Washington Blade September 20, 1996 _________________________________________________________________ FBI deflects questions in hiker slayings Parents mourn daughter's murder at park by Sue Fox Three and a half months after two young women were found murdered near Skyland Lodge in Shenandoah National Park, the parents of one of the victims made their way to the cozy mountain inn, nestled by mist, for a somber anniversary. Last Wednesday, Sept. 11, would have been the 25th birthday of Julianne Williams, whose body was found, throat slashed and wrists bound, in a secluded campsite about a half mile from the lodge on June 1. With her lay the body of her lover, Lollie Winans, 26, who suffered the same fate. Julianne's parents, Tom and Patsy Williams of St. Cloud, Minn., postponed a trip to the Virginia park because of Hurricane Fran, which ripped through the state last week, to mark their daughter's birthday where she died. They came this week instead. "We're here today to honor Julie's birthday," Patsy Williams said at a Skyland Lodge press conference on Wednesday. "We wanted to visit the campsite where Julie died ... and to ask your help in finding her murderer." The men leading the murder investigation -- Bill Falls of the FBI, Clark Gui of the National Park Service, and Greg Stiles, the park's protection services leader -- also faced a press corps that expressed mounting frustration with the lack of information released about the murders. Again, the investigators refused to provide substantive new details about the case. After Falls deflected several reporters' questions about the case, one exasperated reporter asked him point-blank, "Why such secrecy?" "Well, I'm not aware of secrecy," said Falls. "We're certainly revealing anything that would be helpful to the investigation." Falls said investigators couldn't release more because of federal prosecution guidelines. Falls said that investigators have "certainly used all our resources," including trying to profile the killer or killers -- Falls refused to say whether the FBI is considering more than one killer -- using the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) and the behavioral sciences unit in Quantico, Va. He said the FBI was "putting together a profile" but added: "I really can't comment on it." Falls said investigators "have reached out to any and everybody in the park" who were there during the same time as the women, who arrived at the park May 19. He said they have followed "thousands of leads" and interviewed "hundreds of people" in a "nationwide investigation." Asked whether he thought the murderer or murderers could still be in the park, Falls said: "That would be speculation on my part." Asked whether the profile they are constructing indicates the perpetrator will kill again, Falls said "I really couldn't comment. It would just be supposition." Falls declined to comment on whether fingerprints from people other than the victims were recovered from the scene, whether the women were sexually assaulted, were mutilated, or had any defense wounds on their bodies. He said investigators "have not ruled out any motive." Falls also refused to give a specific date of the last time Williams and Winans were seen alive. The FBI previously said that the last confirmed sighting of the women was on May 24, when a park ranger gave the pair a ride to a parking lot across from the trail that leads to the site where their bodies were later found. Two women from the audience approached Falls after the press conference and asked him whether the park ranger was a male or female. He replied that he was not sure whether the ranger was a man or woman. FBI spokesperson John Donahue told the Blade on Thursday that it was a female park employee, not a ranger, but that he did not know her name. The only new detail Falls provided was that investigators have no evidence linking the Shenandoah murders to the 1986 slayings of two women on the Colonial Parkway. Bo McFarland, a spokesperson for the FBI's Norfolk office, confirmed in July that the agency was considering that possibility. This week, Donahue, of the FBI's Richmond office, said that his office continues to share information with agents in Norfolk -- but so far they have turned up "no known connections" to the Colonial Parkway killings or any other similar murders in Virginia. "The whole thing is very frustrating," said Tom Williams after Falls addressed reporters, "and I don't think that frustration will end until the day that Julie and Lollie's murderer or murderers are caught." Williams added that he felt confident investigators would find whoever murdered his daughter and Winans. Reporters grilled Greg Stiles, the park's protection services leader, who first characterized the killings as an "isolated incident" in June. "It was a choice of words that I used when the press initially arrived at the scene, in the sense that these things don't happen too often in national parks," he said. "... Also, there are some specific things, that are specific to the case, that we can't discuss." A reporter then asked about Stiles's assertion in June that when park authorities found the bodies "it took [them] quite a while to determine" that the deaths were homicides rather than suicides or accidental, leading them to wait more than a day to notify the press and public of the double homicide. "I think that gets into specifics of the case that I can't comment on," said Stiles. But the director of the National Park Service told a Senate committee in June that park officials notified the FBI 40 minutes after the bodies were discovered at 8:30 p.m. on June 1. Also, Falls said Wednesday that once the FBI became involved, "it was a homicide investigation from the get-go." Several minutes later reporters returned to this line of questioning. One asked Stiles incredulously, "You weren't sure it was a homicide ... with their wrists bound?" "And their throats slashed?" chimed in another reporter. "That is correct," said Stiles. "That baffles the mind," observed a third reporter. Looking for answers In an interview with the Blade, Tom and Patsy Williams said they had not known their daughter was a Lesbian until June 7, the day of her funeral. "We learned from the news media that the [National Gay and Lesbian] Task Force was going to be sending a letter to [Attorney General] Janet Reno" asking Reno to ensure that investigators considered the possibility of an anti-Gay hate crime, said Patsy Williams. After the funeral, the Williams family sat down that night to talk with some of Julie's friends "that would know" [about Julie's Lesbianism]. Julie's friends "indicated it was something they knew we were unaware of," said Williams's father. "She had been telling others and testing others ... we learned we would probably be the last to learn." "We just can't comprehend that we would have felt any differently about her," Patsy Williams said. "What difference would that have made to us?" The paucity of information released by investigators about the slayings has left many unanswered questions about safety in the Shenandoah National Park. "I think that people are at risk [at the park], yes," said Patsy Williams. The Shenandoah murders have shaken even seasoned hikers, especially women. Several of them came to Wednesday's press conference. "The big news out here is when a dog attacks a pig," said Denise Horton of Washington, Va., who runs a wilderness-oriented health education center and has lived in rural Virginia for a dozen years. She said the murders have "definitely affected the women's community." "There's no question about it," Horton said. "In the weeks following the murders, a number of my friends who are very experienced hikers hiked with a gun in their backpacks. These are women who ordinarily don't think twice about going to camp in the backcountry." Hindering the FBI's efforts to complete a profile of the killer or killers, said spokesperson Donahue, is the absence of witnesses. "There is no profile yet," Donahue said. "There hasn't been enough physical evidence, factual evidence, and witness evidence. There is a threshold that [investigators] haven't reached yet." The current emphasis of the investigation, according to Donahue, is "reaching out" to everyone who might have information about the crime. A $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the women's killer or killers. Authorities are urging anyone with information about the crime to call the FBI tollfree at 1 (888) 856-2467. "Investigators have very strong feelings," Donahue said, "that someone besides the murderer knows something about the crime." Colleen Marzec contributed to this report. _________________________________________________________________