Date published: 11/18/2007

Sheriff: No prime suspects in McDaniel case By PAMELA GOULD The day after her birth, Anne Carolyn McDaniel�s parents were told she would never walk or talk�if she survived. She defied those odds only to have her life cut short by a killer just as she was learning to make it on her own. Anne McDaniel was 20 years old and living at the President Madison Inn in the town of Orange when she disappeared the evening of Sept. 18, 1996. Four days later, her burned body was found off Stringfellow Road in Culpeper County, a remote spot used by hunters. Scott McDaniel of San Francisco, Anne�s brother, is the only remaining member of their immediate family. Their mother, Shirley McDaniel, died in 1999; their father, Gary McDaniel, two years later. After 11 years, Scott McDaniel�s hope of identifying Anne�s killer is waning�but not his desire. �I think about Anne every day and I want nothing more than for her killer to be found,� he said. �But I�ve reached a point where I�m not optimistic something is going to happen.� Maj. Jim Branch of the Culpeper County Sheriff�s Office was assigned to the McDaniel case in 2000, shortly after Lee Hart was elected sheriff with a pledge to do all he could to solve three unsolved homicides. McDaniel, Alicia Showalter Reynolds and Thelma Scroggins were found dead in the Lignum area within a four-month period in 1996. In 2001, one man was convicted and a second pleaded guilty in the death of 74-year-old Scroggins. No one has ever been charged in the other cases. �Keeping an open mind� Branch said he and Capt. Russell Lane sent DNA evidence to the Virginia crime lab for updated analysis and re-interviewed roughly 20 people. In the summer of 2006, they spent a few days checking out a new suspect brought to their attention by another jurisdiction. But Branch said that lead has not panned out �so far.� �Just because something may not look promising now, doesn�t mean in the future it won�t be,� he said. He hasn�t ruled out a link between the deaths of all three women found in and around Lignum in 1996. And he hasn�t ruled out a link with two other women�s slayings in May 1996 in Shenandoah National Park. �You have to look at the probability and possibility,� he said. �For me, anything is a possibility.� Branch, elected earlier this month to succeed Hart, said he�s also keeping his options open with regard to serial killer Richard Marc Evonitz and Maryland resident Darrell Rice. In 2002, Evonitz was linked to three Spotsylvania County girls� deaths in 1996 and 1997. One occurred the same month as McDaniel�s slaying. Rice was once accused of the slayings in Shenandoah National Park and investigated in Reynolds� death. In the past, Hart called both Evonitz and Rice suspects in McDaniel�s death. He backed off from that in an interview for this project. �We are keeping an open mind about any and everything,� he said. �We�re very cautious because we do not want to get tunnel vision.� When pressed about his previous public statements about Evonitz and Rice, he was more straightforward. �I don�t want you to leave here with the impression I�m looking at those two people as suspects, because I�m not,� he said. Branch said that �obviously, we did� look at Evonitz, but he would not comment on whether that included forensic tests. The Free Lance�Star discovered independently that items from the McDaniel case were submitted to the FBI Lab in the summer of 2000, and in September 2002, one month after Evonitz was named as the Spotsylvania girls� killer. Hart said McDaniel�s case is �still a priority� but challenging, given that it took place 11 years ago and people have moved away or died. �We have no prime suspects in the investigation,� the sheriff said. �I wish we did.�

Date published: 11/18/2007

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