Narrator (2:11)

It was a historic announcement, one of the first times the federal government had used the 1994 hate crime statute to charge a murder based on sexual orientation. The defendant was Darryl David Rice. To federal prosecutors, Rice was the man who fit the pattern, a man who was angry, impulsive and was already serving an 11 year sentence for assaulting cyclist Yvonne Malbasha in the same park within a year of Julie and Lollie's murders. Yvonne's experience was the catalyst for investigators to start looking at Rice in the first place. In an interview with the Times Recorder in 2002, Yvonne recalled how close she came to being killed that day.

Dana (2:55)

He drove at me three times and kept coming back, swearing and laughing. He wanted to break me.

Narrator (3:02)

She remembered the truck swerving across the yellow line, gravel spitting beneath its tires, and the sound of his laughter mocking her as she pedaled for her life. When Rice was caught, he told investigators he wanted to kill women for the fun of it. Those words and that violence would follow him into the Shenandoah case. This is sequestered. Season 3 the Shenandoah DOA Park Murders Episode 4 the Case Unravels by the spring of 2003, the federal government was preparing to bring Darrell David Rice to trial for the murders of Julie Williams and Lolly Winans. By this point, prosecutors had spent years assembling a circumstantial case built solely on Rice's movements, his violent behavior toward women, and his openly hateful statements. They believed the story wrote itself a predator who despised women and gay people and an act of brutality in a national park that once symbolized peace. But before a single juror was ever summoned, the case had already begun to stall. And in the hearings that spring, prosecutors were starting to refine their charges. Originally, Rice was charged on four counts of murder, two of which were enhanced under federal hate crime statutes. That could increase the penalty if prosecutors could prove that the killings were driven by bias against Julie and Lollie's gender or sexual orientation. But when the Justice Department authorized pursuit of the death penalty, those enhancement counts were dropped. A quote from the Martinsville bulletin released on May 6, 2003, read, lawyers agreed.

Dana (5:16)

To drop two of four murder counts against Rice that accused him of slaying Williams and Winans because of their perceived gender or sexual orientation. The counts would have allowed prosecutors to seek enhanced penalties if Rice was convicted. But now that the prosecution is seeking the death penalty against Rice, Bondurant said, they are no longer needed.

Narrator (5:38)

Inside the courtroom, Assistant U.S. attorney Tom Bondurant told the judge he believed Julie had been the object of the attack. Her personal belongings were still missing, her watch, a ring, a small camera she'd carried into the park. Portions of the hearing were close to the public to protect psychiatric records and other sensitive material. The walls of the Charlottesville courthouse seemed to close in thick with secrecy and expectation. And when Judge Norman Moon ruled that certain evidence was too prejudicial to release, reporters push back hard. A quote from Stan Barnhill, an attorney representing the Roanoke Times, read, if you.

Reporter/News Anchor (6:23)

Close these doors, the public will never know whether justice was served.

Narrator (6:30)

It was an early sign that transparency and truth weren't always aligned. Behind the scenes, investigators still believed they had their man, though they retraced Rice's movements through the park, his work routes, the nights he camped near Skyline Drive. And they pointed to the Ivan Malbaja attack as proof of what he was capable of. In court filings, prosecutors described Rice's patterns as motivated by hatred of women. End quote. For them, it was the through line that tied the 1997 assault to the 1996 murders. But not everyone agreed the connection was solid. The defense argued that the government's case relied on behavior and ideology on what Rice might do. But they had no proof that he actually did anything. And as the trial approached, their point would soon find support in something more tangible than words. That's when the DNA came in. It's 2003 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Inside the courthouse, while the case against Daryl David Rice drags forward, something new landed on the judge's desk. Manila folders, including chain of custody logs and sealed envelopes from the FBI lab in Quantico. Inside held the latest forensic report. For years, prosecution leaned on Rice's behavior in their charges against him. But now they had science to give them facts. Using YSTR analysis, a method that isolates male DNA from even the smallest trace, the FBI had retested the hair and fiber from fragments that were collected from the duct tape and the clothing found near the women's tent. The news hit outlets across the country.

