The Amelia County family of a woman killed in 1989 will meet with an investigator this week in the decades-old investigation of a series of slayings known as "The Parkway Murders."
The remains of Annamaria Phelps, 18, and her boyfriend's brother, Daniel Lauer, 21, both of Amelia, were found in woods near an Interstate 64 rest stop in New Kent County.
An agent with the Virginia State Police is set to brief Phelps' family Wednesday, said Rosanna Phelps Sadivy, a sister. "Certainly I'm happy about it," but while "I appreciate . . . everything being done now, I wish it had been done earlier," she said.
It remains to be seen if the renewed effort -- prompted in large part by victims' families and the discovery last year that 80 graphic crime-scene photos were leaked to the public domain -- helps solve or otherwise sheds light on the slayings.
Phelps was one of eight people believed slain by the same killer or killers from 1986 to 1989. Beyond the similarity of the crimes -- young couples in "parking" situations in secluded areas -- authorities say no hard evidence thus far links them.
Four slayings are being handled by the FBI: two people killed -- and two who disappeared and are presumed dead -- on federal property along the Colonial Parkway.
Four others are being investigated by Virginia authorities: the Phelps and Lauer slayings and those of David Knobling, 20, and Robin Edwards, 14, both of Newport News, whose bodies washed ashore on the James River at the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge.
Agents met this month with members of the families in the FBI's four cases, and state and local investigators recently have met with the families of the Ragged Island victims.
Wednesday's meeting will be the first with the Phelps family. The Lauer family could not be reached for comment.
Phelps' mother, Jewel Phelps of Amelia, said she has mixed feelings about the meeting. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going to become of it. I just don't know. Nobody's telling me nothing."
"It's been too long, too long, and I hope we can get the results and the treatment that the FBI is giving the other cases," she said.
Last month, the FBI announced that, among other things, it was sending evidence from its two Parkway cases for advanced DNA testing not available earlier.
Bill Thomas of Los Angeles, the older brother of Cathleen M. Thomas, one of the first victims, said 22 family members of the four victims from the FBI cases met with agents Jan. 8 in Newport News.
Thomas said the FBI told them 130 pieces of evidence in the four slayings were to be sent to Quantico for testing. But, he said, "one disappointing bit of news is that all this testing, which we're very excited about, is going to take six to nine months to get the results."
Phelps and Sadivy hope there will be new DNA testing in the cases being handled by the Virginia State Police.
But Corrine Geller, spokeswoman for the state police, said last week that "at this time we have not resubmitted any evidence [for DNA testing]. I can't get into why because it's an ongoing investigation." But, she added, "it has nothing to do with the cost."
She stressed that the cases have remained open and that tips are investigated when received. "We are working very closely with the FBI. Each case has to be vetted on its own merits," she said.
The old cases gained widespread attention last year when it was learned that grisly crime-scene photos -- which show bullet and stab wounds, clothing, vehicle interiors and other aspects of the slayings -- had left FBI control.
The FBI said last month that a nonagent FBI employee took the photographs with him without approval when he retired and that they were being used by a company in Hampton Roads for "law-enforcement-type training."
Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com.
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