I wrote this brief summary for another site originally. It’s a bit later date than I usually am interested in, but it occurred near where I live.
14 year old Deborah (Debbie) Anwyll was stabbed to death in her home shortly after returning from school on March 8, 1979 in Chantilly, Virginia. I live about two miles from where this occurred and came across it when reading up on local cold cases. To my surprise, I realized that I am slightly acquainted with Debbie’s mother. Intrigued, I pulled up the Washington Post articles covering the case and was surprised that there was not more extensive coverage for an event this shocking. The link above is to a 1996 article on the case which is probably the most enlightening and I have listed the rather limited 1979 articles at the end of this post; I will explain the context of the 1996 article and the contents in my discussion below.
The Setting: Chantilly is located in Fairfax County, part of the Washington, DC suburbs. Debbie’s family lived in a subdivision of single family homes that was only a few years old; the murder house’s address is not hard to find online, but for our purposes, suffice to say that it is located on Morning Spring Lane. Chantilly is on the western edge of Fairfax County and in 1979 this area was just starting to be developed. A 1979 article on the case notes that Chantilly was known as the “‘country club’ of Fairfax County because of its rural setting and nearby golf courses.” In short, an unexpected place for a child murder to occur.
The Murder: Debbie Anwyll was an 8th grader at Chantilly Secondary School (now Chantilly High School) and rode the bus home to Morning Spring Lane on the afternoon of March 8, 1979. In the next few moments, she met her death. It was said by investigators that “there was a lot of activity on the street”, which is not surprising. This was a typical suburban street when students were arriving home from school and parents were starting to return from work. Another puzzling aspect of this case is that Debbie’s mother taught at the same school and arrived home only 50-60 minutes after Debbie, leaving a narrow window of time in which she was murdered.
To her horror, Mrs. Anwyll found Debbie lying in the living room, stabbed 27 times. A contemporary article described her as being “partially clad” but all the articles I have read are unanimous that there was no sign of sexual assault. There was no sign of forced entry. Fingernail scrapings were taken from Debbie; she had evidently fought her attacker as best she could.
The murder weapon was never found and I have not seen a description of the type of knife/implement that may have been used. I have also not seen any information as to whether a knife was missing from the Anwyll house. My assumption by the wording used in the articles is that the killer brought their own knife rather than used a knife from the Anwyll house and took it with them, but I can’t say that definitively. A blood-stained “dish rag or wash cloth” was found at the scene. Police theorized that the killer may have cut himself (and yes, I am going to assume that it was a male) during the attack and used the cloth to staunch the bleeding. None of the articles said anything about the blood type on the cloth vs. Debbie’s, but my assumption is that they were likely different if the police seemed sure that it was the killer’s blood. (More on the cloth later!)
The Investigation: Every investigator quoted in 1979 stated that there were no suspects, although as we shall see, this was apparently not entirely true. Very little information was published regarding the investigation and the story rather quickly faded away. The longest 1979 article on the case focuses more on the fear of local residents rather than the investigation. The quotes it does include from investigators do not inspire one with a great deal of confidence. Captain Thomas Shaw, commander of the Chantilly police suggested that nervous residents buy locks and [i]f you can’t afford a dog, tape [record] the bark of your neighbor’s.” Hmmm… He did note that one of his first acts had been to investigate construction sites in the area for suspects, transient construction workers being an obvious pool of suspects. Nothing came of this. A week after the killing, the police opened a “rumor control unit” which seems to pretty much have dealt with reports of “anonymous and threatening telephone calls” received by residents after the murder (which apparently were not of any significance to the case). An increasingly large reward did not bring forth results either.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan had very little to update residents with, calling it “a bizarre crime” and “strange, freaky.” He reiterated what little was known: no sign of sexual assault, a 50 minute window of opportunity for the killer, and multiple people on the street. Further, he said that “[w]e have to think it was someone in the neighborhood. There’s no sign anyone forced their way in. There is no rhyme or reason. We can’t fit it into any standard category.” He noted that “[w]e just don’t know. There is nothing we could tell you that would make you feel better or worse.” Not very inspiring stuff, but perhaps honest. However, time would reveal that investigators were holding some information close to the chest…
1996: Here is where the article from 1996 that I linked comes into play. It turns out that the police did have a suspect, Glenn John Chuhta, who was 17 at the time of the murder and lived in Debbie’s neighborhood. (He is publicly named in that 1996 article as a person of interest). Chuhta and two friends were reported by witnesses as having been “near the Anwyll house” around the time in question; what their definition of “near” is, I don’t know. “Conflicting accounts” were given by Chuhta and his friends and police asked his parents for permission to administer a lie detector test, as he was a minor. They refused, and that was the end of that for 17 years.
