The National Park Killer

On this episode, Payton and Garrett uncover the chilling case of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans, two hikers who mysteriously disappeared while exploring a national park. Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Sources: ABCNews.go.com - https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspect-identified-womens-1996-double-murder-national-park/story?id=111310258 CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shenandoah-national-park-1996-cold-case-killings-2-campers-solved-fbi-serial-rapist-walter-leo-jackson-senior/ DailyProgress.com - https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/article_dcc7315a-3d6a-11ef-be02-375e29bc0027.html FBI.gov - https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/walter-l-jackson-sr National Park After Dark: “The Solved Shenandoah Murders with Kathryn Miles” - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-solved-shenandoah-murders-with-kathryn-miles/id1549433407?i=1000660498027 The National Park Service - https://www.nps.gov/shen/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1563/index.htm NBCWashington.com - https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/shenandoah-hiker-murder-case-solved-after-deaths-of-2-women-in-1996/3645608/ The New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/us/shenandoah-park-murders-1996-fbi.html Outside Magazine - https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/shenandoah-murders-trailed-kathryn-miles-queer-women-outdoors/ StrangeOutdoors.com - https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/true-crime-in-the-outdoors/2020/1shenandoah-national-park-murders TRAILED: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58328366-trailed Wikipedia.org - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Evonitz WTOP.com - https://wtop.com/virginia/2024/06/fbi-says-dna-links-ohio-man-who-died-in-2018-to-brutal-1996-killings-of-2-hikers-in-virginias-shenandoah-national-park/ WTVR.com - https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/walter-leo-jackson-dna-shenandoah-national-park-killings-june-20-2024 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:27Speaker 01

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• 0:58Garrett Moreland?

  Everyone, here we are again. Welcome back. It's hard. Like, do we do our intro or not? Because the episode's gonna play and have our normal intro. So like, we're doing like a pre-intro to the intro because we're still here. We just came down to record some ads to say hi. The episode's gonna play right after this. We're both downstairs. Peyton currently has a baby in her hands. Baby Roan just eight. She's just sleeping on her mommy. We're hanging in there. Peyton's doing an amazing job. Yeah. What else?

• 1:36Payton Moreland?

  Oh, every day it gets more natural. It starts to feel more real. I won't lie, those first couple of days now, looking back, a little weird. Yeah. Like, yeah, I don't need to go off on it. Yeah. On a postpartum tangent, but it's definitely like when you're, it's your first baby. It was a weird adjustment because I felt like me plus a baby, not a mom. Because it's one minute they're not with you, the next minute they're on your chest and you're just like, what do I, who, what do I do? But it's definitely feeling so much more like natural and normal, starting to feel like kind of meshing into our family. Daisy's getting more used to it. So yeah.

• 2:20Garrett Moreland?

  Sort of.

• 2:21Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. It's going good.

• 2:22Garrett Moreland?

  It's been good. Thanks for you guys' support. I also got sick, like the day after we brought Roan home. So that was not fun. Had a pretty nasty cold. I'm finally on the tail end of it. So yeah, it's been a pretty crazy week for us. Well, I guess it'll be two weeks on Wednesday.

• 2:44Payton Moreland?

  Which is so crazy.

• 2:46Garrett Moreland?

  Anyways, ranting. That's what we got. Thanks, everyone. We love you. Episode's gonna start in a second. You can skip forward if you're sick of us talking. We don't really have any big major updates or anything crazy for 10 seconds because we're just taking care of the baby and keeping up with the work. And yeah, so on that note, let's hop into this week's episode.

• 3:10Payton Moreland?

  You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

• 3:17Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm Garrett Moreland.

• 3:18Payton Moreland?

  And he's the husband.

• 3:19Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm the husband. Welcome back, subscribers, paid subscribers. Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting us. If you are watching this on video, I don't because I look absolutely insane. I just got back from pickleball and I'm finally feeling better today. I've been sick the last week. So I haven't been doing much, but I look crazy. So just listen on audio.

• 3:42Payton Moreland?

  Everyone's sick right now.

• 3:44Garrett Moreland?

  Everybody's sick right now. I know. Again, honestly, thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting us. We love you guys. Hope everyone has, this should be coming out on Halloween. So yeah, which is tomorrow. We're recording this on Thursday. This should be coming out on Friday, I think. And do hope you guys have a good Halloween. What's everyone doing? I'll tell you what we're doing. Nothing, which is sad, but we're doing, we're gonna hand out candy to kids and yeah. Right, babe?

• 4:12Payton Moreland?

  Yep. And and out candy.

