Hey, y’all. It’s Amie.

Did y’all miss me yesterday? It felt so strange to not write a newsletter, but there’s a good reason. While we’re still squarely in the summer months, I’d like to bring some more free content your way—just in a different form. That means instead of this newsletter coming your way Monday through Friday, it’ll arrive in your inbox on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Sending this three times a week instead of five gives me more time to find and highlight unique things to do in Virginia, produce more content on affording life right now for our social media pages and website, and hopefully lends to growing our readership even more.

That said, I’ll see y’all on Friday—so in the meantime, it’s crucially important that you remember I’m so glad you’re here.

P.S.—Fear not, if you’ve signed up for Michael O’Connor’s newsletter Virginia Capital, it’ll still arrive on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Amie Knowles

Newsletter Editor, Dogwood

The string of killings known as the Colonial Parkway Murders is Virginia’s largest and oldest serial killing spree. (Billy Wilson/CC BY-NC 2.0)

A deep dive into the infamous Colonial Parkway Murders, plus recent breakthroughs in the case

By Sam Cohen

Here’s what you need to know: After nearly 40 years, investigators identified Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. as the suspect in the Colonial Parkway Murders, bringing long-awaited answers in several cold cases while leaving other deaths under investigation.

Top facts:

Serial killers typically—but not always—have a consistent pattern when it comes to how they attack their victims and the type of people they target. That’s what made the differing details of the Colonial Parkway Murders difficult for investigators to link to one person and solve.
Breakthroughs in forensic technology ultimately linked the 1980s murders to Wilmer between 2024 and 2026. Wilmer had not been arrested on any felony charges during his lifetime and thus didn’t have a criminal record, which made it nearly impossible to find a match for the DNA found at the crime scenes.
The DNA linking Wilmer to the Colonial Parkway Murders was only obtained after he died in 2017. Authorities believe he may be responsible for additional murders and disappearances from the 1980s era.

Want to learn more? Read the our deep dive article at the link below.

Here’s the story →

TopHouse performed at the Blue Ridge Music Center’s mountainside amphitheater in Galax on July 18. (Amie Knowles/Dogwood)

TopHouse put on a top-notch show, despite Galax power outage

By Amie Knowles

Are we good with one more round of TopHouse songs? I hope so because we got to see the band perform over the weekend at the Blue Ridge Music Center in Galax!

The long-awaited concert was our son’s first ever. The whole two-and-a-half hour ride there, Colton, age 8, asked Kody and I relentlessly if the guys were going to sing “The Mountain Song.” We told him that while we weren’t bestowed with prior knowledge of the setlist, it sure seemed fitting that the band might incorporate that into a literal mountainside performance.

We got to the venue about an hour and 15 minutes before the show, and that’s when we learned that the gates wouldn’t be opening on time. There was a power outage—which, I imagine as a band and a venue, isn’t the news you want to hear when everything from lights to microphones to instruments runs off of electricity. With less than an hour to go until showtime, we caught glimpses of staff, volunteers, and performers scrambling to put together something really special. Besides, the show must go on, right?

Then, showtime rolled around. The headliner, TopHouse, actually took the stage first—a change from the typical concert lineup. The music was incredible. The stellar vocals made me jealous. And the lyrics? Goodness. If you’ve been around for a couple months, y’all know I think the TopHouse guys are some of the best writers of this century, seriously. Seeing them live, hearing the banter between bandmates, and enjoying “Deathbed” in person was a memory I hope to keep for a long time.

As for “The Mountain Song”? Every time the band introduced their next number, I could see Colton holding his breath. Song after song played that wasn’t the one he was truly wishing for. Then, for the very last song, lead singer Joe Larson got close to the microphone: “We climbed a mountain/And I picked wildflowers and put ‘em in her hair.”

Colton was so happy, he started singing along—which I got a little of on video, posted to social media, and the band reposted! After the concert ended, Colton got to meet and take pictures with three of the band members, Joe included, who asked him which song was his favorite. He was more than happy to reply and thank them for playing it live.

While the power never returned and the show was cut a little short so people would have some daylight left to get back to their cars parked up the hill, we still definitely enjoyed the unique experience. And we hope TopHouse did, too. They sure did make the best of different situation, as did all of the staff and volunteers at the music center.

Listen to “The Mountain Song” →

By Michael O’Connor

A year after they lost their jobs, many federal workers are still fighting for accountability from the Trump administration.⁣

⁣

John Spykerman served in the US State Department for over 20 years when he was fired last July. He said the Trump administration’s mass firing of him and his colleagues was wrong, but many stand ready to return to their former jobs.⁣

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“I still have more to give,” he told Dogwood.⁣

Watch here →

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Thanks for reading. This newsletter was written by Amie Knowles. Amie is a lifelong Virginia resident and mom to a fantastic 8-year-old who loves Pokémon. This edition includes stories from Sam Cohen and Michael O’Connor. It was edited by Crystal Niforos.

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