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35 years later: Family of Colonial Parkway murder victim holds memorial

The CNU student disappeared on 1988 while on a date with Cassandra Hailey. Now, 35 years after his disappearance, his family is keeping his memory alive.

GLOUCESTER COUNTY, Va. — Decades later and still no answers on what happened to Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey.

The Christopher Newport University students were on their first date when they disappeared in 1988. 

Eventually, the case went cold and was grouped together with the killings of three other couples known as the Colonial Parkway Murders.

But, 35 years later, the Call siblings aren’t giving up hope that one day they’ll know what happened to their brother.

“As long as we’re alive, I think I’m speaking for all of my brothers, we won’t give up. I mean, how do you do that when somebody walks out the door and then you never see them again?” said Keith's older sister Joyce Call-Canada. 

"We promised our parents that we were not going to give up until we have this solved," said Chris Call, Keith's older brother. 

On Saturday, the Call family unveiled a monument honoring Keith. It was placed between his parents’ graves at the Rosewell Cemetery in Gloucester County.

“He was very kind, compassionate, empathetic… He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Chris said. 

Heavy rain didn’t stop dozens of people from gathering at the cemetery to remember Keith’s life.

“You can see how many people’s lives he touched in his short life, and it felt good to have everybody out there,” said Keith's brother Douglas Call. 

The Call siblings aren’t the only ones that believe their brother’s murder will one day be solved.

Blaine Pardoe wrote the true crime book "A Special Kind Of Evil" on the Colonial Parkway murders. He believes new technology, like the DNA recovery system M-Vac, could help crack the case.

“The capability to solve these cases through genealogy and especially techniques, such as M-Vac, which is a special device that can extract DNA that we couldn’t get five years ago. It can extract DNA from very minute samples,” he explained. "At some point, we're going to know who did this."

While Keith’s body has never been found, his siblings said the monument brings them a small piece of closure.

“It’s been a long time, and it doesn’t bring him back, but at least we have some kind of marker there with my parents," Joyce said.

The FBI is still looking for tips that can help them solve the Colonial Parkway murders. Anyone with information is asked to email the FBI at Colonial_Parkway_Murders@ic.fbi.gov.

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