Possible Victim: Brian Pettinger, Murder Victim

[mustangman]

Jan 27, 2019 14:31:25 GMT cleopatra said:

I am now leaning more toward that the CPK killed Brian Pettinger.

Brian's murder does have differences, yet it also has some similarities.  The murder did not consist of a couple out together in the male victim's car, and the male was not 19, 20 or 21, he was 25.  However, 

- he was a tall, white, handsome, athletic male, 

- he came from a tight-knit family with protective parents and siblings whom he was close,

- he was an outdoorsman; he loved hunting and fishing,

- he lived next to a river,

- he was driving a vehicle that he owned,

- he went missing on a Friday night,

- he was last seen alive at 11:30 P.M,

- he was abducted leaving a party, most likely while walking to his vehicle or when he reached it in a parking lot about 70 yards away from the party,

- the parking lot and party were right next to the Newmarket River, which leads to the James River,

- and also just a few blocks away from the James River, at Huntington Beach, where the bridge entrance is that leads to Ragged Island where David Knobling's truck was found

- and to the shore where David Knobling and Robin Edward were found,

- when his body was recovered, the coroner reported that his neck, wrists and feet had been bound with cord or rope.

Most importantly, Brian's murder followed the same strange and mysterious scenario as all the other murders.  The killer could have just killed Brian and left. Yet, the killer abducted Brian and brought him to another location.  The killer then bound him, similar to the way Cathy and Becky were bound.  He removed Brian's pants and shoes.  He tied Brian.  There was a gash in the back of Brian's head. The coroner didn't know if he got the bash before or after entering the water.  IMO, Brian tried to escape and was either struck in the head by the killer, then he either fell or was pushed into the water.  Or, he fell into the water while trying to escape and his head hit something falling into the water. Maybe they were at a pier, or on a boat.  My speculation is based on the fact that Brian was not shot or stabbed, which was what the killer did to all his victims.  Brian could have gotten loose on his own, or maybe while the killer was undressing him, if Brian's feet were bound, the killer would have had to untie his feet in order to remove his pants. 

The killer may have intended to remove all of Brian's clothes, then fold them neatly and leave them in Brian's truck.  I don't know if Brian's truck keys were ever found.  The killer may have gone back to the truck and when he couldn't get in it, got frustrated and broke the door handle.  The door handle was so broken it almost came off the door.  If the killer did return to the truck, he would have done it that night or the next night, because his wife found Brian's truck two days after he went missing.  

I am thinking that Brian knew his killer.  He may have been friends or acquaintances with the killer.  Brian lived and worked right by a river. The killer may have owned a boat and lived in a house with a private dock.  

"Brian was not shot or stabbed, which was what the killer did to all his victims"...  The killer had to have had some way of controlling Brian, maybe the gash on the back of Brians head was from the butt of a handgun, which knocked him unconscience, just before the killer pushed Brian into the water.  I recall his cause of death was determined to be from drowning, so he was at least still alive & breathing when put into the water.  Maybe the killer didnt want to shoot Brian so that LE couldnt match up his shell casings to any other murders?  

Could any of the other CPK victims ever have gone to this dance club?  This might be a spot that the Killer liked to stalk his victims from, he would see a young couple and wait until they went inside to dance and then get the liscence plate info and look up the owners info later and then decide if he wanted to target them?

"The killer may have intended to remove all of Brian's clothes, then fold them neatly and leave them in Brian's truck", "he couldn't get in it, got frustrated and broke the door handle"...   This is a great expalnation for why the door handle was broken.    

[mustangman]

Aug 25, 2020 14:01:07 GMT cleopatra said:

Maybe the killer was going to move Brian's truck to a different location, and leave it parked with the keys and clothes inside it.   

Cleo, this is a very insightful theory.  this would explain why Brian's remaining clothes were never found and why the door handle on Brian's truck was broke.  The killer either lost the truck keys, or thought the doors had been left unlocked and didnt keep Brian's keys, he broke the door handle trying to gain entry, but does this give us a clue that Brian was abducted before reaching his truck after leaving the club?  

[cleopatra]

Aug 25, 2020 15:58:23 GMT mustangman said:

Aug 25, 2020 14:01:07 GMT cleopatra said:

Maybe the killer was going to move Brian's truck to a different location, and leave it parked with the keys and clothes inside it.   

Cleo, this is a very insightful theory.  this would explain why Brian's remaining clothes were never found and why the door handle on Brian's truck was broke.  The killer either lost the truck keys, or thought the doors had been left unlocked and didnt keep Brian's keys, he broke the door handle trying to gain entry, but does this give us a clue that Brian was abducted before reaching his truck after leaving the club?  

Or maybe right when Brian got to his truck.  The CPK could have parked a van next to Brian's truck, which he used to take Brian away in?