• 4:14Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah. We still can't see each other because we have skeleton here. So we don't, we don't get a look at each other. A little sad. That's okay. Peyton's looking good.

• 4:22Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, Mr. Skelly in my way. Geez, he could be a little considerate.

• 4:26Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, there we go. It's a little better. Good job, babe.

• 4:30Payton Moreland?

  The fact we could have fixed that with one motion.

• 4:32Garrett Moreland?

  All right. We getting into today's case?

• 4:34Payton Moreland?

  We sure are. Trigger warning. This episode contains discussions of sexual assault, homophobia, violence against queer people, self harm and murder. So please listen with care. Now I want to kick things off with a quote about nature. There are so many good ones. It's hard to choose, but here are a few that stick with me. Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better. Or in every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. Or a walk in nature walks the soul back home. And what's interesting is how these words come from very different people. One is a physicist, one is an environmentalist,

• 5:15Payton Moreland?

  one is a writer, but they all do touch on the same truth. And that is that being outdoors does something for humans. It clears our heads. It reminds us who we are. But as amazing as, you know, not being in your house and being outside and in nature can be, it can also be dangerous, even deadly. And unlike when you're in a city, there might not be cell service or cops nearby when something bad happens in nature. So it's beautiful. It's healing. It's inspiring. But it's also important to remember that when you're in

• 5:51Payton Moreland?

  the wilderness, you are on your own. So let's take it back to the year 1996. I was gonna be born here pretty soon, but on May 19th, 1996, two women drove into Shenandoah National Park. Now, this park sits in Virginia. It's just a couple hours outside of DC. Now, this park is known for waterfalls, mountains, wildflower covered meadows, and over 196,000 acres of dedicated wilderness. So to some people, this might feel remote, but to these two

• 6:33Payton Moreland?

  women in 1996, Shenandoah felt familiar. They both were experienced backcountry hikers. They could backpack for days in the wilderness without access to civilization.

• 6:46Garrett Moreland?

  Nope. Can't do that. I respect anyone who can do that. I, I couldn't. I wish I could. Can't.

• 6:53Payton Moreland?

  They, these two women knew how to get water and food, how to build fires and shelter. Their names were Julie Williams and Lowly Winans. They had actually met Julie and Lowly on a backcountry expedition about a year before this in 1995. They were two women from very different worlds who were both survivors. Lowly was the older of the two. She was 26 at the time. She took great pains not to show it, but Lowly came from wealth. She was descended from John Baptist Ford, an industrialist who made a fortune off chemicals

• 7:37Payton Moreland?

  back in the 1800s. That company he started actually still exists today. And the money it generated was astronomical. Lowly was just one of his many descendants, but she grew up on a sprawling estate in Michigan. Her family wintered on a ranch in Arizona. Her mother spent her time training Labradors and entertaining guests on their 140 foot yacht. It was the kind of lifestyle most of us can't even imagine. And as Lowly grew up, she wanted none of it. She felt out of place in her family's world. She longed for

• 8:17Payton Moreland?

  something real. And maybe that's why she fell so in love with being outdoors. At age five, she asked for a tent so she could sleep in their backyard. And as she got older, nature became not just a passion, but a refuge. Lowly later said that she was sexually abused by her stepfather. She had tried to tell her mom about it, but the response was not well. So she did anything she could to get away. Boarding schools in other states, outdoor camps that lasted all summer long. And when it came time for college, Lowly got as far away from her family's world as she could. She chose a place called Sterling College

• 8:59Payton Moreland?

  in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, almost 1,000 miles away from home. Now Sterling was and is focused on, quote, ecological thinking and action. Students chopped wood. They built things. They learned how to grow their own food, how to survive in the wilderness. And in December of 1989, one of Lowly's classes went on a backpacking expedition in the middle of winter in Vermont.

• 9:27Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 9:28Payton Moreland?

  This obviously sounds like the worst extra credit option ever, carrying a heavy backpack through snow for a week, often in sub-zero temperatures. But Lowly absolutely loved it. It was one of the most liberating experiences of her life.

• 9:44Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I think a lot of people, right? It's like, it's the completing something hard. It's the, I don't know, the feeling of success. And that's why people like doing that. For me, no, but I get why people do it.

• 9:54Payton Moreland?

  So basically, from this extra credit opportunity point on, she was committed to living in sync with nature. She became a vegetarian. She started growing her own food. And later, she joined an adventure travel group called Woods Women, which catered specifically to women who loved the outdoors. And on one of their expeditions in 1995, she meets Julie Williams. Julie was two years younger than Lolly, and she came from a totally different world. While Lolly's mom was an heiress, Julie's dad, Tom, was a funeral director. Her mom,

• 10:35Payton Moreland?