Dana (8:38)

Federal prosecutors acknowledged today that recently completed DNA tests do not match defendant Darrell David Rice, but rather an unknown male.

Narrator (8:47)

For seven years, prosecutors told a story they believed in. But now the evidence was telling another one, where the killer was still out there. And that was it. With one report, all those years of progress had dissolved. Almost immediately, the hearings started to pile up. Trial dates drifted further away. And behind closed doors, the government scrambled to explain the gap. They claimed that storms had rolled through those mountains that July of 96, washing away what little the killer had left behind that animals had seen scattered the fibers. That time had simply swallowed the truth. Assistant U.S. attorney Tony Giorno told the.

Reporter/News Anchor (9:35)

Court, there are a lot of reasons why there might not be any forensic evidence. Weather conditions, the amount of time they were out there.

Narrator (9:44)

But the defense saw daylight. If the DNA didn't belong to Rice, then whose did it belong to? Then came a new suspect. In an article from the Roanoke Times. In October 22nd of 2003, it was.

Courtney Stewart (10:00)

Announced that FBI analysts broadened their review to include possible links to other unsolved crimes in the region. The FBI lab compared the hair to that of Richard Evidence, a serial killer linked to the abduction and murder of three teenage girls in Virginia in 1996 and 1997. The hair was described as microscopically similar, though no DNA match was made.

Narrator (10:24)

Richard Mark Evanitz, a traveling salesman and former Navy man who prowled Virginia's back roads in a tan Ford Taurus searching for young women who were alone. Between 1996 and 1997, he had abducted, raped and murdered three teenage girls. Sophia Silva, age 16, was abducted on September 9, 1996, taken from a chair on the front porch of her family's home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. She had been sitting outside doing homework when she disappeared in broad daylight. Her family found her schoolbooks and a soft drink beside the chair, but Sophia was gone. A month later, on October 19, her body was discovered wrapped in a blanket and submerged in a creek off of State Route 3 in King George county, almost 40 miles away. Kristin Lisk, 15, and her little sister Katie, just 12, were abducted on the afternoon of May 1, 1997, from the driveway of their family's home in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, just a few miles from where Sophia Silva had vanished the year before. Their father, Ron Lisk, came home from work to find the front door open, the girls book bags and shoes inside, and their dog wandering loose in the yard. Within hours, law enforcement agencies across Virginia were searching for the sisters, and five days later, on May 6, a fisherman discovered their bodies in the South Anna river near Doswell, Virginia, in Hanover county, another 40 minutes away. Both girls had been bound and investigators later determined they had been suffocated. Shortly after their abduction, the case sent shockwaves through central Virginia, the second time in less than a year that teenage girls had vanished from quiet neighborhoods and were later found in water. For five years, Evanetz moved freely between Virginia, South Carolina and Florida, changing jobs, apartments and names. His crimes stopped only when one of his intended victims fought back. In June of 2002, a 15 year old girl was abducted from Columbia, South Carolina. Evinets took her to his apartment in Orange Park, Florida, where he assaulted and restrained her through the night. The next morning, while he was at work, she managed to escape and went straight to police. Investigators moved quickly. They identified evidence and closed in on his apartment. But before they could reach him, he fled in his car, leading officers on a high speed chase through several North Florida counties. The pursuit ended in a parking lot near his apartment complex where evidence barricaded himself inside his car and took his own life. He couldn't be charged, but the parallels were chilling. The bindings, the isolation, the way his victims were found in water, and the timing. His known crimes, especially, had overlapped with the summer that Julie and Lawley were found in Shenandoah. For Rice's defense team, this new information was seismic, a direct challenge to the case built against him and evidence that the true killer might have been hiding in plain sight. A quote from a Johnson City Press.

Reporter/News Anchor (14:08)

Article read, defense attorneys say the FBI's hair analysis raises serious doubts about whether prosecutors have charged the right man.

