Meet Prince William’s ‘cold case’ crew

By Elisa Glushefski

Published: May 31, 2008

On the wall in Detective Paul Masterson's office is a black and white photo of the construction trailer where three women were shot and killed in 1978.

Next to the picture is a blown up photo of a contact information card that police believe the killer filled out before shooting the clerk and two women who walked in on the attack.

The address was a fabrication and the name on the card, Phil P. Pryson, led police nowhere.

It was the first recorded triple homicide in Prince William.

The victims: Karen Scarborough, a 17-year-old who had gotten a summer job with Ryland Homes; Sharon Lake; and Deborah Frank.

They were found face down, side by side, on the floor of the construction trailer at what was then the dead end of Dale Boulevard. Each had been shot once in the head.

Police believe Frank and Lake were shot after walking in on the assault.

"They were looking at everybody back then," Masterson said of the investigation.

But nearly 30 years later the murder remains one of 18 classified as unsolved cold cases in Prince William County, according to the police department.

Masterson, who for the last year has been in charge of investigating those cases for the Prince William County Police Department, is trying to whittle that number down.

Many of the unsolved homicides in Prince William date back to the early years of the police department and to a time when there was no DNA evidence and forensics teams were virtually non-existent.

Two victims are still unidentified, partly for that reason.

All that was left of a Jane Doe found in February 1982 were her skeletal remains. But advancements in DNA technology, along with good dental records, could eventually get police an identity—the one thing that is absolutely crucial in launching a full-on investigation.

In the 1984 John Doe case, police were able to get fingerprints and DNA from the man believed to have been anywhere from 50 to 70 years old, but neither will help get police closer to identifying him if he's not already in the system, Masterson said.

"You would almost have to put his photograph in every newspaper in the country and hope that somebody would recognize him," Masterson said.

With those cases the challenge is inheriting a case with almost nothing to go on.

The greatest challenge investigating almost any other cold case, Masterson said, is having to pore over thousands upon thousands of pages of documents someone else wrote years ago.

"The difficulty is trying to get into the detective's mind, to get at what they were looking at," Masterson said.

When all the evidence has been tested and leads have been exhausted, Masterson said it then can come down to waiting for that single call from someone who for some reason is after years finally ready to come forward with information about a crime.

Prince William police Detective Jennifer Evans has been stuck in that waiting game with what is her only open homicide case.

On the streets, she said, plenty of people are still talking about the murder of Rahsaan Gregory Mack last year.

Evans said she is almost certain there are at least 10 to 15 people who have some knowledge of what hap-pened that night, but nobody has been willing to "stick their neck out" to help police solve the crime.

The 25-year-old, who went by "Rocky," was shot dead late one summer night about 10 months ago after parking his car in front of a Linden Park Apartments building in Triangle.

It's still not clear what the

motive was, but what is clear is that Mack was targeted and nobody wants to talk to police about it, Evans said.

During the investigation, Evans found several witnesses who saw people hanging around that area before the shooting.

A reward of $1,000 was offered for any information that would lead to an arrest. But that did noth-ing.

No matter how much time passes, though, the pressure of the ticking clock is almost always there.

One of the cases Masterson has been focusing on since he took over cold case investigations is the murder of Judith Lynn Rue in August 1982.

The 26-year-old was found on a gravel driveway just off Davis Ford Road and was last seen alive just about four hours earlier at Prince William County's

Community Health Center.

Detectives focused on a single suspect throughout the investigation, but no charges were ever filed. Masterson has gone back over the case file and identified three or four others who were at the health center that day and is looking for anything in their past that might be suspect.

On a weekly basis, Rue's mother checks in with Masterson for any updates there might be. She wants closure before she dies, he said, and he wants to be the one to give that to her.

"It's a good thing for anybody who sits in this office," Masterson said of getting calls from the families of victims. "It's always good that they're still applying pressure, still wanting to get the case resolved."

The following are the cold case homicides in Prince William County. Anyone with information about these or any other crimes is asked to call Prince William County Crime Solvers' 24-hour anonymous tip-line at 703-670-3700 or 1-866-411-TIPS.

• Oct. 10, 1970, Patricia Ann Moore, 10, disappeared from her home in the Clifton area of Fairfax County on July 15, 1970. Squirrel hunters found her skeletal remains in Prince William three months later.

• Dec. 4, 1973, Paul David Digon of Oxon Hill, Md., who was in his early 20s, died after being shot in the head. He was found off Interstate 66 on Groveton Road.

• Dec. 18, 1973, Melvin Leroy Deans, 33, of Triangle, died of gunshot wounds to his head and chest. He was found in the Featherstone area

of Woodbridge nine days after

disappearing.

• June 8, 1974, Nancy Marie Ryan, 17, was either strangled or shot to death. She disappeared May 6, 1974, as she hitchhiked from her Fairfax home to Reston. She was found in the woods off Devlin Road in the Wellington area.

• June 24, 1978, Karen Scarborough, 17, Sharon Lake, 25, and Deborah Frank were found face down, side by side, on the floor of the Ryland Homes construction trailer at what was then the dead end of Dale Boulevard. Each had been shot once in the head.

• Jan. 23, 1981, Elwood Strader of Woodbridge was shot to death in the back of the head while walking up his driveway.

• Feb. 11, 1982, An unknown woman's skeletal remains were found at Bull Run Mountain. Scien-tists estimated her age as between 17 and 21.

• Aug. 18, 1982, Judith Lynn Rue, 26, of Manassas Park, was found along a private drive off Davis Ford Road near Bent Tree Lane.

• Feb. 26, 1983, William Brooks Sr., 67, was shot twice in the head with a shotgun. Police found him slumped in a chair in his home on Wellington Road near Manassas.

• Sept. 19, 1984, An unknown Asian man's body and burned car were found along westbound Inter-state 95 off Va. 619.

• Nov. 3, 1984, Mark Whitten, 20, died of head trauma. Police suspect a cab driver that Whitten and a friend failed to pay for a ride may have beaten him or pushed him from the cab.

• May 21, 1986, Lisa Rene Triggs, 15, was found dead of head trauma in a creek off Minnieville Road near the Dale City recreation center.

• Nov. 14, 1986, Jacqueline Lard, 40, was strangled after she was abducted from a realty office in Stafford County. Her body was found in Woodbridge and her car was found in Fairfax County.

• March 11, 1988, Craig T. Caviness, 26, was killed execution style between March 11 and March 24, 1988. Boys found his body in the woods off Minnieville Road west of Spriggs Road.

• March 16, 1988, James S. Marshall, 27, died of multiple gunshot wounds. Police believe he was shot in his Triangle apartment.

• Sept. 2, 1989, Manuel Sermeno, 27, was found in a car fully engulfed in flames on the Joplin Road ramp to southbound Interstate 95.

• June 28, 1994, Aleksandr Kishinevski and Dina Sapozhnikov were found shot to death in Kishi-nevski's home on Giles Court. Police aren't sure if the case is a double-homicide or a murder-suicide.

• May 3, 1996, Ziska Rodgers, 19, was found on a gravel driveway near Lake Ridge. Her throat had been slashed, she'd suffered stab wounds and coins were strewn on her body.

Staff writer Elisa Glushefski can be reached at 703-878-8062.