  Patsy, was a nurse. They were a middle-class family in the mid-sized town of St. Cloud, Minnesota. And all Tom and Patsy wanted for their daughter was to be happy. Julie was exceptionally brilliant. Her teachers repeatedly suggested that her parents skip her upper grade, or even two. But Tom and Patsy declined. They didn't want to push their daughter into things. They just wanted her to have fun being a kid. And maybe because of that decision, Julie flourished. She graduated valedictorian of her high school. She went on to college and dove into a ton of different interests. She studied geology. She joined archaeological digs in Europe to

• 11:18Payton Moreland?

  study dinosaurs. She became fluent in Spanish and volunteered throughout South America. Julie was so well-traveled and giving of her time that her classmates called her the one-woman Peace Corps. And like Lolly, she became passionate about the natural world. Julie had learned through her travels and life experience that nature is sometimes reserved for the privileged. Women, minorities, and working-class people don't always have the freedom to go enjoy it. And Julie thought that was wrong. She believed information would increase access. So in addition to all her

• 11:57Payton Moreland?

  other activities, she volunteered in city parks, teaching single moms and their kids how to camp, how to hike safely. And then in 1995, Julie also joined Woods Women. And that's when she met Lolly. And the two girls, Lolly at 26, Julie at 24, click right away. Despite their differences, their passion for nature was so great that it bonded them instantly. Friendship quickly turned into love. And about six months later, Julie moved in with her college friend Derek in Vermont just to be closer to Lolly, who was now studying at the Progressive Unity College in Maine. And

• 12:40Payton Moreland?

  for the next nine months or so, as they began dating, the two women lived about five hours apart. They saw each other as often as they could. But in the meantime, they wrote letters, they talked about their future. And then in May 1996, Lolly got a job in Vermont. And so essentially, she came down to be with Julie. And it seems maybe they were moving in together. The detail isn't clear. But whether for that or some other reason, Julie decided to move out of the apartment she'd been living in with Derek. And she and Lolly had a backpacking trip planned. It would be a

• 13:20Payton Moreland?

  week of camping and hiking in Shenandoah National Park. Their backcountry permit expired on May 28. So after that, Julie told Derek she would come back, move her stuff out. But May 28 came and went. And then it was May 29. And then May 30. And by now, Derek is getting aggravated. He wasn't necessarily worried. I mean, after all, he'd known Julie since college. She had traveled all over the world. She'd always been fine. She was very equipped to handle the outdoors. Derek was annoyed that she hadn't shown up to move out or called and given him an update. To him, it felt like

• 14:02Payton Moreland?

  she had ditched him to finally spend time with her girlfriend, Lolly. So he picks up the phone. And he calls Julie's dad, Tom, who is back in Minnesota, and said, hey, she's supposed to move out. All her stuff is here. Have you heard from her? And Julie's parents are like, no, we haven't. And unlike Derek, Tom and Patsy did start to worry. So they decide to report Julie missing. But it wasn't easy to figure out who to call. Shenandoah National Park is huge. It spans multiple jurisdictions, several police departments. So finally, someone told Tom to just call the park.

• 14:44Payton Moreland?

  And by the time they did, it was after business hours. So all Tom could do was leave a message and wait and hope for good news. Now, the next day, the park opens up, and it is a madhouse because it's Memorial Day weekend.

• 14:58Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, no. That's like the worst thing that could have happened.

• 15:01Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, it's one of the busiest times of the year. The park is overcrowded. It's understaffed. So the Rangers didn't have a lot of time to search for this missing girl that supposedly went missing in the park. Luckily, though, one of them remembered meeting Julie and Lolly earlier in their trip. They had actually told this park ranger where they planned on hiking, and that they also had a dog with them. It was a Labrador Retriever named Taj. So the ranger passed that along to the park's senior investigator. Yes, national parks have detectives, like they

• 15:43Payton Moreland?

  have their basically full-blown force. But we'll, we'll get to that more later in the story. The senior investigator assigned the case to another ranger investigator, and the search begins. And they call this a bastard search, as in where is the bastard? This is ranger slang for a missing person case where someone probably just took the wrong trail and is lost. Most of the time, these cases end with a call from the people who had reported them missing, saying something like, hey, he was actually in a hotel this entire time. But this time, there was no such call. Rangers in the park searched until dark. They interviewed hikers. No one had seen Julie

• 16:26Payton Moreland?

