Published Wednesday, May 14, 1997, in The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Every Lisk lead being pursued 'America's Most Wanted' returns for second filming
By KEITH EPPS and TED BYRD Staff Reporters
If police don't find the killer of Kristin and Kati Lisk, it won't be because of a lack of publicity or money.
Representatives of the national television show "America's Most Wanted" were back in Spotsylvania County yesterday filming interviews for a second story on the Lisk case.
The case was mentioned briefly toward the end of the show Saturday night. A longer segment is planned for this weekend, Capt. Pat Sullins of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Office said.
Sullins is also still dealing with numerous requests from Washington, Richmond and local media seeking new information on the case. Almost nothing new has surfaced in recent days.
Meanwhile, the Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors yesterday added $10,000 to the reward fund for the Lisk killer and assured Sheriff Ron Knight that the county will cover budget excesses resulting from the investigation.
Knight told the supervisors he has bought additional computers and expects to pay $15,000 a month in overtime to investigators. Other expenses are also mounting, he said.
"We've probably destroyed a forest with all the copies we've made," he said.
Knight said Gov. George Allen and the state Compensation Board, which subsidizes local law enforcement, have indicated they, too, will find extra money to help with the expenses.
As far as the investigation goes, yesterday was another in what promises to be a string of tedious days spent tracking down the more than 2,600 leads that have come in since the girls' bodies were found last week.
Investigators aren't yet halfway through with that process. So far, police said, no significant suspects have developed. All information is being logged into a computer.
"We're still very optimistic, but there is still lots of legwork to be done before we can narrow the scope of this investigation," Sullins said, in a variation of a statement she's made repeatedly in recent days. "There is simply nothing new to report right now."
Many of the leads involve white trucks. In the only significant lead released to the public so far, police said a white truck was spotted near the Lisk home on Block House Road the afternoon the girls disappeared.
There have been reports of a white truck following a school bus, suspicious white trucks at various stores and white trucks simply parked in rural areas. Investigators are checking each call, Sullins said.
Sullins said that police still don't know the girls' cause of death. That won't be known until a final autopsy report is completed in several weeks.
Sullins said police have preliminary findings, but she declined to say if police have a tentative cause of death. She said the cause of death probably won't be released even after it is known for certain.
In certain cases, such as a recent one in Spotsylvania in which a woman was stabbed 41 times, police can determine the cause of death long before the final autopsy is done. This apparently is not one of those cases.
"For us to even speculate now would be like trying to tell the whole story when we only have half of it," Sullins said.
Spotsylvania isn't the only local police agency getting calls on the Lisk case. Authorities in other localities said they, too, have received tips connected to the case and have passed them to Spotsylvania.
"Everyone in the area is concerned about this case, not just Spotsylvania residents," Capt. Steve Dempsey of the King George County Sheriff's Office said.
Also yesterday, Spotsylvania supervisors put a planned new teen and senior citizen center on a faster track as a result of the slayings.
"Parents today are concerned about what their kids are going to do in the afternoon," county Supervisor Mary Lee Carter said yesterday as she pressed for the action.
The county is renovating a section of the former Spotsylvania Middle School for the recreation and activities center. Officials now hope to open in late summer.
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