RICHMOND, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The FBI Richmond Office has positively identified the 1996 murderer of 24-year old Minnesota native Julie Williams and 26-year old Lollie Winans of Maine in Shenandoah National Park. Stanley Meador — the FBI Richmond Field Office Special Agent in Charge — says it’s a Cleveland, Ohio area convicted serial rapist, Walter Leo Jackson, Sr. who died in prison in 2018 serving time for 3 Cleveland area kidnappings and rapes. Jackson was in prison for a conviction of a 2011 rape… then subsequent convictions for the two earlier rapes that put him in the system from which new DNA testing of items found in the SNP.

Meador said when he arrived at his Richmond office position in 2021, he was briefed on this murder and he formed a new investigative team. U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia Chris Kavanaugh said through the combination of DNA evidence, which connected Jackson with a higher degree of certainty than usual, and the nature of the crimes for which he was doing time would have sufficed for indictments of two murder and two sexual assault counts.

Kavanaugh also confirmed though Winans and Williams were part of an LGBTQ-plus community, there is no evidence they were victims of a hate crime. He also confirms charges against another man several years ago in the SNP murders that were later dismissed was the proper action, even though there was much pressure on prosecutors for a trial and conviction.

Click here for the entire FBI release.