Spotsylvania, VA: Police Seek Break In Lisk Case.., Parents Plan Living Memorial...
Slimpickins
police seek break in abduction, slaying of
Lisk sisters, third girl
BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
SPOTSYLVANIA -- Those who knew Kristin Lisk say she should be
relishing this last exciting stretch toward graduating from high
school. “It’s been a harder year. I can’t lie,” Ron Lisk, her father,
said in an interview last week.
Kristin, 15, was just finishing her freshman year at
Spotsylvania High School when she and her 12-year-old sister Kati were
abducted from their rural home three years ago today and later found
slain. Authorities believe a serial killer is responsible for the girls’
deaths and the slaying of 16-year-old Sofia Silva of
Spotsylvania several months earlier. Since their daughters’ deaths,
Ron and Patti Lisk have stayed in close contact with Kristin’s and
Kati’s friends, keeping up with developments in those children’s lives.
While watching their daughters’ friends grow up has been a comfort in
some ways, it has also been a painful
reminder.
“There’s no place you can go and not know what you’re missing,” Ron
Lisk said. Kristin, an honor student and active drama club member, loved
horses and aspired to become a veterinarian after attending Virginia
Tech. Kati, who was in sixth grade, played basketball, liked to draw and
spoke of someday cartooning for Walt Disney. This spring, the girls’
parents will award the first of what they hope will be perpetual college
scholarships in their daughters’ memory. The timing purposely coincides
with the graduation of the Class of 2000, of which Kristin was a member,
and the first award will be given to a Spotsylvania High senior.
“We just felt so strongly that this would be the best tribute to
her” Lisk said.
The Lisks plan to open the scholarships to public and private school
students throughout the Fredericksburg region next year and hope to
increase the number of $2,000 awards. To date, the couple has raised
more than $50,000 with the help of community donations. Lisk said
recipients must be active in extracurricular,
church or community service activities and must demonstrate Christian
character. “The goal is to have this as a living memorial to Kristin
and Kati,”
he said. Spotsylvania High officials are still discussing ways to
remember Kristin as graduation nears. Lisk said he’s not sure whether
the couple will present the award at the June commencement ceremony or
whether they will opt for something more low-key.
“I wish I could say I had the . . . fortitude,” he said. “It’s
emotionally a very
hard thing to do.” Meanwhile, a task force of local, state and
federal continues to work the case, investigating more than
11,000 leads to date. Maj. Howard Smith of the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s
Office said authorities receive an average of three tips each week.
The most recent and highly publicized lead came in October, when
authorities focused on a 29-year-old carpet cleaner who asked personal
and sexual questions of a teen-age girl who lived near the Lisks. The
girl, like the victims, was approached at her house after school when
her parents weren’t home. Authorities,
however, said subsequent DNA tests cleared the man of involvement in
the slayings. “That was a good suspect, no doubt about it,” said Robert
K. Ressler, a retired FBI behavioral scientist credited with coining the
term “serial killer” during his years interviewing such notorious
figures as Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. Ressler, who
lives in Spotsylvania, said he believes the best chance to solve
the Lisk-Silva case rests with someone who knows the killer.
“At this stage of the game, generally it’s information that comes from
a third party,” he said last week. “With every day that passes, it
becomes less likely it will be solved.” However, authorities say
comparisons of DNA evidence against
samples taken from felons or others may yet reveal the killer. Smith
said the task force is bolstered by the recent arrest and conviction of
a man who abducted, sexually assaulted and killed a 46-year-old
Spotsylvania secretary in 1990.
Authorities arrested Michael Anthony Morris last year based on a
fingerprint match. Although the felon’s prints already were on file,
authorities said previous computer checks didn’t turn up the match
because the technology available then wasn’t as advanced. In March, a
jury recommended that Morris, 38, spend two life terms in prison for the
slaying of Nancy Smith Seay, who died of heat stroke after being locked
in the trunk of her car on a sweltering July afternoon.
“You get down in the dumps sometimes. When something like [Morris’
arrest and conviction] happens, it’s certainly a morale booster,” Smith
said.
The Lisk sisters vanished May 1, 1997, shortly after stepping off
separate school buses in front of their home. Their bodies were found
five days later in Hanover County’s South Anna River, about 40 miles
from their house.
Sofia was last heard from the afternoon of Sept. 9, 1996, when she told
her older sister she was going outside to do homework on the front step
of their house, about 10 miles away from the Lisk home. Sofia’s body,
bound in a blanket, was found five weeks later in a King George County
creek.
All three bodies bore no obvious signs of trauma. Authorities have not
revealed the exact causes of death, although sources have confirmed the
Lisk girls were asphyxiated. In past years, authorities have held news
conferences around this
time to announce clues in the case. No such announcement is scheduled
for this week, although authorities are still seeking information on a
small to mid-size red car and a white van seen near the Lisks’ home
about the time the girls vanished. A Looney Tunes watch missing from
Kristin when her body was found remains a very important clue, Smith
added. The watch bears the image of Tweety Bird and plays a familiar
Looney Tunes melody.
Call Kiran Krishnamurthy at (540) 371-4792 or
e-mail
him at kkrishn...@timesdispatch.com
http://www.timesdispatch.com/virginia/lisk01.shtml