Waiting on a print

By Tony Gonzalez

Published: November 15, 2008

The waiting began when the last lead ran dry.

Despite an identifying fingerprint, in blood, lifted by Waynesboro police from the scene of an August 2000 strangulation murder, the case went cold when routine comparisons of the print to others in a nationwide database covering eight years failed to produce a match.

“My feeling is, some day, we’re gonna get a call from the lab with a print,” said Sgt. Michael Wilhelm, an investigator with the Waynesboro Police Department for 13 years. “I just hope it comes before I retire.”

Investigators say unsolved crimes never get put away for good, but they become “inactive” without new leads, at which point police must wait for tipsters or new technology. Or luck.

“We don’t ever quit taking information,” Wilhelm said. “That’s just it.”

Wilhelm’s murder case did warm this year with a new suspect, but like other area cold cases, time is not on the side of investigators. And for families of victims, closure rarely comes fast enough, if at all.

Joyce Stamper, of Anawalt, W.Va., this month offered a $5,000 reward for information that helps find her daughter, Margaret Gail-Stamper White, 36, who has been missing since May.

Stamper deals daily with the “nightmare.”

“Sometimes I have to walk out [of work] to get myself together,” said Stamper, who reported her daughter’s disappearance to authorities. “I thought it might get better over time but it hasn’t.”

The White case remains a top priority — and a “thorn in the side” — of Sgt. A.C. Powers of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office. White was last seen by her live-in boyfriend, Charles Melvin Spencer, who was a suspect five years ago in the murder of his former wife, Jo Ann Spencer, according to a search warrant.

Powers is working both cases, which he said might be connected.

“They will never be closed as long as I’m here,” said Powers, a 15-year investigations veteran. “These are two cases we are determined we’re going to get solved.”

‘We’re passionate’

Stamper keeps up with investigators, whom she believes are doing everything they can.

Powers, for example, has made numerous trips to work the case near Stamper’s home in West Virginia.

Jo Ann Spencer’s sister, Betty Spencer, 62, of Crimora, said she wanted more from investigators working that murder case.

“I’d like to see it solved before I’m gone,” Betty Spencer said. Her contact with investigators steadily has diminished. Now she rarely speaks to them.

“We was best friends, not only sisters,” Betty Spencer said.

Powers said he sees how such cases impact families and frustrate investigators.

“You think you’re almost there and you’ve got suspects, but there’s not enough evidence to bring charges ... you want it so bad and you need to keep plucking at it,” he said. “We’re passionate about this. We see the hurt. It tears people apart. They want closure to it.”

Although Staunton police Sgt. Mark Diehl said he tries to remain impartial, Wilhelm and fellow Waynesboro investigator Sgt. Becky Moran said some cases become personal.

“I know there are still people in Waynesboro that have information,” Moran said of the 1993 shooting death of Reginald Sease in a 10th Street apartment. “Hopefully, they won’t take it to the grave. ... Somebody knows about that case ... people had to see something.”

Police pursued two men in the case, releasing a sketch of one. Years later, Moran resubmitted evidence to the state forensic laboratory in Roanoke to try for a “touch DNA” match, which attempts to use traces from skin contact instead of traditional DNA sources: blood and semen. The technique, an admitted “long shot,” didn’t find a match, so the case remains relegated to a blue plastic tub in her office.

“It’s solvable,” Moran said, “if someone will talk.”

She looked at the tub again: “It’s solvable.”

‘Logical conclusion’

Investigators say “touch DNA” is among the most promising technologies in crime solving, just behind the single most important trend: connectivity between agencies, in the commonwealth and across the country.

But whether through technology or pounding the pavement to interview witnesses, cases do get solved after inactive years.

Diehl said a tip on a sex assault from 1989 made the case active again and sent him to the department’s off-site file storage facility.

“I literally spent several days digging up there,” he said.

The murder of Tyrone Davis in Waynesboro went through nearly 25 suspects and five cold years before an arrest and prosecution.

And Moran has landed two fingerprint matches and multiple DNA matches on rape cases in 18 years; Wilhelm has solved car theft cases with “touch DNA,” and has taken shoes from inmates to make footprint matches.

“You do everything you can,” Wilhelm said. “You get anything in, even if it’s far-fetched ... you bring it to its logical conclusion.”

Jailhouse confessions and the guilty consciences of witnesses also help.

“Suspects get cocky,” Diehl said. “It’s amazing what people will divulge over a couple drinks.”

The Staunton investigator said public awareness is also important.

A few calls come into the Central Shenandoah Crime Stoppers line each month, and Harrisonburg police reported numerous anonymous tips in the investigation of the Nov. 9 gang-related shooting of former R.E. Lee High School football star Reginald “Shay” Nicholson, 19, of Staunton.

‘Stymied’

Staunton police have not left a murder unsolved since 1992 and Diehl said he still receives calls about an unsolved 1968 double murder.

Wilhelm is still waiting on a string of 12 arsons of unoccupied buildings between May 2001 and October 2002 in the area of Commerce and North Delphine avenues.

And Waynesboro police refuse to quit on the 1991 beating death of Arvetta June Davis, 53. The case was reopened in 2003.

“We have developed a subject, but are unable to go forward with charges or the investigation,” Sgt. Kelly Walker said. “We’re stymied.”

But the case won’t go away.

“It’s inactive,” Walker said. “That could change in a moment.”

Crime Stoppers

Anyone with information regarding area “cold cases” should contact Central Shenandoah Crime Stoppers at 1-800-322-2017.