  or Lolly. And the Rangers found no sign of them. So the next day, Saturday, June 1, the search continued. Seven Rangers were part of this search crew combing the park. They can't find anything. And then finally, around 5:00 PM that day, a hiker flagged down a ranger, and she pointed out a dog that she had found wandering alone along the trail. Now, this ranger wasn't part of the search team, but he had heard about the missing woman. And when he saw the dog and that the dog was a lab, something clicked. So he calls the dog over, come here. The dog doesn't move. So then he tries something else. He opens the door to his truck, and he's like,

• 17:10Payton Moreland?

  hey, Taj, come on, hop in. The dog comes running over, jumps in. It must have been a chilling moment. So the ranger radioed the search team, saying, hey, I'm pretty sure we found the woman's dog.

• 17:22Garrett Moreland?

  That's so sad for the dog, too. I know that's kind of random, but

• 17:27Payton Moreland?

  It is sad.

• 17:28Garrett Moreland?

  That's sad.

• 17:29Payton Moreland?

  How long has it been alone?

• 17:30Garrett Moreland?

  I'm sure the dog knows what happened. And I mean, obviously, yeah, that's just horrible.

• 17:36Payton Moreland?

  So the search team actually hurries over to join the dog and the other ranger on the trail where they found the dog, because this is like the best clue they have. And they hike for hours, searching. Meanwhile, the light was fading fast. And just when the search team thought they'd have to stop for the night, two Rangers spotted a flash of blue somewhere in the trees. And they realize it's a tent. There's a tent pitched in the trees. So cautiously, they walk toward it. They're calling out, maybe hoping to hear voices call back. But as they get closer, they realize that this is not going to happen. They saw the tent had been slashed open.

• 18:16Payton Moreland?

  Gear was scattered everywhere in this camping site. There was a roll of toilet paper soaked in blood. And among the mess, one inside the tent, one outside, they found two women bound with duct tape.

• 18:35Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 18:36Payton Moreland?

  Their throats had been cut. There was no question in the Rangers' minds. They had just found the missing women. It was Julie and Lolly. And they had been brutally murdered. This wasn't an animal attack. This wasn't a got lost and couldn't find our way back and ended up succumbing to the circumstance.

• 18:56Garrett Moreland?

  There might not be something creepier and

• 19:00Garrett Moreland?

  Scarier than someone who's like in the woods killing people.

• 19:03Payton Moreland?

  In a national park.

• 19:04Garrett Moreland?

  In a national park.

• 19:06Payton Moreland?

  Hundreds of thousands of acres.

• 19:08Garrett Moreland?

  Horrible.

• 19:08Payton Moreland?

  In every case we cover, the timeline is everything. And the second I found out I was pregnant, I started mapping out mine week by week. And it turns out what your body needs in the first trimester is totally different from the third. I'd been planning to take one random prenatal the entire time, which is like solving a case by only looking at one day. So I went looking for something built around that timeline and that is how I found parallel. I love parallel. I'm still taking parallel right now in postpartum. I think what I love the most is parallel changes as your pregnancy changes. Separate packs for trying to conceive, egg freezing, first trimester, second trimester, third trimester and postpartum.

• 19:50Payton Moreland?

  So I'm currently on my postpartum packets. It totally makes sense that as your pregnancy goes on, or before you've even got pregnant, what your body needs is going to change. And that's why I love parallel because they are basically changing the prenatal game.

• 20:07Garrett Moreland?

  Wherever you are on your own timeline, whether that's trying, pregnant or postpartum, parallel has a pack built for that stage. We had them give us an exclusive code just for you guys. New customers can use the code husband and get 20% off your first order at parallelhealth.com/husband. That's P E R E L E L health.com slash H U S B A N D. Parallelhealth.com/husband.

• 20:35Payton Moreland?

  All right, guys, we are jumping into a sponsor and it is Fabletics. Now, I don't know if you know this, but something that I find so amazing and actually really love about Fabletics is you can put together an entire outfit and then purchase that outfit. So I like to go in, uh, just see what they recommend. I absolutely love that tool. I think it is so helpful. It takes a lot of the guesswork out. And that is something I love about Fabletics.

• 21:04Garrett Moreland?

  I have a bunch of their short sweats.

• 21:07Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, you do actually. And then I just got, I think I got like three winter coats because winter is coming up and I got matching.

• 21:14Garrett Moreland?

  You just got some good stuff.

• 21:15Payton Moreland?

  I did. Like I got so many cute sets that they picked and paired together for me.

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• 21:52Payton Moreland?

