CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The man long considered the prime suspect in the 1996 murders of two women in Shenandoah National Park has died just two weeks after a DNA match cleared him of the crime.
In news first reported by Missouri news outlet KTTN.com, Darrell D. Rice was killed just before 10 p.m. on July 5 when he was struck by a vehicle while riding a bike on a rural highway in Chariton County, Missouri. Rice, 56, was airlifted to a hospital where he was declared dead.
Rice became a suspect in the murders of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans when he was arrested and charged in an assault on a female bicyclist in the park one year after the murders in 1997. He was indicted on murder charges in 2002 while in prison for the attack on the bicyclist and faced the possibility of the death penalty, but the charges were withdrawn when a forensic witness changed her testimony on the eve of the trial.
Rice had been eliminated as a contributor of low-level DNA collected from the Shenandoah National Park crime scene, but it wasn’t until authorities held a press conference on June 20 of this year that Rice was publicly cleared. The DNA match from new testing identified an Ohio man, Walter “Leo” Jackson, Sr., as the Shenandoah park killer.
At their own press conference on Monday, June 24, Rice’s longtime legal advocate, Deirdre Enright, and his attorney Jerry Zerkin, lashed out at the investigators who pursued him for so many years.
“The clearer Daryl’s innocence became, the greater became the government’s commitment to prove him guilty,” said Zerkin.
Enright said her efforts to reach Rice had been unsuccessful in the days since the DNA announcement.
“We’ve sent emails and stuff like that… but I’ll be honest, knowing him as well as I know him, I’m not sure he’s going to have much reaction to this,” she said.
Enright did not immediately respond to our request for comment on Rice’s death. In a phone interview, Chariton County Sheriff Erick Billups says his deputies had already been alerted about a dangerous situation on Rt. 24 before the fatal accident occurred.
“They got a call about him riding in the road, and they were headed to make contact with him,” Billups said.
Billups himself had seen Rice about two hours earlier, noticing an older man on a bike who he didn’t recognize as a local.
“We live in a very small area. The population is only 7,000 people,” Billups explained. “It’s not unusual for transients to be coming through the area.”
Billups said Rice was in a bad spot, on top of a hill, when he was struck, and was not wearing any lights or reflective clothing. No charges will be filed.
