Editorial: Speaking for the silenced

In Bland County, on Aug. 14, 2015, a pair of subcontractors with AEP discovered human remains in a creek bed near a water tank in Bastian. Among the belongings found, a plaid long-sleeve shirt and a white-handled pocket knife bearing the name “Old Timer.” Investigators concluded the damage to the top of the skull indicated some sort of blunt force trauma. Police have been unable to identify who the man was.

Barbara Jean Hagy’s body was found in a sand quarry in the Pugh Mountain area of Smyth County on April 16, 1989. Sand was packed over her head and neck. In this instance, though her slaying officially is still unsolved, the man identified as the main suspect, Michael McGay Reeves of Marion, is a death row inmate in North Carolina, convicted in 1992 of the murder of 26-year-old Susan Toler in Craven County. He was also the prime suspect in the 1989 sexual assault and killing of Betty Shumate in Marion, though the case was never tried. In another Virginia case, Reeves was convicted of the abduction, rape and attempted murder of a U.S. Forest Service employee and given two life sentences plus 110 years.

On May 19, 1992, the nude body of 40-year-old Danny Kelly Roberts was discovered in Tazewell County. Though the medical examiner’s office ruled that Roberts had drowned, his remains were not found near any body of water, leading investigators to rule his death a homicide. His killing remains unsolved.

Rodney Lynn Kiser was last seen the night of April 29, 1990. The former Dickenson County sheriff’s deputy, known to carry a .357 Magnum, was 33 when he disappeared. His pickup truck was found a half-mile from the mobile home where he lived along Hazel Mountain Road — the keys to his truck were in the ignition, and his checkbook and the keys to a convenience store he managed were also present. His house had an addition built onto the back, inside which his family found bloodstains, though it was never clearly established whether the blood was Kiser’s. An old newspaper clipping documents community rumors as to where he might have gone, all of them adamantly refuted by his relatives.

Those cases and even more have new light shining on them courtesy of the recently launched Virginia Cold Case Database. As elaborated on by Roanoke Times reporters Emma Coleman and Mike Gangloff (“Cold cases get new spark” and “Solved case included, unsolved case missing,” July 24) there are quirks to this database that might seem to defy conventional sleuthing. Some of the most widely known unsolved cases, such as the 2009 shooting deaths of Virginia Tech sophomores Heidi Childs and David Metzler, aren’t on the website, while some cases considered solved are included, such as the 1980 murder of Radford University freshman Gina Hall, or the Hagy killing listed above.

This has to do with how law enforcement defines a cold case. Though Stephen Matteson Epperly was convicted of murdering Hall, her body has never been found.

The cold case site offers another avenue for tips to one of the most troubling unsolved Southwest Virginia slayings in recent memory: an entire Henry County family, Michael Wayne Short, his wife Mary Hall Short, and their 9-year-old daughter Jennifer, killed in cold blood in August 2002.

The launch of the database in June brought to fruition a 2020 bill sponsored by Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, that ultimately passed the General Assembly houses unanimously.

“I am imploring your readers wherever they are, give it a look. Please, give it a look, even if it’s just one time. Just look over the cases and see if there’s something that you remember there,” Roem told The Roanoke Times. “If we solve even one of these cases because of the cold case database, then the whole thing is worth its while.”

The website is a pilot project maintained by the Virginia State Police, and it’s pretty bare-bones as websites go, with the information on the individual cases limited to short, gruff summaries. A more user-friendly interface might be more effective at attracting enterprising crime-solvers — but perhaps the lack of bells and whistles will make it easy to maintain, as the fanciest interactive features on the Internet do little good if the site is out of date, especially with a project like this one, with huge potential for public good.

The Virginia State Police intend to add more cases, working with local jurisdictions. Roem emphasized that the site exists in part to encourage collaboration between law enforcement agencies, because the town, city and county police will need to interact with state police to get their own unsolved cases posted.

When Emma Coleman interviewed Virginia State Police Special Agent Douglas Hubert, she found him exuberant from having received a new tip in a 19-year-old homicide case. A person had come forward with information about the case of Richard Anthony “Dickie” Palmer, 52, of Floyd County, found dead in his truck at 12th Street and Norfolk Avenue in Southwest Roanoke on April 22, 2003. The informant “knew somebody who’s connected to it and is a potential suspect in the case,” Hubert said.

We wish this project could have come into being sooner, but we’re glad it exists. May it bring many more tips like the one Hubert found so helpful.

We’ll repeat Roem’s request: please give it a look. You can find the site at https://coldcase.vsp.virginia.gov/.