The killer could have done the same thing with Cathy and Becky,  Keith and Sandra, and David and Robin.  

Parked a van next to - 

Cathy's car at the place she got food with meat similar to hamburger meat.

David's truck at wherever he got the food with beans.

Keith's car in the parking lot where the party was.

--------

The van could gave had orange carpeting.  It could have been the one spotted by Chris Call, Keith's brother. 

[cleopatra]

Could there be a connection with Gloucester H.S.?  Maybe a teacher or some other staff employee who worked seasonal for the NPS?  A school security officer?  

If so, it would have been someone who was a regular staff member, not a guest lector or recruiter or outreacher.  Someone whom Keith and Laurie would have seen often enough and interacted with at the campus, that they would remember and trust the person after graduating.

Keith and Sandra would have been respectful and obeyed an authority figure - like a former high school authority person.  Laura would have trusted such a person, as well.   Maybe someone from Gloucester High who switched careers and became a cop?  

[cleopatra]

I suspect the killer did return to Brian's truck in the Leggits parking lot,  in order to drive it to a different location.  Then he was going to leave Brian's clothes in  the truck and the key in the ignition.

When he couldn't get in the truck, he got so angry he broke the door handle.

Had the killer succeeded in moving and staging the truck, this crime would have left all to wonder:  where did the killer meet up with Brian, and was Brian pulled over?

Instead,  its obvious Brian was accosted somewhere between the dance studio and his truck or at his truck in the parking lot.

Makes me wonder if Keith and Sandra were accoated in the University Apartments parking lot after they left the party.

Maybe the other victims were also accosted in parking lots.

[cleopatra]

The killer could have abducted Brian at his truck by hitting Brian hard with a solid heavy object on the back of his head. 

[tosh]

Recent article from WAVY TV. 
Investigation: Could these two cold cases be part of the Colonial Parkway murders?

Some new information in there that I had not heard before “We do know the lone suspect who was last seen with Pettinger leaving the dance studio ended up killing himself.”

[tosh]

Sept 7, 2020 14:37:33 GMT cleopatra said:

I suspect the killer did return to Brian's truck in the Leggits parking lot,  in order to drive it to a different location.  Then he was going to leave Brian's clothes in  the truck and the key in the ignition.

When he couldn't get in the truck, he got so angry he broke the door handle.

Had the killer succeeded in moving and staging the truck, this crime would have left all to wonder:  where did the killer meet up with Brian, and was Brian pulled over?

Instead,  its obvious Brian was accosted somewhere between the dance studio and his truck or at his truck in the parking lot.

Makes me wonder if Keith and Sandra were accoated in the University Apartments parking lot after they left the party.

Maybe the other victims were also accosted in parking lots.

Maybe that’s why Keith’s car door was slightly ajar when Richard Call saw it. The killer didn’t want the same thing happening again with Keith’s door that had happened with Brian’s.

[billthom56]

Mar 30, 2021 10:40:36 GMT tosh said:

Recent article from WAVY TV. 
Investigation: Could these two cold cases be part of the Colonial Parkway murders?

Some new information in there that I had not heard before “We do know the lone suspect who was last seen with Pettinger leaving the dance studio ended up killing himself.”

Tosh:

Entirely possible that this suspect killed Brian and killed himself later.

Brian's ex-wife told me recently that he was very sexual, had lots of affairs during their short unhappy marriage.

Thanks.

Bill Thomas

Attachments:

[tosh]

Mar 30, 2021 13:34:38 GMT billthom56 said:

Mar 30, 2021 10:40:36 GMT tosh said:

Recent article from WAVY TV. 
Investigation: Could these two cold cases be part of the Colonial Parkway murders?

Some new information in there that I had not heard before “We do know the lone suspect who was last seen with Pettinger leaving the dance studio ended up killing himself.”

Tosh:

Entirely possible that this suspect killed Brian and killed himself later.

Brian's ex-wife told me recently that he was very sexual, had lots of affairs during their short unhappy marriage.

Thanks.

Bill Thomas

What a tragic situation for everyone involved, his poor wife. Reminds me of what you were talking about in your latest podcast about the devastating consequences of these murders and how they have affected so many lives.

[billthom56]

Thanks.

I spoke at length a few weeks ago with Brian's wife, who has since remarried. Losing Brian was a very sad early part of her life. I found in interesting that she did not appear on camera in the Andy Fox interview on WAVY.

We have not asked her to do the Mind Over Murder podcast with us, but she is on our list of possible interviews. These unsolved murder cases have touched a lot of people.

Thanks.



Bill Thomas

[billthom56]

Investigation: Could these two cold cases be part of the Colonial Parkway murders?

By Andy Fox

WAVY TV 10 News


ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — Were there more Colonial Parkway murders?

