Colonial Parkway Murders - Part II

On January 8, 2024, the Virginia State Police disclosed that DNA evidence had identified Alan W. Wilmer Sr., a hunter and fisherman, as the perpetrator in the murders of Knobling and Edwards. Additionally, DNA analysis connected him to the unrelated murder of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell, which occurred in 1989. It is noteworthy that Wilmer passed away in 2017.

Brian Craig Pettinger, aged 25, was a heavy equipment operator serving as a maintenance worker for a local apartment complex. He was last observed at a ballroom dance studio in Hampton, Virginia, on December 4, 1987, at 11:30 p.m., where he was training to become a ballroom dance instructor. Two days after he was reported missing, his wife located his vehicle in the parking lot of the Newmarket North mall.

On February 3, 1988, two months later, fishermen discovered Pettinger's body adrift in a marshy section of the James River in Suffolk, Virginia, close to the mouth of Chuckatuck Creek. His wrists and ankles were bound, and a rope was secured around his neck. The lead investigator suggested that Pettinger had likely been hog-tied. The autopsy revealed that he had sustained blunt force trauma to the back of his head. It was determined that he had been thrown into the river while still alive and subsequently drowned, unable to swim. The case of Pettinger's murder remains unresolved and occurred during the same timeframe and vicinity as the Colonial Parkway murders.

At the time of Robin Edwards' murder, Pettinger was employed as a security guard and loss prevention officer for the same security services company where Robin's mother, Bonnie Edwards, worked as a receptionist. Wayne Elliot Mack, a fellow dance instructor, later admitted to having left the studio with Pettinger; Mack took his own life a few months afterward.

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