Virginia Murder Linked To Serial Killer Who Took 10-Year Hiatus

After unsuccessfully trying to fix his kitchen sink, Ronald (Ron) Kirby sat down to wait for a plumber to arrive at his Alexandria, Virginia, home on Veterans Day in 2013.

Later that day, Ron’s adult son arrived for lunch and was greeted with a gruesome scene — his father was shot and lying on the foyer floor. The paramedics tried to revive the man, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Kirby had been shot twice in the chest and a third time in the hip. Investigators found two more rounds — one in a piano and one in a radiator. There were no strange fingerprints or DNA in the house, and there were zero signs of a robbery or a fight. Officers believed it was likely that Kirby had heard a knock at the door, answered it, and then was shot.

As investigators tried to untangle what happened before Kirby died, they spoke to the plumber who confirmed that he’d been at the house around 11:42 that morning. When there was no answer at the door, the plumber left and moved on to his next call.

The bullets pulled from Kirby’s body appeared to be .22 caliber, which investigators noted was an odd caliber to be used in a homicide. In fact, they could only think of one other homicide in the area where .22 caliber rounds had been used. The other homicide dated back 10 years, but it shared some striking similarities to the scene laid out before the officers in 2013.

More Than A Criminal Coincidence

A decade before Kirby was killed, Nancy Dunning was found dead by her son and husband just before Christmas in 2003. The woman was lying in a pool of blood inside the front door of her home. Like Kirby, she too had been shot three times with .22 caliber bullets. Her wounds were in her chest, in her left arm, and behind her ear. There were no shell casings at the scene and no evidence that anybody had been in the house or that anything had been disturbed.

A recovered receipt from the day of Dunning’s murder pointed detectives to a nearby Target where the woman had been doing some last-minute Christmas shopping for a family in need.

Surveillance footage showed a man entering the store and following the woman. After Dunning finished her shopping at about 10:30 that morning, the man hurried behind her as she left the store. Police tried desperately to identify the man, but the case grew cold.

Ten years later as authorities were wondering if they could piece together the Kirby and Dunning murders, another Alexandria resident made a frantic call to 911. There was an intruder in the home where she worked as a caregiver, and she was desperate for help.

Find out what happened on See No Evil on June 8 at 10/9c. on ID. Stream other episodes now on discovery+.