Theories Lead to One Man
(‘Crime Seen,’ Forensic Files)
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When Ed Honaker walked out of prison in 1994 after serving a decade for a sexual assault he didn’t commit, he received favorable media coverage and sympathy from the general public around Nelson County, Virginia. He eventually got a settlement of half a million dollars, too.
But what about the real rapist? On June 3, 1984, the unidentified attacker had ordered a 19-year-old woman and her fiancé out of their vehicle near the Blue Ridge Parkway. He sexually assaulted her repeatedly for two hours.
Still open. Unfortunately, after Honaker’s exoneration, the authorities lacked the resources to leave no stone unturned in the case. “The big outfits can put somebody on cold cases,” said commonwealth attorney Phil Payne. “We can barely handle our hot cases.”
But they never officially closed the Blue Ridge rape case and, along with a crusading private eye, they eventually arrived at an intriguing theory. Here’s the story on the investigation after Ed Honaker’s release:
As of 2005, Nelson County authorities had followed up on several leads on the Blue Ridge case, but they never amounted to anything.
Knifing terror. Two years later, however, Nelson County authorities began looking into Michael Nicholaou. Private investigator Lynn-Marie Carty believed that Nicholaou was responsible for the abductions of six women in New England in the 1980s as well as the Blue Ridge rape.
In the New England attacks, a killer stabbed the women to death, except for one, Jane Boroski, who survived. She had been drinking a soda while sitting in her car in a parking lot in Keene, New Hampshire in 1988. The attacker forced Jane, who was six months pregnant, out of the vehicle, stabbed her 27 times, and left her for dead.
She sustained a severed jugular vein, a collapsed lung, and many other injuries, but medical attention saved her life. Her baby was born with cerebral palsy.
Checkered past. Jane later told a local Fox TV news station that the attacker resembled photos of Michael Nicholaou.
So who was this guy?
Michael Andrew Nicholaou was born circa 1949. According to information available on Murderpedia, his father was a sex offender.
Nicholaou served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot with the 335th Aviation Company during his stint in the army from 1968 to 1971. He won 15 medals, including two Purple Hearts, for his bravery, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Fellow soldiers later recalled that, armed with only a knife, Nicholaou would go off on his own to seek out hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. There were allegations that he tried to kill Vietnamese civilians by strafing, but he never faced charges.
Adult entertainment. After the army, Nicholaou worked restaurant and construction jobs. He would later say that he had post-traumatic stress disorder.
In 1983, he opened a pornography store called the Pleasure Chest in a shopping center in Charlottesville, Virginia. It had its share of police raids. At the same time, Nicholaou reportedly did some undercover work for the police.
Nicholaou’s wife Michelle Ashley, with whom he shared a son and daughter, went missing in 1988. Carty got involved in the case when Michelle’s family hired her to search for Michelle. Nicholaou claimed that Michelle abused drugs and ran off with a Cuban drug dealer.
Around 1998, Michael married a woman named Aileen after meeting her via a personal ad.
Florida Murder-Suicide. At their home in Georgia in 2005, Nicholaou attacked Aileen, breaking her shoulder. She fled to her sister’s house in West Tampa, Florida, but he followed her there and shot Aileen and himself on December 31, 2005.
Aileen and Michael, 56, died at the scene. One of the bullets had hit Aileen’s 22-year-old daughter. Taryn Bowman (sources also vary on whether her name was “Taryn” or “Terrin”) lived long enough to be taken to Tampa General Hospital. She succumbed to her wounds the next day.
Many aspects of Nicholaou’s history suggested he was not only responsible for the Florida murder-suicide and the New England serial killing spree but also the Blue Ridge rape.
Victim sees a resemblance. First off, the Blue Ridge attacker initially impersonated a law officer. Nicholaou at one time wanted to become a police officer but failed the background check.
And the Blue Ridge victim said that the rapist intermittently ranted about the Vietnam War. As noted, Nicholaou served as a combat soldier in Vietnam; Honaker was never there.
What’s more, Nicholaou reportedly looked like Ed Honaker and was living in Virginia at the time of the Blue Ridge rape — and he sometimes would go camping in the woods near where the victim and her fiancé were sleeping in their car.
Nicholaou smoked marijuana as did the Blue Ridge attacker.
‘Phil’ us in. Aileen’s brother-in-law told the Richmond-Times Dispatch that Nicholaou admitted to him that he had killed before. Nicholaou also claimed to be in the Mafia.
But by the time investigators weighed Nicholaou as a suspect, he had already been dead for nearly two years.
At some point, Dr. Phil got into act, orchestrating a meeting between Michael Nicholaou’s son and New England victim Jane Boroski for an episode titled “Sins of the Father.” They embraced and Jane assured him that he took after his mother and not his father.
So 20 years after Michael Nicholaou’s death and 40 years after the Blue Ridge rape, is there any chance of proving that he committed it?
Shared suffering. According to Carty, DNA is the last hope. When ForensicFilesNow.com contacted her via social media, Carty said that she had identified a living Nicholaou relative who was willing to contribute a specimen of DNA for comparison. Carty fought for a DNA test, but it never happened and she had to move on to other cases.
After his exoneration, Ed Honaker told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the sexual-assault victim remained convinced that he was the Blue Ridge rapist. He would later express compassion for her, saying that they both ultimately endured a horrible ordeal.
Let’s hope that his and Nicholaou’s deaths brought the victim the consolation of knowing that her rapist would never prey on her or any other woman again.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
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