Colonial Parkway murders

The Colonial Parkway murders were the serial murders of at least ten people in the U.S. state of Virginia between 1986 and 1989. The killings were associated with the Colonial Parkway, a 22-mile-long thoroughfare that cuts through the Colonial National Historical Park and connects Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown. Long stretches of the road are devoid of any streetlights and are extremely isolated, making it a popular lovers' lane location frequented by young adults.

In each incident, a young couple sitting in a vehicle was targeted, with both partners killed. Three pairs of victims were recovered, and another couple remains missing and presumed dead. Several additional homicides have also been tentatively linked to the four confirmed cases. The causes of death included strangulation, gunshot and stabbing. The killer or killers drove victims’ vehicles away from the murder sites. The linking of the four crimes is circumstantial.

In January 2024, authorities announced that at least two of the murders had been conclusively linked to an official suspect, Alan Wilmer Sr., a local fisherman who died in 2017. He was also linked through DNA evidence to the previously unrelated murder of Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell. Wilmer has been described as "suspect number one" in two of the canonical murders but was freed after passing an FBI polygraph test.

Despite his status as a suspected serial killer, Wilmer's DNA was not entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the US's national DNA database.