Since October 1986, 10 On Your Side has covered what are now known as the “Colonial Parkway murders.”

There were four double homicides. They were couples in cars. They all died at night. And in each case, the vehicles had been staged following the murders or disappearances.

The first case was 35 years ago on October 9, 1986, when Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Ann Dowski were found killed on the Colonial Parkway in Thomas’ car. That sad 35th anniversary is quickly approaching.

10 On Your Side is now opening the Colonial Parkway murders to ask whether there were more homicides than the four cases normally associated with the string of murders. It’s also been debated whether those four homicides are actually associated with each other.
Oxygen’s ‘Lovers’ Lane Murders’ tells the story of the Colonial Parkway murders — and features WAVY’s Andy Fox

Here’s what we know: Over seven-month period of time from 1987 to 1988, four people were killed and thrown into the James River. Two of them are considered part of the Colonial Parkway murders, but not the other two.

Consider that the timeline and close association of all four bodies makes the consideration intriguing.

Those two cases — not currently associated with the Colonial Parkway murders — involve the brutal deaths of Newport News resident 25-year-old Brian Pettinger and 18-year-old Laurie Ann Powell from Gloucester County in 1988.

The first homicide in question is that of Brian Pettinger, who disappeared Dec. 4, 1987 leaving a Hampton dance studio. Two months later on Feb. 3, 1988 Pettinger’s body was found floating in the James River near the mouth of the Chuckatuck Creek that flows into the James River.

“33 years later I still have no idea what happened,” said Brian’s former wife. She did not want to be identified, but, with her permission, we will refer to her as “Ms. Pettinger.”

“We believe this case has been ignored for 33 years, it will never be solved, and will only be looked at when it is pulled out of the drawer,” she said.

The second homicide in question is that of Powell, who was found dead just a few months after Pettinger went missing.

“You know, it’s funny you say the pain you had that day, and how you feel today, but the truth is the pain never changes. It’s always the same pain,” said Powell’s mother, Joann Compton, who has lived with the death of her daughter for 33 years — a longer period of time than Powell was alive.

As WAVY-TV 10 reported in 1988, Compton’s daughter had argued with her boyfriend March 9, 1988. She demanded he drop her off at a Gloucester County Little Sue store, she started walking home along Route 614, and was never seen alive again.

WAVY interviewed her boyfriend, who at the time was a suspect. He had failed a lie detector test, but he was never charged. When we interviewed him, he was in the Gloucester County Jail for an unrelated crime. We asked him whether he had killed his girlfriend.

“No… I failed the lie detector test because every time I hear her name my blood boils,” he told WAVY.

We are not reporting his name because he was never charged.

The timeline is stunning when the bodies were pulled out of the James River.
10 On Your Side Investigates: “The Patients v. Perwaiz”

In September 1987, David Knobling and Robin Edwards — who are considered part of the Colonial Parkway murders, turn up dead in the James River. Both were shot in the back of the head and their bodies thrown into the river.

Three months later on Dec. 4, Pettinger disappeared, and on February 4, 1988 he was discovered by watermen floating which his wrists and ankles tied, and a rope around his neck. The investigator at the time described him as likely hog-tied. The autopsy shows Pettinger had blunt force blows to the back of the head. He was thrown in the river alive, and then he drowned.

Due to the gruesome nature of the killing, speculation suggested it may be mob-related, but there was never any evidence that was true.

We do know the lone suspect who was last seen with Pettinger leaving the dance studio ended up killing himself.

Two months later in April, Powell’s body was found near Craney Island stabbed five times in the back.

Then one week later on April 10, 1988, Keith Call and Casandra Hailey disappear with Call’s car left behind on the Colonial Parkway never to be seen again. They both attended what is now Christopher Newport University. They were on their first date, and it is believed somewhere between the university and the turnoff for Hailey’s home in York County, they were stopped possibly by someone posing as law enforcement.

We don’t know what happened, but Call’s car was later left on the Colonial Parkway.

In seven months, six murders. The four left in the James River very close in proximity to each other.

We asked Compton if she is disappointed Powell and Pettinger’s cases were not included in the discussion of the Colonial Parkway murders.

“Well yes… They never got the attention as the parkway murders,” she said.

Pettinger and Powell were never considered part of the Colonial Parkway murders because those cases involved couples and staged cars, but Ms. Pettinger still questions it.

“Come on, look at the timeline… I think the timing of the murder brings in the factor they could be connected, the timeline of all the murders,” she said.

Not only timeline, but Pettinger and Powell worked together at Liberty Security Services in Gloucester County.

Not only that, but the mother of Colonial Parkway murder victim Robin Edwards, whose name is Bonnie, told us she worked there herself. Bonnie had left the job before the tragic loss of her daughter. In a recent phone call, she says she never saw anything that would explain a motive between Liberty and the murders.

