Only On 10: State Police continue to investigate Laurie Powell homicide
GLOUCESTER COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia State Police continue to investigate the homicide of Laurie Powell, 36 years after her body was pulled from the James River.
Previously: Investigation: Could these two cold cases be part of the Colonial Parkway murders?
Only on 10, Powell’s family told us about the decades-long pain that has consumed their lives.
Deep wounds that you will read, never heal.
State Police put out a reminder they are still investigating Laurie Powell’s death.
On the anniversary the date she was found floating in the James River April 2, 1988.
Tuesday, she would have been 54.
“I decided a long time ago that if it had been meant for us to know what happened, we would have already known,” said Powell’s mother, Jo Ann Compton.
The pains of 36 years have worn on Laurie Powell’s family.
“She was supposed to be here with us,” Compton said. “People have no idea the pain and all. We’ve become more angry, more mad, more upset.”
Thirty-six years later, it’s all a blur. Compton doesn’t remember the day or being told that Powell was found floating in the James River near Craney Island, stabbed several times with the fatal wound to the back of the neck.
“Stop being so angry about everything,” Compton said. “Somebody had to be awfully angry to kill her.”
Whatever you do, do not ask Compton about closure. For her, there is no such thing,
“Anybody who’s ever lost someone really would tell you that,” Compton said. “I believe that there is no such word as closure.”
Husband John Compton agrees.
“There’ s no such thing as closure,” John Compton said. “I don’t know why people use that word, like that is the end of it and we are all through it. That never happens. It never goes away.”
Said Powell’s older sister, Cindy Kirchner: “She was my sister, and she was important, and she mattered and I want people to know that.”
Kirchner misses all those sister things that never happened.
“Lots of things,” Kirchner said, “not being able to see what she would have been, what she did with her life. … I could see her telling me, ‘Cindy, are you crazy having a kid at 40.’ … The irony was, I didn’t like her boyfriends, and she didn’t like mine. Maybe we could have helped each other out.”
Yes, those sister things, what joy never realized.
John added,
“When you lose someone like that, it tears a hole in your life that cannot be filled up,” John Compton said. “I have made peace with it over the years.”
We asked Jo Ann Compton when she thinks she will know the truth about what happened to her angel?
Her answer?
“When will I know? When I am in the pearly gates and God tells me,” Jo Ann Compton said. “It does not matter because she is here waiting for you. … I do not think I will have a conversation. I think I will just hold her.”
Jo Ann Compton will finally know what happened when she sees Laurie in heaven.
State Police are working to find the answer on who killed Laurie Powell before then. In the meantime, the family gets along the best they can.
Kirchner has a very active daughter, and the grandparents love to dote on their granddaughter, especially with all her sporting events.
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