  So not far from Shenandoah is another one of America's great parks, Yellowstone. There's a place known as the zone of death there. It's a 50 square mile section of land where in theory someone could commit a crime, even murder, and then walk away without a conviction. Now, this sounds like an urban legend, but it's not. It's actually a legal loophole. According to the sixth amendment, every person accused of a crime has the right to a trial by jury. And that jury has to come from the region where the crime took place. But in this particular jurisdiction of Yellowstone, there are no permanent residents. Nobody lives there. So there is no one to serve on a jury.

• 22:35Payton Moreland?

  Therefore, there's no legal way to conduct a trial. Now, to be clear, no one has ever tested this loophole. Like it's just an urban legend, a theory, but it is a serious gray area of like, couldn't lawyer argue that this person isn't getting a fair trial because they're not getting a fair jury from the area.

• 22:57Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 22:58Payton Moreland?

  This is just one example of how in the wilderness criminal investigations can kind of become an entirely different animal than the city and where people actually live. There are often jurisdictional issues. National parks, for example, are federal land, which would mean the FBI has authority over cases. But there's also a law enforcement arm of the National Park Service, an elite team of special agents trained to investigate major crimes that happen inside national parks. They know these places like the back of their hand. They also are well-trained in the outdoors. These are the investigators I mentioned earlier.

• 23:39Payton Moreland?

  And in addition, there are also local police of each jurisdiction where this land lies. There are sheriffs, there are volunteer search teams. So you have multiple agencies overlapping roles and often there is unclear boundaries. This appears to have immediately been a problem in Julian Lolly's case. So at first, the park service took over the crime scene. They didn't have the equipment they needed to gather evidence, so they called in the Virginia State Police to help. And meanwhile, as the Virginia State Police are collecting evidence, the FBI shows up.

• 24:17Payton Moreland?

  And as highly trained as some of those agents were, they were not experienced in backcountry investigations. In fact, the Department of Justice at this time had just released a protocol, a series of steps for federal agents to follow on investigations. And step one was document the name and address of the building where the crime took place. Step two was determine points of entry and exit. Step three, check the door handles and light switches for prints. This is their like handbook of how to investigate and none of this applies to the situation. So the feds show up, they're not trained like the local people. They are learning on the fly.

• 24:59Payton Moreland?

  And there was another problem, one that appears to have been self-inflicted. All three agencies initially try to keep the crime a secret. For three days, no one told the public that two women had been found murdered inside the park. That's three days when potentially witnesses who had been hiking with these women were still in the park. Maybe the killer was still there too. And no one knows that this is happening. No one's on the lookout. No one's looking for anything while hiking. You know, being like, actually, maybe I did see something suspicious.

• 25:37Garrett Moreland?

  There's a killer out there, but fine.

• 25:38Payton Moreland?

  So when the news finally does come out, it is vague. The head of the park service said it was an isolated incident. That cannot be exactly true because that same month, three other women had been murdered in Virginia. And by the end of the year, three more women would be killed all in the same general area. So maybe the park service director didn't know about those other cases, but he definitely knew one thing. He can't say for sure that this is an isolated event. Like this could definitely be a serial killer, a crazy lunatic just at loose in the park.

• 26:17Payton Moreland?

  So for reasons we don't know, he and the other agency leaders withheld this information during the most critical time of the investigation. It was almost like they wanted the crime to go unnoticed. If so, to some degree, they were kind of successful, which meant that a year later in July of 1997, Julian Lawley's case was going cold. A tourist named Yvonne Malbaasha was biking through the park a year later with no idea that these women had been killed there a year before. Yvonne was riding along the main road. She felt totally safe until a pickup truck pulled up behind her in the park. And then stayed behind her. So Yvonne pulls over as far as she can, like waves him on.

• 27:02Payton Moreland?

  There's plenty of space, but instead of passing, the driver threw a soda bottle at Yvonne and then ran her off the road.

• 27:11Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 27:12Payton Moreland?

  So Yvonne is struggling with her bike. She's trying to gain her balance. The man leaned out of his truck. He grabbed her on her chest area and yelled, basically, show me your.

• 27:26Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, T I T T I S's?

• 27:28Payton Moreland?

  Yes. So Yvonne then picks up her water bottle and smacks him with it. And it startled the man long enough to kind of put some space between the two, but he wasn't done. He then tried to run her down in his truck. Yvonne used her bike like a shield until she could get far enough into the woods that the man couldn't follow her. Uh, the man gives up and drives off. So Yvonne terrified, made her way back to the road. She flags down a passing ranger and says, hey, I was just assaulted. He sends out an alert and not long after rangers found and arrested the driver of the pickup. His name was Daryl David Rice.

