Monday, September 28, 2009
Task force continues to get tips on killings
Investigators in the case of two slain Virginia Tech students say people need to keep providing information.
Tech students Heidi Childs and David Metzler were found dead Aug. 27 at a campground.
Earlier coverage
- Police seek help from hunters, hikers
- Task force continues to get tips on killings
- Reward in killings increases to $50,000
- Task force to probe students' killings
- Hundreds mourn slain Lynchburg teens
- Police still chasing leads about Va. Tech student shootings
- Virginia Tech announces $10,000 reward for information about killings
- Funerals for Tech students set for Monday afternoon
- Police still seek leads in deaths of Tech students
- Few clues, many tears in deaths of Tech students
- Caldwell Fields neighbors did not hear shots
- Dan Casey: Neighbors shaken after meadow becomes killing field
- Police seek suspects in Virginia Tech students' killings
Guest books
Leave remembrances and messages
Heidi Childs and David Metzler, seen here in a photo from her Facebook profile, were inseparable.
Statements
In the month since two Virginia Tech students were found slain in Montgomery County, investigators have interviewed dozens of people, searched vehicles and seized weapons, and they continue to work overtime to develop a suspect.
As part of the multiagency task force created in the New River Valley to investigate the incident, as many as 20 law enforcement officers at a time are working to try to find out who killed David Metzler, 19, of Lynchburg and his girlfriend, 18-year-old Heidi Childs of Forest.
Their bodies were found about 8 a.m. Aug. 27 in a day-use area at Caldwell Fields, a group campground in the Jefferson National Forest on Craig Creek Road. Both had been shot.
Lt. Norman Croy, an investigator with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, said it's frustrating that the killer hasn't been caught.
"This is not only a crime against these two kids and their families, it's a crime against my community," he said. "It's an attack on everyone who lives here, and it flies in the face of law enforcement we haven't been able to solve this.
"It's not because of a lack of effort."
A task force created to investigate the killings began work nearly three weeks ago. It is led by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and Investigator Dennis Rakes.
The task force also includes officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Virginia Tech police departments; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshall's Office; and the U.S. Forest Service.
The task force combines each agency's technology and decades of experience, including many homicide investigations, Croy said. Some of the agencies involved have dedicated at least one officer to work on the case full time.
A similar task force was created in Henry County to investigate the 2002 killings of Michael and Mary Short and the abduction and killing of their 9-year-old daughter, Jennifer. Michael and Mary Short were found fatally shot in their Oak Level home on Aug. 15, 2002, and Jennifer was missing. Her skeletal remains were found Sept. 25, 2002, under a bridge in Rockingham County, N.C.
No one has been charged, but investigators with the Jennifer Renee Short Homicide/Abduction Task Force still work on the case daily, Henry County Sheriff Lane Perry said.
"Everyone was trying to help when that case happened," he said. "We put the task force together because we deem the case that important."
It's important to keep people talking about the case, Perry said, so it doesn't go cold.
In the Caldwell Fields case, investigators have developed persons of interest and then eliminated them as suspects.
Leads have been coming in daily, Croy said, and officers hope they continue.
"There's probably a lot of people out there who still have information they think is not important," but they should pass it along to the task force, Croy said.
To encourage people to come forward with information, Virginia Tech has offered $10,000 as a reward in the case, and others have vowed to add to that amount.
The sheriff's office is still asking to hear from anyone who was in the area of Caldwell Fields or the Jefferson National Forest shooting range on Craig Creek Road in the 24 hours before Metzler and Childs were found.
Croy said that "99.9 percent of the population is as concerned as we are and wanting to help catch this person or persons."
Investigators remain tight-lipped on many details of the case -- a common move in ongoing investigations because only the killer or killers will know all the details of what happened.
They have not said how many times Metzler and Childs were shot, where on their bodies, or with what type of weapon.
"If we let too much out," Croy said, "then we may have a more difficult time catching this person."
Croy did say that Metzler and Childs didn't appear to have suffered any injuries other than gunshots. Metzler's body was found inside his car. Childs' was outside it.
At one point, neighbors said investigators were asking about an older model Chevrolet Caprice. Croy said the car was located and officers determined that it was not associated with the crime.
Teddy Mullins, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service, said only one group has camped at Caldwell Fields since the killings. Another group had rented the site to camp there last weekend but didn't show up, he said.
People are still camping at other sites in the forest along Craig Creek Road, Mullins said, and activities such as biking, hiking and fishing continue to be popular there.
Other than the group campsites, he said, "there really wasn't much of a change."
A member of the task force into the investigation, Mullins said he works on the investigation during the day and patrols the area at night.
Jeff Caldwell, who lives on Craig Creek Road, said neighbors are still a little spooked by the killings.
"People are still kind of concerned, wondering who did it," he said. "I don't think it's anybody around here."
Making it worse, he said, was the reported robbery of a neighbor last week. He said his neighbor told him that as he got out of his car, someone hit and kicked him and took his wallet.
Many residents used to keep their doors unlocked but say they don't anymore.
Now, Caldwell said, "you get out of the vehicle and you're starting to have to look around."
