Lollie Winans Case: DNA, Darrell Rice, and Leo Jackson

The Lollie Winans case was solved in June 2024, when the FBI announced that DNA evidence had identified Walter “Leo” Jackson Sr., an Ohio serial rapist who died in prison in 2018, as the man who murdered Winans and her partner Julianne “Julie” Williams at their Shenandoah National Park campsite in May 1996.¹ The nearly 28-year investigation had wrongly indicted an innocent man, driven a national debate over hate crime legislation, and left DNA on a national database for more than a decade before anyone thought to run the comparison that cracked the case.

Who Lollie Winans and Julie Williams Were

Laura “Lollie” Winans was 26, from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and a student at Unity College in Maine, studying outdoor recreation. She was scheduled to graduate in December 1996. Julie Williams, 24, grew up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and had earned a geology degree cum laude from Carleton College in 1994. She had studied sediment in Greek Macedonia, worked at a bookstore in Burlington, Vermont, and planned education programming for the National Park Service at Big Bend National Park in Texas.² Williams had also received a grant to conduct hydrology research on Lake Champlain, work set to begin just days after her death.³

The two met through Woodswomen, a Minnesota-based outdoor recreation program, and became partners. Both were experienced hikers.⁴

What Happened at Shenandoah in May 1996

Winans and Williams arrived at Shenandoah National Park on May 19, 1996, and set up camp near the Skyland Resort along the Appalachian Trail.⁵ Park personnel last saw them alive on May 24. When they failed to return home, family members contacted the National Park Service. Rangers found their bodies on June 1, 1996.¹

Both women were bound and gagged, and their throats had been slashed. The tent had been cut open, and the couple’s dog was missing.⁶ Forensic testing later confirmed that both had been sexually assaulted.⁴

The Wrong Man: Darrell David Rice

The investigation generated an estimated 15,000 leads before focusing on Darrell David Rice, a man convicted in 1998 of attempting to abduct a female bicyclist in Shenandoah National Park. During that attack he had shouted sexual references, tried to force the victim into his truck, and attempted to run her over when she resisted. Restraints were found in his vehicle.⁷

In April 2002, a federal grand jury indicted Rice on four counts of capital murder for the Winans and Williams killings. Two counts alleged he had targeted the women because of his hatred of women and homosexuals, invoking federal hate crime sentencing enhancements that allowed prosecutors to seek the death penalty. It was among the first cases prosecuted as a federal hate crime under those enhancements.⁸

The case rested on circumstantial evidence. According to defense attorneys Gerald Zerkin and Deirdre Enright, the government ran an operation called “Operation Real Deal” that placed an undercover FBI agent in Rice’s cell, sent Rice fabricated newspaper clippings, and even a postcard from Denmark implying the agent himself had committed the murders. The effort produced no confession. Enright estimated that between 15 and 22 informants were used because no forensic evidence tied Rice to the killings.⁹

Zerkin said his team had a recording of Rice professionally enhanced and found the transcript was “totally opposite of what the government had made it out to be.” The defense also alleged that a waitress who placed the victims alive at a park lodge after Rice had already left the area was discredited to preserve the government’s timeline.⁹ Forensic testing of hairs found at the crime scene excluded Rice.⁴ The Department of Justice dropped all charges in 2004.⁵ U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh later described the prosecution as having been built under “intense public pressure to blame someone” rather than on forensic evidence.¹⁰

Why the Case Was Framed as a Hate Crime

Because Winans and Williams were a same-sex couple, the question of whether the murders targeted them for their orientation dominated coverage for years. National media, including a segment on America’s Most Wanted, framed the case around the victims’ sexual orientation, and the killings became a catalyst for the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, which sought to expand federal hate crime protections to cover sexual orientation.⁸

After the 2024 identification, authorities said there was no evidence the murders were motivated by the victims’ sexual orientation. Jackson was identified as a serial rapist whose crimes were driven by sexual violence.¹⁰

How DNA Solved the Case

In 2021, a new FBI Richmond investigative team took a fresh look at the file. The team reassessed hundreds of prior leads and interviews and sent crime scene evidence to an accredited private lab for retesting. The lab extracted DNA from several items. With help from the Virginia State Police, the resulting profile was run through the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and matched Walter Leo Jackson Sr.¹