• 28:08Payton Moreland?

  He had no criminal record, but there were signs that this was more than a spontaneous assault. Daryl had changed his license plates since the attack. He had also changed his shirt and he had leg and wrist bonds in the vehicle. Like to tie someone up. So it feels like this man was prepared.

• 28:29Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 28:29Payton Moreland?

  And if Yvonne hadn't fought him off, investigators were pretty sure they knew what he was going to do to her. So they quickly take Daryl into custody. He's charged with attempted kidnapping and sexual assault. And as he started making his way through the justice system, people begin to wonder, does Daryl have anything else that he's done in the park? So as investigators are building their current case against Daryl Rice, they start digging into his background. And although he had no criminal record, there were definitely a few red flags. Daryl was a computer programmer in Maryland. He had been fired from his job a few weeks earlier due to a pattern of disturbing behavior.

• 29:14Payton Moreland?

  According to his file, he had yelled sexual comments at his coworkers. He had punched a hole in the bathroom wall.

• 29:21Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 29:21Payton Moreland?

  He repeatedly bumped into people holding hot coffee on purpose, trying to get them to spill their coffee on themselves. I think needless to say, this, this guy just had societal issues. And he also had a thing for bondage pornography. Now, this can be fine on its own, but when it's paired with stalking, aggressive behavior, sexual assault, attempted kidnapping, this suggests a unhealthy state of mind.

• 29:48Garrett Moreland?

  It's like saying, hey, I like watching true crime and then killing people.

• 29:52Payton Moreland?

  And then being like, oh, okay, you, it wasn't just a

• 29:54Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, it's

• 29:55Payton Moreland?

  innocent obsession.

• 29:56Garrett Moreland?

  Exactly.

• 29:57Payton Moreland?

  So perhaps this means he could have committed other crimes like killing Julie and Lolly. Soon the feds were looking at Daryl in connection with the murders. And they found a clue that placed him near the scene of the crime. Security footage showed Daryl Rice entering the national park on May 25th, 26th and June 1st back in 1996. This is around the days that the women were killed. Turns out he was a nature lover too. Like his victim, Yvonne, he was actually an avid cycler. Maybe all he was doing during those days was enjoying the scenery.

• 30:37Payton Moreland?

  But when agents questioned Daryl about the women's murders, his response was suspicious. He denied entering the park on the 25th and 26th. And although he also denied knowing anything about the murders, he says in his interrogation that Julie and Lolly, quote, deserved to die because they were gay.

• 31:03Garrett Moreland?

  Whoa, he said that?

• 31:04Payton Moreland?

  Yes. Now, this obviously isn't a confession, but it is enough to make investigators obviously zero in on him. So they spent the next five years building this murder case against him. And meanwhile, the impact of the crime kept rippling outward. Julie and Lolly weren't forgotten, but their families, their friends, or the communities that had grown to love them. One such place was Unity College in Maine, where Lolly had been a student. Well, by 2001, they had built a monument in her memory. They also had a fellowship in her name.

• 31:44Payton Moreland?

  Lolly had become a kind of school icon, a welcoming symbol of courage and dedication to natural life. That fall, a young professor named Catherine Miles arrived on campus. Catherine was just 27 years old and she had been a reporter since the age of 16. She was fresh out of grad school, now new to teaching, new to this tight knit community. And one of the things that impressed her about the school was how they honored Lolly's memory. She was almost like a martyr, a woman killed for living her truth. And despite the violence of her death, there was an innocence in the way that people remembered her. A sense that the world, for all its cruelty, was still essentially beautiful.

• 32:30Payton Moreland?

  And then September 11th, 2001 came. Obviously we know that's nine 11, 3,000 people were killed. And Catherine and her students watched the horror unfold on television. And in that moment, it became clear to them. The world had changed. It had lost its innocence. And it wasn't long before they started to see what that would mean. New laws were introduced. Some aimed at stopping terrorists, others tried to control this rage. There was attacks on minorities, especially people of Arab descent. So all of this to say, the government was imposing new penalties for hate crimes.

• 33:12Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Payton Moreland?

  After nine 11, which is going to

• 33:16Garrett Moreland?

  Impact

• 33:16Payton Moreland?

  impact our case.

• 33:17Garrett Moreland?

  Got it.

• 33:18Payton Moreland?