“That certainly raised a lot of questions for my family, and we think it is beyond coincidental that they all worked or had connections to Liberty,” Ms. Pettinger added.

The Liberty connection is so striking the FBI interviewed Liberty owner Ron Little, who recounted the questioning back in April 1988 during a WAVY interview.

“After asking a few questions, they asked me face-to-face, did I kill them and I said ‘no.’ They then asked, did I have anything to do with the abduction or the disappearances and I said ‘no,’” he said.

The FBI concluded Little was not a suspect then deported him to New Zealand on immigration charges.

The original Pettinger case investigator, Sgt. Carter Hicks, has since died. He told us the only known suspect died by suicide.

“He [the suspect] denied being at the dance studio or seeing Brian that night,” Hicks said at the time.

However, the suspect later admitted leaving with Brian. He also failed a lie detector test. In June 1988, the suspect died by suicide.

“I feel [the suspect] held most of the answers because if he did not know who did it, we feel he was there with whatever happened did happen,” Hicks told us in 1989.

In his suicide note, the suspect wrote “I didn’t leave any clues, so don’t feel guilty.”

He never explained that line, and Hicks told us they were at a dead end.

After 33 years, that apparently hasn’t changed. The investigation into the death of Pettinger remains at a dead end.

Suffolk police agreed to be interviewed about that case, and they insist the Pettinger case remains open even though new evidence hasn’t been submitted since he was killed 33 years ago.

“If it were me given that period of time. I think sometimes things are not just coincidence,” Suffolk Lt. Gary Myrick told us recently while sitting in front of an evidence box marked “Pettinger.”

We asked Myrick whether the Pettinger and Powell cases could be connected to the Colonial Parkway murders based on this timeline.

“Anything is possible. That is a tight time frame for homicides in a close particular area, so I’m not going to tell you it’s not connected,”

Following our investigation, Myrick agreed to review the Pettinger physical evidence for DNA re-testing in the lab,

“That will likely happen in the next quarter,” Myrick told us.

The Virginia State Police investigated the Powell murder. State police refused to do an on-camera interview or sit down with us and go through the Powell file, but did send us this statement.

“In reference to the [Powell] file, this is a criminal investigation that is still active and so we can not release the files. The last DNA submission for this case was in 2007. In 2016, we received a tip with information on the case. We have nothing further to add at this time. No interview will be granted,” said Sgt. Michelle Anaya, a spokeswoman for Virginia State Police.

As for Compton, she’s still emotional.

“When I die and I see Laurie Ann then and only then will I fully understand… she will then tell me. That’s when I will know,” Compton said.

33 years of not knowing is more than enough time for these still grieving families.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP (1-888-562-5887) or submit a tip online.

[cleopatra]

I strongly suspect the CPK killed Brian and Laurie.

I also suspect Brian escaped his captor, falling into the water in the process. 

[cleopatra]

The article says Laurie started to walk home on 614.  I think that's incorrect.  I'm sure her BF dropped her off on 614 and she walked toward 17. 

[tosh]

Mar 30, 2021 17:36:21 GMT cleopatra said:

The article says Laurie started to walk home on 614.  I think that's incorrect.  I'm sure her BF dropped her off on 614 and she walked toward 17. 

This is the very earliest press report regarding Laurie’s disappearance I could find, Daily Press, 15th March 1988.

Woman, 18, reported missing GLOUCESTER The county Sheriff's Department is seeking information on the whereabouts of Laurie Ann Powell of Route 1301 in Wicomico, reported missing by her parents. The 18-year-old was last seen about midnight Wednesday walking by herself down Route 614 in White Marsh. She was wearing a purple pullover cotton shirt with a white collar, purple and cream-colored pants and a dungaree jacket, said Sgt. Michael Nicely. Powell is 5 feet 2 inches tall, has blond hair and blue eyes and weighs between 110 to 115 pounds.

The next report that mentions Laurie follows what you say Cleo. The Daily Press, 24th March, 1988.
Foul play suspected in case of missing teen GLOUCESTER Foul play is now suspected. in the disappearance of 18-year-old Laurie Ann Powell of Route 1301, Wicomico, who was reported missing about two weeks ago. Investigators now believe she may have been abducted or killed, said Lt. T. G. Bell of the county Sheriff's Department. There is no logical reason Powell would have left and stayed away this long, Bell said, "At this stage of the investigation, we have to believe some- thing may have happened to her." Powell was last seen about midnight March 9 walking on Route 614 toward Route 17 in the White Marsh area, investigators said. Investigators and residents have combed the area, but have found no trace of her. She was wearing a purple pullover cotton shirt with a white collar, purple and cream- colored pants and a dungaree - jacket. She is 5 feet 2 inches tall, has blond hair and blue eyes and weighs 110 to 115 pounds.