Virginia man arrested in cold case deaths of 2 women in the 1980s
03/12/2024 12:00 pm PDT
STAFFORD COUNTY, Va. (TCD) -- Investigators recently identified a suspect in the cold case deaths of two women whose bodies were found in the 1980s.
According to the Stafford County Sheriff's Office, 32-year-old Jacqueline Lard was last seen leaving her place of work at Mount Vernon Realty on Garrisonville Road on the evening of Nov. 14, 1986, as the business was closing. Nearby businesses opened the next day, and other employees "discovered a crime scene at the realty office which indicated a horrific struggle."
On Nov. 16, 1986, two children playing in a wooded area near Railroad Avenue in Woodbridge found Lard's body under a pile of discarded carpet. Investigators recovered evidence from the scene.
The next month, investigators located Lard's missing car abandoned in Fairfax County and collected additional evidence. Detectives from federal and state agencies exhausted all leads, and the case went cold.
According to Fairfax County Police, nearly three years later, on March 29, 1989, 18-year-old Amy Baker was returning home to Stafford County after visiting family in Falls Church when she went missing. A Virginia State Trooper found her abandoned car near the road at around 9:55 p.m. that night and saw it again the next day, so he had it towed.
Baker's mother searched her daughter's towed vehicle and reportedly saw her belongings still inside. The Fairfax County sheriff's office said her family searched the area where Baker's vehicle broke down and found Baker's remains in a wooded area near the exit ramp from I-95 to Backlick Road in Springfield on March 31, 1989.
Further investigation revealed Baker's vehicle had reportedly run out of gas on the exit ramp. When she went to get help at a nearby gas station, she was met by the suspect who allegedly fatally strangled her.
Investigators recovered forensic evidence from the area, but the case also went cold.
In 2021, Fairfax County Police Department’s Cold Case detectives sent evidence to DNA Labs International to create a DNA profile.
Stafford County Sheriff's Office Detective D.K. Wood collaborated with Parabon NanoLabs, a company providing DNA phenotyping, and they linked the deaths of Lard and Baker.
On Dec. 14, 2023, investigators identified a potential family name of the suspect. According to the Stafford County Sheriff's Office, detectives obtained a search warrant for DNA from 65-year-old Elroy Harrison, and in February, they learned he was a match.
A Stafford County jury indicted Harrison on March 4 on charges of first-degree murder, abduction with the intent to defile, and aggravated malicious wounding of Lard, as well as breaking and entering with the intent to commit murder. Harrison has not yet been charged in relation with Baker's death, but the investigation is ongoing.
Harrison was arrested at his home on March 5 and booked into the Rappahannock Regional Jail without bond.
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