Do you know who killed William Anthony Kagdis in 1982?
On a summer day, the first of August in 1982, the life of a 54-year-old Caucasian male named William Anthony Kagdis was violently cut short. A NASA engineer from Baltimore, he was on a business trip to Tennessee when he made a fateful stop for the night in Warrenton, Virginia. He checked into Room 17 of the Johnson Motel on James Madison Highway, not alone, but in the company of a young white male.
The following day, Kagdis was discovered in his motel room, the scene telling a grim story of a brutal struggle. He was found lying face down in a pool of his own blood. The investigation revealed he had been beaten with a lamp and stabbed multiple times with scissors. An autopsy would later confirm that the cause of death was severe blunt force trauma to his head.
In the aftermath of the discovery, it was found that Kagdis's vehicle, a white 1979 Volkswagen Rabbit station wagon with Maryland license plate EBX304, was missing and believed to have been taken by his killer or killers. Despite the passage of decades, the vehicle has never been recovered.
The identity of the young man seen with Kagdis when he checked into the motel remains a central question in the investigation. To this day, the case officially remains unsolved. No arrests have ever been made in connection with the murder of William Kagdis, and the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office continues to seek information that might finally bring a resolution to this long-standing cold case.