Narrator (14:16)

Prosecutors were quick to downplay the finding. Microscopically similar, they said, wasn't proof, only a coincidence, and one that didn't change their belief in Rice's guilt. They argued that every piece of evidence, every interview, every mile of Skyline Drive still pointed back to him. But for the families who had spent seven years trapped in uncertainty, coincidence wasn't good enough. They wanted answers grounded in science, not speculation. And for the first time since the indictment, the story that had once felt so certain was beginning to fracture. In an interview, Tom and Patsy Williams told the St. Cloud Times they were frustrated but hopeful.

Tom Williams (15:04)

Tom sharing, we just want the truth. We want the right person held accountable.

Narrator (15:10)

By late 2003, though, the courtroom had grown quiet. Reporters lost their front row seats to delay after delay. And inside the Justice Department, confidence in the case had started to waver. By the end of that year, the case felt fragile. Certainty was gone, replaced by questions that no one dared to say out loud. Questions like, was Rice actually guilty? Or had they just spent the last seven years chasing the wrong man? After the break, the DOJ speaks and everything changes. This holiday.

Reporter/News Anchor (15:53)

Give the gift that says, let's cancel.

Narrator (15:55)

Plans and just lounge.

Reporter/News Anchor (15:57)

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Narrator (16:21)

Code comfort. It was February of 2004, nearly eight years after Julie and Lolly were killed in Washington. Reporters gathered beneath the harsh fluorescent lights of a Department of justice briefing room, the kind of place where big announcements usually come with flags, cameras and sound bites. But not this time. This time, there was no podium, no broadcast. It was just A handful of journalists waiting as a one page statement was quietly passed down the line.

Reporter/News Anchor (17:00)

The statement read, the Department of Justice has an obligation to ensure that decisions in all capital cases are made fairly and supported by the evidence. With that responsibility in mind, the department today directed prosecutors in Western Virginia to withdraw the government's intention to seek the death penalty in the case of U.S. v. Darrell David Rice. Additional investigation into these murders since the time of this indictment has yielded evidence that makes the crime current prosecution of this matter as a capital case inappropriate at this time. When justice demands that the government reevaluate previous prosecutorial decisions in light of changes in the weight of evidence, including decisions regarding the death penalty, we do so routinely. The law must be applied evenly and consistently to ensure confidence in the administration of justice. Accordingly, the United States will move to dismiss the indictment in this case.

Narrator (17:53)

Two months later, the charges against Darrell David Rice had been entirely dismissed. Federal prosecutors dropped charges against Darrell Rice.

Courtney Stewart (18:02)

Shortly before he was to face capital.

Legal Analyst/Commentator (18:04)

Charges for two murders in Shenandoah National Park.

Reporter/News Anchor (18:07)

New forensic evidence cast doubt on the case against Rice.

Narrator (18:13)

For Tom and Patsy Williams, for Lale's family, and for everyone who had followed this case for years, this ending was an absolute gut punch. They had sat through countless hearings, marked every postponement, and held onto hope that the next headline would finally read guilty. Instead, it said dismissed in a single decision. Eight years of work, thousands of pages of evidence were gone. There would be no trial, no verdict, just a void where answers should have been.

Legal Analyst/Commentator (18:53)

Despite the ongoing search for answers, Tom does have a strong belief on who's behind the horrific crime.

Tom Williams (19:00)

To this day, Darrell David Rice is the primary suspect.

Legal Analyst/Commentator (19:03)

There seemed to be a case breakthrough when authorities announced charges of capital murder against Daryl David rice back in 2002. However, those charges were later dropped when Harris at the scene ended up matching a different person. Still, Tom believes Rice is likely the man who's responsible.

Tom Williams (19:20)

I do believe that had it not been a murder, a capital murder case, that he'd be convicted and put away. Now, that's how strongly I feel that he's a murderer. But let me say this. No one has been exonerated in this case. And so we are. Our aperture is wide open. We are looking at anyone that had any relationship to the events on the Shenandoah 20 years ago that took the lives of the these two ladies.