  So if a person was convicted of a federal homicide motivated by their hatred for a specific group, they could now be sentenced to death for that. Now, this legal shift changed the approach to Julie and Lolly's case. Behind closed doors, the Department of Justice, under Attorney General John Ashcroft, had determined that Julie and Lolly's murders were hate crimes. And this meant renewed pressure to find a killer. But it also opened up a new angle to the investigation. Digging deeper, officials found that Daryl had made a harassing phone call to an LGBTQ organization in California, not long before Julie and Lolly were killed.

• 34:03Payton Moreland?

  Daryl said it was a wrong number. He was actually trying to call a hotline. But be that as it may, combined with his homophobic statements, his history of violence, and the fact that he had been in the park around the time of the murders, federal agents feel like this was enough evidence. And on April 10th, 2002, they charged Daryl with Julie and Lolly's murders. So this is kind of what is in the news about the case, right? Like we've charged this person for a hate crime. It is one of the first. But then 15 years later, in 2016, Catherine, who was back at the school, who was kind of around and watching this unfold in real time,

• 34:46Payton Moreland?

  is stunned to see a familiar headline. The FBI was seeking new information in the murders of Julie and Lolly. And she's like, why? Like this was major news. They had caught the person. They had charged him.

• 35:01Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 35:01Payton Moreland?

  So Catherine looks into it and realized that the charges against Daryl had been dropped back in 2004 because DNA evidence had ruled him out. He wasn't a match. And yet, when she reached out to the FBI about this, they're like, no, no, no, he's not exonerated. Back in 1998, Daryl had been sentenced to 14 years for that attack on Yvonne.

• 35:26Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 35:26Payton Moreland?

  The attempted attack.

• 35:28Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 35:28Payton Moreland?

  He had been released in 2007, but he had never really been a free man because the FBI were like, we know you killed these women, even though DNA exoner well, ruled you out.

• 35:39Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 35:40Payton Moreland?

  They just couldn't prove it. So after all these years, after the headlines, the press conferences, the national outrage, Julian Lolly's murders had actually remained unsolved.

• 35:50Garrett Moreland?

  Whoa.

• 35:50Payton Moreland?

  And the man people thought was responsible because it had blown up for 20 years now. People had assumed that he did this. He might've actually been innocent because way back then they ruled him out with DNA.

• 36:04Garrett Moreland?

  What? So Daryl might be innocent?

• 36:07Payton Moreland?

  Yes.

• 36:08Garrett Moreland?

  Daryl, Daryl?

• 36:09Payton Moreland?

  Daryl.

• 36:10Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Payton Moreland?

  Um, but it's now fast forward. He did serve time for the attempted. But the FBI still are zeroing in on him, saying he's the one who did it, even though DNA ruled him out.

• 36:21Garrett Moreland?

  That's confusing.

• 36:22Payton Moreland?

  Catherine starts looking into this because she's like, how was this such huge news? And then he wasn't actually charged for it. Thanks to Rover for sponsoring today's show. If you have a dog like ours, you know, they can be quirky. Dogs can have their quirks. And so when you're trying to find someone to help you take care of them, that can be hard. But that is where Rover comes in. I love that I can list every single thing Daisy needs and they can help me find someone who matches that. You can browse sitter profiles to find a sitter who is a good fit for your pet with verified reviews from other pet parents to give you peace of mind.

• 37:01Payton Moreland?

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• 37:30Garrett Moreland?

  That's code MYHUSBAND20 for $20 off your first booking. Valid only on eligible bookings. Offer expires January 24th, 2027. Terms apply. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Peyton and I are both big advocates for therapy. We love therapy. We think everyone should do therapy if you want, get to talk to somebody. I think sometimes we have thoughts and experiences that we want to, you know, remove or delete from our brain. And sometimes that's just not how it works. I think therapy is a great place to help process those thoughts. So yeah, if you're interested in therapy, you really should give BetterHelp a try.

• 38:13Payton Moreland?

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• 38:39Garrett Moreland?

  BetterHelp is now in network with more than 125 health plans with many copays as low as $15 for eligible members. And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 20% off your first month. Sign up and get 20% off at betterhelp.com/husband. That's better, H E L P dot com slash husband.

• 38:59Payton Moreland?

  So back in 1996, investigators had collected huge amounts of evidence from the scene. And some of it had been tested for DNA. And they had found a sample that didn't match Julie or Lolly, presumably the killers. Now, at the time when they checked it against Daryl, it didn't rule him out. But by 2003, DNA technology had improved. They tested it again because this is all blowing up. They really want to put him away. And they find that it's not Daryl's DNA. This was after they had basically come forward, told the families, told the public that the killer had been found.

• 39:38Garrett Moreland?

  This is confusing.

• 39:38Payton Moreland?

