Suspect Identified 28 Years After Brutal Killings Of Women In Shenandoah National Park

A convicted serial rapist was responsible for the unsolved murders of two women hikers 28 years ago in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, authorities announced Thursday.

The bodies of Laura “Lollie” Winans , 26, and her girlfriend, Julianne “Julie” Williams , 24, were found at their remote campsite on June 1, 1996, by park service rangers after they were reported missing. The mysterious deaths of the women, who were experienced hikers, had long raised fears for others seeking to tackle the Appalachian Trail as well as questions about whether they were targeted because they were gay.

On Thursday, federal investigators revealed the name of a suspect — and that he had already died while in custody for other crimes. DNA taken from Walter “Leo” Jackson Sr. , who died in an Ohio prison in 2018 at age 70 while serving a sentence for kidnapping and rape, was a match for “several items of evidence” collected from the crime scene, the FBI’s Richmond Field Office said Thursday in a press release .

Authorities said new forensic testing also revealed evidence that the women had been sexually assaulted.

A new team was assigned to reinvestigate the case in 2021 and submitted the evidence to a private DNA lab for retesting. The DNA obtained from the lab was then submitted to the national law enforcement DNA database known as CODIS, which matched a cheek swab taken from Jackson.

The bodies of Winans and Williams, who were last seen May 24, were found inside their sleeping bags. They had been gagged, with their hands bound and their throats slashed.

The FBI declined to answer questions from HuffPost about when Jackson’s DNA was collected, what specific items from the crime scene were tested, and whether they had been previously