Legal Analyst/Commentator (19:44)

Before the charges were dropped, prosecutors said that Rice targeted Williams and Winans because of his hate of women and homosexuals. The FBI won't comment on specific suspects now, but the case is still being investigated as a hate crime.

Tom Williams (19:57)

There's certainly some indication that they were targeted sort of pursuant to a hatred of their lifestyle or their choices. And that is something that was certainly covered in that press conference. And I think that's certainly how we still scope the case.

Narrator (20:16)

The dismissal didn't end anything. Rice returned to finish his sentence for the attack on Ivan Maubasha, and when he was eventually released in 2007, his name still followed every headline. Accused once charged, never cleared.

Legal Analyst/Commentator (20:36)

It's been over 20 years since St. Cloud native Julie Williams and Lolly Winans of Unity, Maine were found murdered in the Virginia park. The FBI is still looking for tips to find who's responsible.

Tom Williams (20:48)

We're using this opportunity, the 20 year anniversary, to let folks know that the case is still a pending FBI investigation. And, you know, we are looking for leads, we're looking for new evidence. There's somebody, somebody that knows something and hopefully some relationship will change and somebody out there will feel the guilt or come forward to do the right thing.

Narrator (21:15)

Despite the ongoing search for answers, Tom Williams said he still believed Rice was responsible. Over the years, his name would resurface for various reasons. Probation violations, quiet hearings, short news flashes. Then, in the summer of 2024, nearly 28 years after Julie and Lollie's deaths, the name Daryl David Rice surfaced one last time. In a July 8, 2024 article, investigative reporter Courtney Stewart, host of Charlottesville right.

Courtney Stewart (21:50)

Now, wrote, the man long considered the prime suspect in the 1996 murders of two women in Shenandoah National park, has died just two weeks after a DNA match cleared him of the crime. In news first reported by Missouri news outlet kttn.com Darrell D. Rice was killed just before 10pm on July 5 when he was struck by a vehicle while riding a bike on a rural highway in Sheridan County, Missouri. Rice, 56, was airlifted to a hospital where he was declared dead.

Narrator (22:20)

Stewart went on to report that Rice's longtime attorney, Jerry Zirkin and legal advocate Deirdre Enright had condemned the years of pursuit that followed him even as the evidence shifted away. Zirkin was quoted in the article saying.

Courtney Stewart (22:35)

The clearer Darryl's innocence became, the greater became the government's commitment to prove him guilty.

Narrator (22:42)

According to Sheridan County Sheriff Eric Billups, deputies had been on their way to contact Rice after multiple reports had come in of a man cycling in traffic along Route 20. Four minutes later, the call changed from concern to fatality. It's a haunting symmetry if you think about it. The man who attacked a woman on her bike in Shenandoah, killed years later while riding on his own, not by rage this time, but by chance. With Rice's death, one chapter of this story ended. But the truth, finally confirmed by DNA, was only beginning to surface. For nearly three decades, this case had lived in limbo, passed between agencies for reshuffled through cold case units, weighed down by time and doubt. The evidence had been boxed, tested, retested, and for years it told the same story. No match. Until now. Federal investigators were running a new round of testing through an advanced DNA database. And from that process, a single name emerged. Not Rice, not evidence, someone else entirely. The result rewrote decades of certainty, because the DNA didn't just belong to anyone. It belonged to a man with a long and violent past, someone already known to law enforcement. And the discovery would force investigators and the people of Virginia to revisit what had been buried for years. The truth is finally coming to the surface, and what it reveals might be harder to hear than any of us expected. Sequestered is created by Sarah Reed and Andrea Clyde, hosted and produced by Sarah, written and researched together. Theme music by Night Owl and original music by Andrew Golden. You can hear his full song Shenandoah through the link in our show notes.

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Dana (25:48)

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Narrator (25:57)

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Dana (26:28)

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