opportunity to prepare a statement prior to the Rappahannock Record publication deadline.
