We spent yesterday afternoon enjoying a pool-side cookout at the neighbor’s place down the road. She had some guests in from Washington, D.C., and at some point the conversation turned to the numerous unsolved murders in scenic and historic Fauquier County.

According to the Fauquier Times there are seven unsolved murders in the county.

They are: Joan Kenney and Robin Brooks both, murdered on March 24, 1981; William Kagdis, murdered on Aug. 1, 1982; Tammy Thorpe, murdered on Oct. 23, 1988; Bryan Mace, murdered on April 9, 2003; Du Chil Park, murdered on June 29, 2008; and Sarah Greenhalgh, murdered on July 9, 2012.

I told the folks at the cookout about the Brad Baker murder, which I wrote about on its 30th anniversary a few years ago. (See story below.)

The investigation into Baker’s death three decades ago came to a conclusion with the arrest of Ronald Richard Cloud, who had been cooling his heals in a West Virginia penitentiary.

One other unsolved murder in the county goes back to the 1930s and involves a man named Shedrick Thompson. His is considered the last lynching in Virginia. You can read more about Thompson’s story at Dylan Nicholls’ Kickstarter page where he’s attempting to raise funds to finish a film about Thompson.

I interviewed Dylan the other day for a story I’m writing for an upcoming issue of Piedmont Business Journal about using crowd sourcing sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to raise funds for film and other projects.

Anyway, here’s my Brad Baker story from a few years ago: Brad Baker Murder.