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Anne Arundel County Police and the FBI have identified a second suspect in the 1970 killing and sexual assault of 16-year-old Pamela Lynn Conyers.
Police Chief Amal Awad and R. Joseph Rothrock, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore field office, announced the break in the case at a news conference Monday, citing DNA tests and other findings.
Authorities named Donald Willard, formerly of Montgomery County, as the second suspect. Willard died in 2010 at age 74.
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“We’re confident that we have the two people responsible for Pam’s death,” said Justin Mulcahy, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
The announcement comes a year after authorities identified a first suspect in Conyers’ death through extensive DNA tests and investigative genetic genealogy, solving a 52-year-old cold case.
Police said last year that Forrest Clyde Williams III was a suspect in Conyers’ 1970 death, which authorities said was caused by asphyxiation due to strangulation. Williams died in 2018.
Had both suspects been alive, they would have been charged in Conyers’ killing, authorities said.
“We do hope it provides a sense of closure to all who knew and loved her,” Awad said. “We know that they still search for answers to what happened to Pam on that Friday, Oct. 16, 1970.”
When police identified Williams as a suspect, they did not rule out the possibility of a second killer.
Conyers was last seen alive on Oct. 16, 1970, at Harundale Mall in Glen Burnie, according to Anne Arundel County Police cold case files. The 16-year-old had attended Glen Burnie High School’s homecoming bonfire and pep rally, and then went home where she spoke with her mother.
Later that night, Conyers drove to the mall in her family’s 1967 Dodge Monaco to get shoe polish for the dance the next day. She never returned home.
Her car was found three days later, and on Oct. 20, her body was discovered a short distance away, in a wooded median on Maryland Route 177 near Millersville, then under construction. The area is now known as Route 100 near the Waterford Road and Route 648 overpass.
The teenage girl’s body was discovered clothed in slacks and an inside-out pullover. Her underwear and purse were missing, according to reporting in The Annapolis Capital in 1970.
Harundale Mall closed in 1997 and was later demolished.
The mall was also where where Joyce Malecki was last seen before her killing in 1969, which remains unsolved. Malecki’s case gained national attention in the 2017 Netflix documentary “The Keepers.” Police did not link the suspect with any other killings.
Conyers’ killing was one of the oldest unsolved homicide cases of the 82 cold cases in Anne Arundel County.
When officials found Conyers’ car in 1970, they found cigarettes in the vehicle with DNA on them that law enforcement linked to Williams and Willard, Mulcahy said.
A latent print — an impression of the skin — was also discovered outside Conyers’ Dodge Monaco and belonged to one of the suspects.
The DNA was sent for processing in 1996, and the profiles of the DNA remained unidentified until advancements in forensic genealogy allowed law enforcement to link it, Mulcahy said.
At the time of the killing, Willard lived in Pasadena and worked with the company that handled the construction project where Conyers’ body and vehicle were found.
He hunted and was described as a handyman, Mulcahy said.
Police said both men had encounters with law enforcement.
Willard committed auto theft in Baltimore in 1966, and a robbery in the city four years later.
The first suspect, Williams, had a criminal history for drunk and disorderly conduct in Florida. He committed some assaults and had a handgun incident, Mulcahy said.
Williams lived in Anne Arundel County and in Virginia. In Maryland, he attended Northeast High School in Pasadena and was described as being “a drifter for the most part,” Mulcahy said. He also hunted and fished.
Authorities said they do not know if Williams and Willard knew each other prior to Conyers’ slaying, and they have no indication they knew her before the killing.
“If you knew either man during their lifespan starting in the ’60s until their death, we want to hear from” you, Mulcahy said. “If you had any interaction, contact the Police Department.”
Mulcahy said the two men frequented a bar, now closed, that was known in the 1970s as Mountain Bar on Mountain Road in Pasadena.
There are gaps in what officials know about the suspects, which is why they said law enforcement will continue its investigation and is asking the public to come forward with any information they might know.
“We know sometimes that individuals commit heinous crimes multiple times over, so we’re just trying to find out exactly what, if anything, these individuals could have been involved in,” Mulcahy said.
If anyone hunted or fished or even drank beer with either of the suspects, Mulcahy urged people to let police know.
“Pam still deserves all of our best efforts to learn what happened to her,” Rothrock said.
This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Justin Mulcahy’s name
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Abby Zimmardi is a reporter covering Howard County for The Baltimore Banner. Zimmardi earned her master’s degree from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism in December 2022.
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