Investigators then compared the crime scene DNA directly against a buccal swab collected during Jackson’s prior Ohio criminal proceedings. FBI Special Agent in Charge Stanley Meador described the match as having a level of certainty “rarely seen,” with a statistical probability of one in 2.6 trillion.¹¹

Jackson’s DNA had been entered into the national database in 2011, but the crime scene evidence was not checked against the database until the new team took over roughly a decade later. Rice’s attorney Deirdre Enright theorized the comparison was never made because investigators in 2011 still believed Rice was the killer. Rice’s sister, Dawn Metcalfe, said at a press conference: “I am deeply troubled that the FBI possessed DNA evidence since 2011 and didn’t get around to testing until now.”¹²

Who Walter “Leo” Jackson Sr. Was

Jackson was born on November 2, 1947, and lived in the Cleveland, Ohio, area, where he worked as a residential painter. He was an avid hiker known to visit Shenandoah National Park. At the time of the 1996 murders, investigators believe he was driving a 1984 chestnut brown AMC Eagle, and he was known to use temporary tags, alter license plates, and frequently change vehicles.¹

Jackson had a lengthy criminal history of kidnapping, rape, and assault. Ohio corrections records document these incarceration periods:

January 1984 to February 1989 (Geauga County charges)
May 1994 to September 1994 (Cuyahoga County charges)
August 2000 to May 2007 (Cuyahoga County charges)
May 2012 to March 2018 (Cuyahoga County charges), during which he died in prison¹³

Jackson was free between September 1994 and August 2000, a window that includes the May 1996 murders. Within weeks of killing Winans and Williams, Cleveland-area records show, Jackson kidnapped and raped a woman in Cuyahoga County at knifepoint on June 5, 1996. On July 16 of that same year, he broke into a dwelling and kidnapped and raped another woman, also at knifepoint.¹⁴ In 2011 or 2012 he violently abducted and raped another woman, pleading guilty to kidnapping, gross sexual imposition, and felonious assault. While serving that sentence he was forensically linked to the 1996 Ohio rapes and convicted by a jury on two additional counts of rape and kidnapping, receiving a 20-year sentence. He died in prison in March 2018.¹³

Because Jackson died six years before he was identified as the Shenandoah killer, no prosecution was possible. Julie Williams’s father, Tom Williams, told reporters he found some measure of peace in that fact: “It would not serve me or anybody having to sit through [a trial], legally saying ‘This is the person’ and putting him away.”¹⁵ The FBI said it continues to investigate whether Jackson was responsible for other unsolved crimes, coordinating with the Cleveland Police Department and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.¹³

What Happened to Darrell Rice

The June 2024 announcement definitively cleared Rice, but it came late. According to his attorneys, Rice had spent years in hiding after the charges were dropped in 2004, frequently relocating to avoid being identified as a former murder suspect. Enright said he was “hiding” and that she was unsure the news would mean as much to him as it did to the legal team that had fought for his exoneration.⁹

On July 5, 2024, just over two weeks after the FBI announcement clearing him, Rice was struck by a vehicle while riding a bicycle in Chariton County, Missouri. He was 56.¹⁶

1
FBI. FBI Richmond Identifies Suspect in 1996 Shenandoah National Park Double Murder
2
Barry Yeoman. Murder on the Mountain
3
Central Minnesota Community Foundation. Julianne Williams
4
VPM. FBI: Serial Rapist Linked to 1996 Shenandoah Killings
5
National Parks Conservation Association. Trailing Justice
6
WHSV. 1996 Double Homicide in Shenandoah National Park Solved
7
U.S. Department of Justice. News Conference Regarding Indictment
8
Appalachian Trail History. The Gay Community and Hate Crime Legislation
9
News Leader. Darrell Rice’s Defense Team Reacts to FBI Exoneration
10
Page Valley News. FBI Reveals Killer in 1996 Double Murder in Shenandoah National Park
11
WTVR. Shenandoah National Park Murder Suspect Identified
12
University of Virginia. UVA Law Professor Helps Exonerate Innocent Man in Shenandoah Killings
13
FBI. Walter L. Jackson Sr.
14
Cleveland.com. FBI Says Northeast Ohio Serial Rapist Killed Two Female Hikers in Shenandoah National Park
15
NBC Washington. Shenandoah Hiker Murder Case Solved After Deaths of Two Women in 1996
16
Cville Right Now. Weeks After DNA Exoneration, Darrell Rice Has Died