FBI solves 1996 Shenandoah Park murders: Serial rapist killed female campers

Investigators say the 28-year search for the killer of two campers in Virginia is over after the murders were pinned on a now-deceased serial rapist.

Julianne Williams, 24, and Laira Winans, 26, went camping in Shenandoah National Park in May 1996. They never returned home as planned and their families called the National Park Service.

On June 1, 1996, their bodies were found bound and gagged at their campsite, but no suspect could be clearly identified.

On Thursday, the FBI announced that a renewed investigation had led it to Walter Leo Jackson Sr., a convicted serial rapist from Ohio.

“After 28 years, we can now say who committed the brutal murders of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams in Shenandoah National Park,” U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh said Thursday.

“I would like to once again express my condolences to the Winans and Williams families and hope that today’s announcement provides some comfort.”

Winans had grown up in Grosse Point, Michigan, was an experienced hiker and was involved in environmental issues, while Williams was from St. Cloud, Minnesota, and had similar interests to Winans.

The couple met through an organization that offered outdoor adventure and educational programs for women. They set out together for the national park on May 19, 1996, and were last seen five days later.

How Walter Jackson was identified as the murderer

The renewed search for the female killer began in 2021, when a new FBI investigative team in Richmond was assigned to the case.

Hundreds of tips and interviews dating back to 1996 were re-examined, with crime scene evidence being re-examined primarily at a private lab. That lab then extracted DNA from several pieces of evidence, the FBI said, and found a match: Jackson.

“Although we had that DNA match, we took additional steps and directly compared evidence from the Lollie and Julie murders to a cheek swab that contained Jackson’s DNA,” said Stanley M. Meador, special agent in charge of the FBI in Richmond.

“These results confirmed that we had the right man and could finally tell the victims’ families that we know who is responsible for this heinous crime.”

Meador said the match was made with a rare certainty — 1 in 2.6 trillion — and that allowed them to trace the couple’s deaths back to him.

They also found evidence that the victims were sexually abused.

Who was Walter Jackson?

Jackson died in prison in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in March 2018 after amassing an extensive criminal history, including kidnapping, rape and assault.

Officials believe Jackson was an avid hiker and often visited the national park where the young women were killed.

Kavanaugh added that if Jackson were alive today, he would have authorized a federal indictment against him on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of sexual assault.

Days after killing Williams and Winans in June 1996, Jackson kidnapped and raped a woman while holding a knife to her throat, the attorney said. He did it again in July 1996, to a different woman, and he remained at large for that crime.

Fifteen years later, Jackson kidnapped and raped another woman. This time he was arrested and convicted for the attack and was also linked to the incidents in June and July 1996.

Although the suspect died in 2018, investigators are now trying to determine whether he is responsible for other unsolved cases.

“We are not giving up,” Kavanaugh added.

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