  So he could have come out and been like, you guys, never mind. We definitely thought it was him, but it was a mistake. He chose not to do it. Neither he nor the FBI appeared to believe that this DNA made him innocent. They remained sure that Daryl had done it. So they kept looking into him to the exclusion of almost all other people. And there was another man that came up on the radar in this investigation that they didn't even really look into. His name was Richard Mark Yvonneitz. He was a serial killer who was active in the Virginia area. Now, remember, this is all being opened up and discovered later. This is the same time Julie and Lolly were murdered.

• 40:21Payton Moreland?

  In 1996, Yvonneitz abducted and killed at least three young women in Virginia. He fit the profile. He had the means. He was operating right under investigators' noses. So why hadn't they tested his DNA? One reason was maybe that he was dead at this point. He had killed himself in 2002 rather than face his arrest. And at the time investigators still thought they had their man. So they wouldn't have a reason to test anyone else. So Catherine, who was like, this investigation was completely botched, decides to write a book about it. It's called trailed one woman's quest to solve the Shenandoah murders. Her findings aren't conclusive, but they make a compelling case that investigators

• 41:06Payton Moreland?

  did sloppy work and had missed something. And just maybe her pressure would help get things moving again. So in 2021, the FBI assigned a new team to the case. This time they were more thorough than ever. Special agents, intelligence and analysts, forensic experts, everyone combed through the case files. They reviewed every piece of physical evidence. New DNA samples were sent to a private lab. And this time they get a hit. Not for Daryl, not for Richard, the serial killer operating in the area around the time, but for a man named Walter Leo Jackson.

• 41:47Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, I don't understand how many killers are in this place. This is getting, this is getting ridiculous.

• 41:52Payton Moreland?

  So Walter was a house painter from Ohio. He was a convicted serial rapist. He died in prison in 2018, but his DNA was a match to the DNA found at the crime scene. So on June 20th, 2024, 28 years after the murders, a press conference was held to announce the real killer had finally been found. And everyone's like, wait, I thought this, this, this crime was already solved. For many, it's a huge relief. Julie's dad, Tom, said it was immaterial that Walter was dead. All that mattered was that they finally knew the truth. They had the right man this time. But Catherine, who had been

• 42:31Payton Moreland?

  reporting on all this, isn't so sure. What exactly was the DNA they tested? Was it semen? Was it a single skin cell? Was it trace evidence? She's like, these details matter. You already got it wrong. The first time, we really need to know. She makes it a point that even when the real killer was named in 2024, the press didn't really say much about Daryl, even though his life had basically, I mean, he served time for that attempted assault, which was horrible, but he was kind of plagued a murderer after his arrest. And then a few days after the real killer was announced, Daryl was hit by a car and killed while riding his bike.

• 43:15Garrett Moreland?

  What the freak?

• 43:16Payton Moreland?

  So finally, like, his name is cleared for good because they

• 43:20Garrett Moreland?

  Gets killed.

• 43:21Payton Moreland?

  And then he gets killed in a extreme display of irony.

• 43:25Garrett Moreland?

  But he did do something bad.

• 43:27Payton Moreland?

  He did do something bad, but he did not murder the women.

• 43:30Garrett Moreland?

  Yes, correct. Okay.

• 43:31Payton Moreland?

  So this just goes to show that violence can happen anywhere. No matter who you are, safety is not guaranteed. But what we do have is each other, our lives, the ability to live our truth. And that's exactly what Julie and Lolly did. They went into the wild in search of freedom and they found it. They lived their lives out in the open, exactly where they were meant to be. And that is the extremely twisted trail of the case of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans.

• 44:02Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know, just, there's a lot.

• 44:05Payton Moreland?

  It's just so crazy to me.

• 44:07Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know how you can get it wrong like three different times. That's

• 44:10Payton Moreland?

  Well, and then also, you know, not saying that he was innocent, obviously, but there's a serial killer operating in the area and then it just happens to be a random painter who's a serial rapist.

• 44:23Garrett Moreland?

  That's, I don't understand that.

• 44:25Payton Moreland?

  In 2024.

• 44:27Garrett Moreland?

  Which is like, how many coincidences can we have, you know?

• 44:29Payton Moreland?

  Well, and then also, his name finally gets cleared and then a couple of days later, he dies.

• 44:34Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Payton Moreland?

  It's just so random and weird, but as are these cases.

• 44:38Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Payton Moreland?

  All right, you guys, that was our bonus episode and we will see you with a regular one. I love it.

• 44:44Garrett Moreland?

  And I hate it.

• 44:45Payton Moreland?

  Goodbye.

• 44:49Speaker 01

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