Federal Hate Crime Indictment Handed Down For 1996 Shenandoah Murders
Alleged killer could face death penalty for slaying of couple on route to Huntington.

A flyer distributed at the time of the killings.

        U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in the indictment of Darrell David Rice for the 1996 slaying of two female hikers in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. The indictment marks the first time ever that the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act was invoked to charge someone with a hate crime based on sexual orientation or gender. Ashcroft said that Julianne Williams, 24, of Burlington, Vermont, and Lollie Winans, 26, of Unity, Maine, were specifically selected as victims because they were women and lesbians. Their bodies were found June 1, 1996 at a secluded campsite with their wrists bound and throats slashed.
      Rice was indicted by a grand jury in Charlottesville, Va., charged with four counts of capital murder, two as a result of the hate crime designation. If convicted on any of the four charges in the indictment, Rice could be subject to the death penalty.
      Prosecutors quoted Rice as saying he “hates gays” and that the victims “deserved to die because they were lesbian whores.” Rice is already in prison after pleading guilty to a 1997 attempted abduction of a female bicyclist in the same park. No physical evidence specifically linking Rice to the murders was discussed at the press conference.
      Because the murders occurred on federal land, the 1994 Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, which applies only to federal crimes, could be applied. The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, currently pending in Congress, would make violent hate crimes federal offenses. Currently only 27 states and the District of Columbia have hate crimes laws that include sexual orientation.
      “After more than five years, we’re relieved that progress has been made in the case. However it serves as a sad reminder about the pervasiveness of hate violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people,” said Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
      FBI Special Agent Jane L. Collins and National Park Service Special Agent Timothy W. Alley investigated the case. Criminal Chief Thomas J. Bondurant, Jr., and Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony P. Giorno are scheduled to prosecute.
      Rice’s father and sister insist that the Darrell David Rice they know could not have committed these murders. He was doing well, they said, and showed no sign of misogyny or anti-female beliefs or behaviors. “He’s never expressed any kind of hatred against gays or women in his life,” his older sister, Dawn Metcalf, was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.
      Family members and friends characterized Rice as a “hippy-ish Grateful Dead fan” who was “fiercely loyal to his friends.” Rice had problems with drugs and depression, but was at a high point in his life at the time of the murders, they said.
      A year after the murders, Rice was fired from his job at a computer firm for punching a hole in a men’s room door. According to the Post’s report, he told investigators that his coworkers were watching his house and that he had been dealing marijuana. A week after being fired he was arrested in the attempted abduction of a female cyclist.
      Winans and Williams, who met in 1995 in Minneapolis, had become romantically involved and planned to share a home in Huntington, Vermont, soon after their Shenandoah camping trip.
      Both women were experienced in hiking and camping in wilderness areas. According to a report in the Washington Blade a year after the murders, Park Service officials said the two had registered and obtained permits for camping in several locations in the 105-mile long park, which stretches like a ribbon in a north-south direction from Front Royal to Waynesboro, which is located about 25 miles west of Charlottesville.
      They were last seen alive May 24 by a Park Service employee who drove them to the Skyland Lodge area, where the women said they planed to set up camp. Family members said Williams and Winans were scheduled to leave the park three days later, on May 27.
      A Park Service spokeswoman noted that the murders most likely took place on or just before Memorial Day weekend, a time when the park is crowded with visitors. She said hundreds of people, including visitors on day trips, employees, and campers were in the section of the park where Winans’ and Williams’ bodies were found.
      At the time of the murders, those who set up campsites in areas of the park away from facilities such as lodges and picnic areas were asked to obtain a “back country” permit, which records their names, addresses, and itineraries inside the park. The registration system is voluntary.
      In addition, park officials do not record the names or license numbers of those entering the park by car along the Skyline Drive, a winding highway that runs through the middle of the park, from end to end. There are dozens of places where people can walk into the park along its boundaries.
       According to a website that compiled articles and information on the murders, their murder was far from being an “isolated incident.” Reports by the Associated Press and the Washington Blade indicated there have been at least four other double-slayings on park land in Southern Virginia since 1986. One of those four involved another female couple who, like Winans and Williams, were found with their throats cut and wrists bound.
      In October 1986, the bodies of two athletic women, also in their 20’s, were found with their throats slit on federal property known as the Colonial Parkway near Williamsburg, Virginia. There were no signs that the women had struggled against their killer(s) and no sign of drug or alcohol use. Their bodies were fully clothed and there were no signs of sexual assault.
      The three other “isolated” double-slayings each involved a man and a woman, who were found murdered in somewhat similar circumstances in the eastern Virginia area in 1987, 1988, and 1989.
      The Human Rights Campaign said that the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for 2000 – the latest year for which statistics are available – showed that overall serious crime decreased slightly nationally, and the Crime Index at its lowest level since 1978, while at the same time, reported hate crimes have continued to rise and increased 2.3 percent from 1999 to 2000.
      Reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation have more than tripled since the FBI began collecting statistics in 1991, and comprise 16.1 percent of all hate crimes for 2000 at 1,299. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation continue to make up the third highest category after race and religion, which make up 53.8 and 18.3 percent, respectively, of the total, 8,063. For 2000, the greatest percentage of hate crimes took place in a residence or home or on a highway / road / street / alley, according to the FBI.
      FBI statistics give only a glimpse of the problem. It is widely recognized that hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation often go unreported due to fear and stigmatization. Additionally, federal reporting of hate crimes to the FBI by state and local jurisdictions is voluntary, resulting in no participation by many jurisdictions each year.