In 1995, detectives began to take another look at the case after Fairfax County formed a Cold Case Squad. Aware of developing DNA technology, they brought out the case evidence. Recall that there was a bloody dish rag that police thought might contain the killer’s blood. They also had the fingernail scrapings from Debbie. Both were determined to be potential sources for DNA testing.
Police questioned Chuhta again and he agreed to a polygraph. He failed. That allowed a search warrant to be issued to collect a blood sample from Chuhta. The 1996 article was published on May 16 and noted that it could take three months to get a result from the lab. And then…nothing. Frustratingly, I have not found any follow up to this article with results of the DNA test. Clearly, they were not able to match the DNA, as I have found no evidence that he was ever charged. However, does that mean he was eliminated as a suspect or simply that he could not be matched to the DNA profile? Could today’s improved DNA technology help develop a better profile? Is there still material remaining to be tested? All questions I would love to have answered.
My Thoughts: I did a little bit of digging to see what Mr. Chuhta was up to these days and found nothing remarkable. Apparently he was arrested for failure to pay child support (he is divorced), but I found nothing more serious than that. With the small amount of information that has been made available, it’s hard to evaluate him as a suspect. Back in 1979, if the police started asking you and your friends why you were hanging around a murder site, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that completely innocent teenagers might have peddled some conflicting lies just to get out of that situation. But again, without knowing how thoroughly he was questioned or how suspicious his answers were, we can’t really evaluate him as anything other than a person of interest. However, I’m not sure a failed, voluntary polygraph (which you could debate the validity of all day) would have been enough to get a search warrant 17 years later, so I would assume that there was enough suspicious material in the case file to issue one.
Likewise, without information on the results of the DNA test or the state of the DNA profile and evidence, it’s hard to say exactly what to make of the results. Obviously, it strongly suggests that he was not the killer, but without knowing if he was truly eliminated, there remains that element of doubt. I have to assume that the Fairfax County Police would be willing to utilize improved technology to re-investigate Chuhta if they thought it worthwhile; the murder is listed on their Cold Case website, so it has not been forgotten about by them. So, we have to leave him as the sole named person of interest and one that is most likely innocent.
What can we speculate about how the crime occurred? I have to agree with Commonwealth’s Attorney Horan in 1979 that it likely was someone in the neighborhood who had knowledge of Debbie and her schedule. 50-60 minutes is an awfully short window of time and strongly suggests that someone knew she would be alone for that hour until her mother arrived home. You could argue that it was an unknown person following the school bus and seeing who got out, but I think that is much less likely. (How many child murderers follow their victims into their homes versus seizing them and taking them elsewhere?). Also recall that there was no forced entry. Given that there were multiple other people out and about on the street at that time and saw no suspicious person, that would also suggest that it was a person known in the neighborhood who could blend in.
I would think that even in 1979 Chantilly, the house would be locked when everyone left for the day, so I presume that the killer wasn’t waiting for her inside. (Even if he was, it would not really affect how things played out). It would also seem to be an unlikely time for Debbie to stumble upon a burglar going about his work, and there apparently weren’t any signs of burglary. So, potentially a person known to Debbie shows up at the front door and she is at least comfortable enough to open the door. He enters; given that her body was in the living room, I’m making the assumption that the living room was adjacent to or near to the front door (based on seeing the house from the outside). The attack, presumably sexually motivated, happens in the living room. He starts to undress Debbie but she is fighting (remember the fingernail scrapings). He panics/gets irate and starts stabbing at her in a fury (with 27 stab wounds, that seems to be a rage-filled, personal attack). Again, I presume he brought his own knife, which suggests premeditation. But if it was something like a pocket knife or Buck knife that a young man might reasonably have on him in 1979, then maybe it wasn’t premeditated and he snapped when rejected or resisted by Debbie. Regardless, it’s such a frenzied attack that he cuts himself or is otherwise injured and uses the cloth to staunch the bleeding. The fact that he would leave such an obvious piece of evidence behind suggests he is in panic and is not an experienced criminal. As someone from the neighborhood, he could either duck out the front door and blend in/head home quickly or use the woods behind the Anwyll house to head home out of sight.
And so, we are left with a terrible mystery. I truly hope that the Fairfax County Police keeps an eye on this case and leverages DNA technologies to do as much as they can to bring some closure for the family.
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